Poems

The Hour of Death

Posted on by Hanna

Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north-wind’s breath,
And stars to set; but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
John Milton

Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like the flame of a candle, I say, is a gloriously fine thing. It makes us sober; it makes us a little sad; and many of us it makes poetic. But above all, it makes it possible for us to make up our mind and arrange to live sensibly, truthfully and always with a sense of our own limitations. It gives us peace also, because true peace of mind comes from accepting the worst.
Deprived of immortality, the proposition of living becomes a simple proposition. It is this: that we human beings have a limited span of life to live on this earth, rarely more than seventy years, and that therefore we have to arrange our lives so that we may live as happily as we can under a given set of circumstances. … It made us therefore, cling to life─the life of the instinct and the life of senses─on the belief that, as we are all animals, we can be truly happy only when all our normal instincts are satisfied normally. This applies to the enjoyment of life in all its aspects.
A sad poetic touch is added to this intense love of life by the realization that this life we have is essentially mortal. For if this earthly existence is all we have, we must try the harder to enjoy it while it lasts. A vague hope of immortality detracts from our wholehearted enjoyment of this earthly existence.
Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living.

Acquainted With The Night

Posted on by Hanna

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Robert Frost

A tree with a view

Posted on by Hanna

I know! I shouldn’t complain.
Not after Irma or the devastating monsoon or the terrible forest fires.
But something has changed in Denmark, at least this year.
Large amounts of rain is about to set the record for the wettest summer in living memory.
Therefore I found the poem by Juan Olivarez very suitable:

At first I couldn’t get enough,
Now I just can’t make it stop.
No rain in the desert that was rough,
Around here there’s no dry spot.

It’s been raining everyday,
Since I came back to my home.
The sunshine just can’t seem to stay,
Hurricanes and storms, won’t leave us alone.

I like the rain like everyone,
But it’s been over done a bit.
We’ll need a boat before we’re done,
I’m about to throw a fit.

There’s a fish just swimming by,
Waving his soggy fin at me.
All I could muster was a ‘hi’,
From my perch up in the tree.

Juan Olivarez

 

The Light

Posted on by Hanna

Yesterday was a wonderful day by the seaside.
An unexpected summer day.

The eastern light our spires touch at morning,
The light that slants upon our western doors at evening,
The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight,
Moon light and star light, owl and moth light,
Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade.
O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!
T.S. Eliot

Lying in the grass

Posted on by Hanna


Who would have thought it possible that a tiny little flower could preoccupy a person so completely that there simply wasn’t room for any other thought.
Sophie Scholl

And ‘t is my faith, that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
William Wordsworth



…One sweet hour with the fragrance of the red clover
Herman Hesse

Buttercups and Fairy Miners

Posted on by Hanna

Everything is lush and green as far as the eye can see, but after a while there is something that interferes with the green.
Golden glimpse between tall pines. Buttercups. Billions of buttercups.
As if that weren’t enough, the beautiful Icelandic horses adorn the meadow and immortalise this vibrant summer day
That’s what walking is all about:
Beautiful discoveries ❤

There must be fairy miners
Just underneath the mould,
Such wondrous quaint designers
Who live in caves of gold.

They take the shining metals,
And beat them into shreds,
And mould them into petals
To make the flowers’ heads.

Sometimes they melt the flowers
To tiny seeds like pearls,
And store them up in bowers
For little boys and girls.

And still a tiny fan turns
Above a forge of gold,
To keep, with fairy lanterns,
The world from growing old.
By Wilfrid Thorley

A Poem is a walk

Posted on by Hanna

These grazing meadows are in the middle of a large wooded area.
It is an inexhaustible source of different walks.
The landscape has repeatedly been exposed to different influences of ice age, leaving a highly hilly landscape according to Danish standards. Hurray for diversity ❤

With the first step, the number of shapes the walk might take is infinite, but then the walk begins to define itself as it goes along, though freedom remains total with each step: any tempting side road can be turned into an impulse, or any wild patch of woods can be explored. The pattern of the walk is to come true, is to be recognized, discovered.
A.R. Ammons

Naturvandring.blog

World Oceans Day

Posted on by Hanna

Ocean
I am in love with Ocean
lifting her thousands of white hats
in the chop of the storm,
or lying smooth and blue, the
loveliest bed in the world.
In the personal life, there is

always grief more than enough,
a heart-load for each of us
on the dusty road. I suppose
there is a reason for this, so I will be
patient, acquiescent. But I will live
nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting
equally in all the blast and welcome
of her sorrowless, salt self.
Mary Oliver, from Red Bird

World Oceans Day

Farewell May

Posted on by Hanna

May
Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim
My coming, and the swarming of the bees.
These are my heralds, and behold! my name
Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.
I tell the mariner when to sail the seas;
I waft o’er all the land from far away
The breath and bloom of the Hesperides,
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Twinkling Stars on the Horizon

Posted on by Hanna

Twinkling stars on the horizon,
the eternal song from an embracing blue sea.
The smell of sand and sea
salt on my skin and lips.
Tales from the birds of the sea,
disturbed by clattering cups
and the fragrance of coffee.
That’s my childhood memories
and the day of tomorrow.
Hanna

A fleck of foam on the shining sand,
Left by the ebbing sea,
But richer than man may understand
In magic and mystery–
Transient bubbles rainbow-bright,
Myriad-hued and strange,
Tremble and throb in the noonday light,
Flower and flush and change.

A million tides have come and gone,
Great gales of autumn and spring,
A million summoning moons have shone
To bring to birth this thing–
A foam-fleck left on the ribbed wet sand
By the wave of an outgoing sea,
With all the colour of Faeryland,
Wonder and mystery.
Teresa Hooley