The poems I'm going to share today are from the book Art & Love: An Illustrated Anthology of Love Poetry. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990) The poems in this book touch on many aspects of love--love for our family and for our friends; the quest for romantic love and the trials and tribulations of loving, that may lead us to celebrate a mature love that can last.
Today is a good day to speak of love for it is the wedding day of my beloved nephew Jerik and his bride Maycie. Even in times of challenge and chaos, life goes on, and their wedding ceremony will too, although the guests will watch it live-streamed on YouTube. I think I'll dress up for my virtual attendance, even though no one will see me. Special occasions should still call for clean socks, regardless.
I'm heartened that Jerik and Maycie have trust in their future together and will put their love and faith out there for the world to acknowledge. Some love, some belief in tomorrow, some hope for a world to go on that they and their children-to-be will call home. May it still be a beautiful world. Let's try to make it so.
The Telephone
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| Mount Fuji and Flowers, David Hockney, British, (1937-) Acrylic on canvas, 1972 |
"When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning my head against a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say--
You spoke from that flower on the windowsill--
Do you remember what it was you said?"
"First tell me what it was you thought you heard."
"Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned my head,
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word--
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say--
Someone said "Come"--I heard it as I bowed."
"I may have thought as much, but not aloud."
"Well, so I came."
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Hearing That His Friend Was Coming Back From the War
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| Wang-Hsi-chih Watching Geese. Ch'ien Hsuan, Chinese, ca. 1235-after 1301. Handscroll in ink, color and gold on paper |
In old days those who went to fight
In three years had one year's leave.
But in this war the soldiers are never changed;
They must go on fighting till they die on the battlefield
I thought of you, so weak and indolent,
Hopelessly trying to learn to march and drill.
That a young man should ever come home again
Seemed about as likely as that the sky should fall.
Since I got the news that you were coming back,
Twice I have mounted to the high wall of your home.
I found your brother mending your horse's stall;
I found your mother sewing your new clothes.
I am half afraid; perhaps it is not true;
Yet I never weary of watching for you on the road.
Each day I go out at the City Gate
With a flask of wine, lest you should come thirsty.
Oh that I could shrink the surface of the World,
So that suddenly I might find you standing at my side!
Wang Chien (756-835)
When You Are Old
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| L'Arlésienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux, Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch (1853-1890) |
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And pace upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
This is one of my favorite poems. How can I tell you why? Perhaps the wonderful phrase "loved the pilgrim soul in you" is reason enough. It's sad, melancholy, but the ache I always feel when I read it is for the truth of our brief existence. I felt it when I was 20 years old reading it for the first time, I understand it more deeply now.
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