Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

Ursula Askham Fanthorpe 1929 - 2009

Don't Cry, Darling, It's Blood All Right

Whenever poets want to give you the idea that something is particularly meek and mild,

They compare it to a child,

Thereby proving that though poets with poetry may be rife

They don’t know the facts of life.

If of compassion you desire either a tittle or a jot,

Don’t try to get it from a tot.

Hard-boiled, sophisticated adults like me and you

May enjoy ourselves thoroughly with Little Women and Winnie-the-Pooh,

But innocent infants these titles from their reading course eliminate

As soon as they discover that it was honey and nuts and mashed potatoes instead of human flesh that Winnie-the-Pooh and Little Women ate.

Innocent infants have no use for fables about rabbits or donkeys or tortoises or porpoises,

What they want is something with plenty of well-mutilated corpoises.

Not on legends of how the rose came to be a rose instead of a petunia is their fancy fed,

But on the inside story of how somebody’s bones got ground up to make somebody else’s

bread.

They go to sleep listening to the story of the little beggarmaid who got to be queen by

being kind to the bees and the birds,

But they’re all eyes and ears the minute they suspect a wolf or a giant is going to tear

some poor woodcutter into quarters and thirds.

It really doesn’t take much to fill their cup;

All they want is for somebody to be eaten up.

Therefore I say unto you, all you poets who are so crazy about meek and mild little

children and their angelic air,

If you are sincere and really want to please them, why just go out and get yourselves

devoured by a bear.

Ogden Nash 1902 - 1971, from Parents Keep Out

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies 1971 - 1940

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.



Pablo Neruda 1904 - 1973

If I Wanted A Boat

I would want a boat, if I wanted a

boat, that bounded hard on the waves,
that didn't know starboard from port
and wouldn't learn, that welcomed
dolphins and headed straight for the
whales, that, when rocks were close,
would slide in for a touch or two,
that wouldn't keep land in sight and
went fast, that leaped into the spray.
What kind of life is it always to plan
and do, to promise and finish, to wish
for the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want
a boat I couldn't steer. 

Mary Oliver 1935 - 2019

She sweeps with many-colored brooms

She sweeps with many-colored brooms,
And leaves the shreds behind;
Oh, housewife in the evening west,
Come back, and dust the pond!
 
You dropped a purple ravelling in,
You dropped an amber thread;
And now you’ve littered all the East
With duds of emerald!
 
And still she plies her spotted brooms,
And still the aprons fly,
Till brooms fade softly into stars—
And then I come away.

Emily Dickinson 1830 - 1886

The world is full of trouble

The world is full of trouble,
From top to bottom.
But all can be swiftly healed
By the balm of love.

Rumi 1207 – 1273