The Landscape Listens – a cento

The Landscape Listens – a cento

But westward look, the land is bright!
Under the sunset’s flush
how often have I bless’d the coming day
with magic in my eyes
flushed, and the skyline pulsed
with the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time
blue, ruby, gold and green between the whiteness of the walls
enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But have you wine and music still?
When it comes, the landscape listens.
By the deep Sea, and the music in its roar
there are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
listening to the winds and crickets call.
The moping owl does to the moon complain
the young birds are chirping in the nest
that’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over.

I also love a quiet place
trembling with tenderness
a time of indolence and drifting life.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
part of a moon was falling down the west
when the soul slept in beams of light.
I love all beauteous things
arranging and changing placing.

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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With all the poem-reading of National Poetry Month, are you collecting a lot of great lines? Don’t just store them – weave them into a Cento.

I got the idea to write a cento from a prompt by Adele Kenny

Here is her challenge:

Cento is the Latin word for patchwork (as in patchwork quilt). In poetry, a cento is made entirely of lines taken from poems by other authors. The rules are simple: no more than one line may be taken from any one poem; any number of quotes is acceptable; and centos may be rhymed or unrhymed. Remember that “borrowing” other poets’ words is typically regarded as an honorific practice when the work is well-done and sources are properly credited. Be sure to provide credits (usually at the end of your poem).

Read her entire post

I hauled out my high school poetry textbook and renewed acquaintance with a lot of old favourites to compose my Cento – as you’ll recognize by the credits.

Credits:
Line 1: Arthur Hugh Clough – “Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth:
Line 2: Wilfred Campbell – “The Winter Lakes”
Line 3: Oliver Goldsmith – “The Village”
Line 4: Thomas Hardy – “When I Set Out for Lyonesse”
Line 5: Earle Birney – “David”
Line 6: Bliss Carman – “Vagabond Song”
Line 7: John Betjeman – “Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge”
Line 8: Samuel Taylor Coleridge – “Kubla Khan”

Line 9: James Elroy Flecker – “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence”
Line 10: Emily Dickinson – “There’s a Certain Slant of Light”
Line 11: Lord Byron – “The Ocean”
Line 12: Rupert Brooke – “The Dead”
Line 13: Frank Oliver Call – “The Old Habitant”
Line 14: Thomas Gray – “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
Line 15: Elizabeth Barrett Browning – “The Cry of the Children”
Line 16: Robert Browning – “Home Thoughts From Aborad”

Line 17: W. H. Davies – “The Kingfisher”
Line 18: T. S. Eliot – “The Hollow Men”
Line 19: Charles Bruce – “The Hayfield”
Line 20: Matthew Arnold – “Dover Beach”
Line 21: Robert Frost – “Death of the Hired Man”
Line 22: William Blake – “Auguries of Innocence”
Line 23: Robert Bridges – “I Love All Beauteous Things”
Line 24: E. E. Cummings – “Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand”

This post is linked at One Shot Wednesday Week 43

Cost of rebirth

"Beauty In Brokenness" © 2009 by Joanne Giesbrecht - Used with permission

Consider the egg
how it hides life
within a calcium cocoon
protects and nourishes
the chick within
until too large
restless and strong
pecks free
destroys its home
egg now mere shell
of former self
becomes nest detritus

Consider the egg
how it sustains life
surrenders to boil, scramble
stir, whip, mix
while we gain strength
from eating deviled
baked in cake
or drunk in nog
egg disappears
into our very DNA
of course we throw
the shells away

© 2011 by V. Nesdoly

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This week Christians celebrate two of the biggest events in the church year. On Friday we remember Jesus’ death. On Sunday we celebrate His resurrection. The Sunday just past (April 17th) was Palm Sunday. One version of that story is told in John 12:12-16.

In that same chapter of John, Jesus refers to His death in a little metaphor: “…unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain.” The cost of rebirth.

Joanne Giesbrecht, a Calgary artist, painted the watercolour “Beauty in Brokenness.” View more of her work at JoanneGiesbrecht.com. She also blogs about her artistic process at http://thistledown-arts.blogspot.com

This poem is linked at One Shot Wednesday Week 42

This poem is also linked at Faith Barista (where you will find many more posts about Easter.)

Love of fare

At the poetry fair verbiage fills the air
as I sample each poet’s concoction:

haiku-rich canapes, free-form salads, parfaits
of thick verse, sonnets baked to perfection.

Wine of symbol and sound, liqueur lyrics abound
I’m becoming an addict of diction,

till I stumble around very drunk on profound
poems that make my head spin in confusion.

But wait, here is a booth of poetic uncouth
Out of place at this fair, my objection.

Then I look at the name and find mine is the same
it’s my very own poetry section.

So where are the trays and the tasty displays
piping hot and fresh-baked for consumption?

As I’ve wandered this fair I have gained, tasting there,
a keen palate of discrimination.

Here all fridge-tainted, cold, cliche-ridden and old,
bland and lacking in wise introspection.

Now to retain my space in this prestigious place
I’d best spend some more time in the kitchen.

© 2004 by V. Nesdoly
First published in Calendar – 2004

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Every April, as I celebrate National Poetry Month by reading more poetry than usual, I ask myself- what am I doing here? There are so many great poets walking this earth, writing books and posting on blogs and poetry websites. I really don’t belong here…

I’m not sure how much writing more poetry makes one a better poet. There is a sense in which I think one’s style, subject matter, density, word choice, musicality etc. are a matter of personal makeup. But I spend time in the kitchen nonetheless, because I like to poem, whatever the result.

Linked at One Shot Wednesday – Week 41

O Mocking Bassinet

O Mocking Bassinet

O mocking bassinet
   and now unneeded treasure
   hoard of pink and blue,
I cannot look at you.

O mutinous organ,
   inhospitable home
   full of treachery and betrayal,
Why expel this tiny
   life most loved?

O unrefreshing rain
   of tears and blood
Fill up my heart’s black
   bottomless void – 
All that is left 
   of motherhood.

© 2004 by Violet Nesdoly
(First published in Calendar)

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Twenty-nine years ago today I was in despair. I was in hospital because my pregnancy wasn’t behaving. Sometime in the afternoon of April 8, 1982 it ended in a surgical procedure after the doctor no longer detected the baby’s heartbeat.

Quite a few years after that experience, I wrote the poem, above, in an attempt to revisit that bleak day and express the sadness of miscarriage.

I am so blessed because that wasn’t my last pregnancy!

The Alchemy of Poetry

Position the inert element
(any prompt will do)
into the beaker of an empty page
and bathe in the acid of a long stare.

Place vessel over the flame of thought.
Heat until surface softens
and breaks into fault lines.

With any writing instrument
organize component parts
into webs and lists.
Use hurried scrawl to free-write
dissections and reconstructions.

Expand and condense
reorganize and rearrange
the substance that has now
begun to take shape
until the final creation
aligns to your satisfaction.

At this point it will often
appear to be gold
(but don’t be fooled).
Leave it to cool

then return in an hour
a day or a week to inspect.
Very occasionally
you will be satisfied
you have created
something genuine.

 

© 2011 by Violet Nesdoly

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This is National Poetry Month and I have again set myself the goal of writing a poem a day. “The Alchemy of Poetry” was one of last April’s poem-a-day efforts.

I find these writing jags help me get over the feeling of writing as a ‘precious’ activity. I know from experience that when I write a lot of poems, not every one that seems great just after I’ve written it, is. I have to give my writing and myself the cooling and distance of time to see what I’ve made. As ever, I’m hoping this year’s efforts yield a few keepers.

This poem is linked to One Shot Wednesday Week 40.