Favorite Poetry

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                    Suddenly, fall chill... Why should that ragged fortune teller look so surprised? ****Buson

                        e.e. cummings in time of daffodils (who know the goal of living is to grow) forgetting why, remember how in time of lilacs who proclaim the aim of waking is to dream, remember so (forgetting seem) in time of roses (who amaze our now and here with paradise) forgetting if, remember yes in time of all sweet things beyond whatever mind may comprehend, remember seek (forgetting find) and in a mystery to be (when time from time shall set us free) forgetting me, remember me
                      Hilda K. Britt Seven Short Love Poems Plane Love Put together by circumstance he window, she aisle not a word is exchanged carefully avoiding each other's eyes he studies her profile the shape of her fingernails her thrice-pierced ears the curve of her breast The plane jostles---her arm touches his for an instant a moment of connection---he exists! He picks up his bag from the carousel turns sees her looking at him smiling she reaches for hers he gently takes it from her hand they walk together like lovers absorbed into the crowd... [April 1993] Courtship As a winter bird surrounded by the sheer whiteness and brightness of the snow, your presence filled me with warmth and coolness in one. As a winter bird's song that charges the wintry air your words inspire to motion and change. Brief Separation Though I want to see your face, and ache for the touch of you I won't be blue. Being satisfied but not complete with words that are fleet; They flow, they glide, they fade away. Yet the linger to spur me on to heights of emotions; awakenings; stirrings... I am missing you! Weaning Interest and Lies Though I see you as you are, I close my eyes to reality. Though I see you as you are, My dreams are of love's ecstasy; Though I see you as you are, I envision needs fulfilled, hopes realized. Though I see you as you are Pretense abounds. Query What does it mean to love? Does love have meaning? What does it mean to love? Is it when your heart is heavy with sadness? Is it when you are lonely and exhausted from tears? OR Is it when your heart breaks with the realization that you love in vain? Dis-connection I am NOT going to call him!! I am not going to call him my phone is silent it does not ring You have not called what does this mean you have no need for me you've had you fill of me I will not call! The closer I get to you the more it makes me see how dispassionate you are how separate we are We are worlds apart we have come together briefly [September 1993] ENTANGLEMENT an EPIGRAM The web he weaved was strong and sure his eyes were like an hypnotic lure his winsome ways and beguiling charms pulled me into his waiting arms he loved me long he loved me strong and then he said "Get out'a my bed!!" [1994]
                      © 1996 britt@math/uiuc.edu

                    T.S. Eliot V So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years ... Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres... Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling, Undisciplined squads of emotions. And what there is to conquer By strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men one canot hope To emulate...but there is no competition... There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that ncannot be deciphered. There is a time for the evening under starlight, A time for the evening under lamplight (The evening with the photograph album). Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here and there does not matter We must be still and moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the darkcold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning. East Coker by T.S.Eliot from Four Quartets

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