Once more, sharing a poem AND a quote shared by another friend in the same e-mail poetry exchange! It’s a lovely poem worth sharing with you all, as well as an awesome quote with beautifully original poetic language, albeit from a book. Following, the text from his email:
The first thing I’ll offer you is a poem by Yeats. The reason I like it so much is it has that liminal, magical feel of a phenomenal experience combined with the poet’s very natural longing for immersion in that same magic. Once dipped in the phenomenal, a man will yearn for it forever.
The Song of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
The second is a quote from a book that I found captivating. The name of the book is The Wood Wife by Terri Windling.
Here, the protagonist is describing the Sonoran desert where a phenomenal, mythic adventure has changed her perception. It grabs me every time. See what you think.
“The night, blue lapis. The mountain, onyx. Saguaro, verdigris within a copper dish of moon. The wind rustles dry mesquite. A coyote howls. A star falls. And the night cracks me open, with beauty sharp and poignant as grief. The night cracks me open, like a geode, exposing the crystal veins of God.”
The Writing Pool 