tunnel ceaselessly
I think all the time about invisible work.
About the young mother on Welfare
I interviewed years ago,
who said, "It's hard.
Y
Spring
Posted on by James Woodward
spring fever
Today, look: another day. Waking, wide open,
Afraid. Don't dive into the library,
Into yet another book! Reach for your guitar,
Music
Posted on by James Woodward
where everything is music
Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.
We have fallen in
Beginnings and Endings?
Posted on by James Woodward
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sen
Approaching Holy Week
Posted on by James Woodward
a lion of courage
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy m
Be Free
Posted on by James Woodward
Rumi has written some of the most astonishing poetry - read on
In the end you disappeared, gone beyond sight
Strange, the path you took, leav
O Greening Branch
Posted on by James Woodward
O greening branch!
You stand in your nobility
Like the rising dawn.
Rejoice now and exult
And deign to free the fools we are
From our long slav
Forgiveness??
Posted on by James Woodward
Looking down on my father's
dead face
for the last time
my mother said without
tears, without smiles
without regrets
but with civility
"Good n
Greenness
Posted on by James Woodward
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betw
Speak in poetry not prose please?
Posted on by James Woodward
'Listen, now, verse should be as natural
As the small tuber that feeds on muck
And grows slowly from obtuse soil
To the white flower of immortal
What will you do when you grow old?
Posted on by James Woodward
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind
Giving shape to Old Age
Posted on by James Woodward
In the Old Age of the Soul
I do not choose to dream; there cometh on me
Some strange old lust for deeds.
As to the nerveless hand of som
Memory
Posted on by James Woodward
Alzheimer’s Patient
Oh, how can this be?
You and I are losing me
Some day soon
May be morning
Many be noon
I will no longer be the me
You and I
Patience
Posted on by James Woodward
patience
An absolute
patience.
Trees stand
up to their knees in
fog. The fog
slowly flows
uphill.
White
cobwebs, the grass
leaning where deer
ha
How are we to understand our Life?
Posted on by James Woodward
SO MANY DIFFERENT LENGTHS OF TIME
How long is a man’s life, finally?
Is it a thousand days, or only one?
One week, or a few centuries?
How lo
Seamus Heaney
Posted on by James Woodward
Dennis O’Driscoll
Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney
(Faber, 2008)
Seamus Heaney is regarded as possibly the finest poet of
In Love
Posted on by James Woodward
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the Muse -
Nothing refuse.
Leave all for love;
Ye
Temple
Posted on by James Woodward
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
t
Fire and Gold
Posted on by James Woodward
The monotone of the rain is beautiful,
And the sudden rise and slow relapse
Of the long multitudinous rain.
The sun on the hills is bea
These our actors
Posted on by James Woodward
these our actors
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And,