Bee

To A Butterfly (first poem) Stay near me---do not take thy flight! A little longer stay in sight! Much converse do I find I thee, Historian of my infancy ! Float near me; do not yet depart! Dead times revive in thee: Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art! A solemn image to my heart, My father's family! Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days, The time, when, in our childish plays, My sister Emmeline and I Together chased the butterfly! A very hunter did I rush Upon the prey:---with leaps and spring I followed on from brake to bush; But she, God love her, feared to brush The dust from off its wings. ***** William Wordsworth

A flower was offered to me: Such a flower as May never bore. But I said "I've a Pretty Rose-tree", And I passed the sweet flower o'er. Then I went to my Pretty Rose-tree: To tend her by day and by night. But my Rose turn'd away with jealousy: And her thorns were my only delight. ----------- William Blake

December See how December snows ... Look there by the window, my dear - Tell them to bring in more embers, Then we can hear the fire roar. Push the armchair up the stove And then we'll hear, by the chimney, The storm, or my days - it's the same - I must learn their symphony. Tell them also to bring in the tea, And come closer yourself too, please, - Read me something about the poles, Let it snow ... let the snow bury us. How warm it is here in your home, Which to me is totally sacred, - See how December snows ... Don't laugh ... go on reading alaud. It's day and what darkness there is ... We need a lamp fetched, would you ask - Look, the snow is as high as the fence, And the door-handle's caught by the frost. I'm not going home now today ... In front and behind there's a flood, See how December snows ... Don't laugh ... go on reading aloud. George Bacovia

Light Up The Fire I gaze into the heart, lowly it may be, Thought the words be higher still. For the heart is all the substance, The speech an accident. How many phrases will you speak, Too many for me. How much burning, burning will you feel, Be friendly with the fire, enough for me. Light up the fire of love inside, And blaze the thoughts away. ** By: Rumi __________________________________________ From The Love Poems of Rumi by Philip Dunn

Stanley Kunitz - The Layers I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack th...

    T here is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,  A quiet house, some green and modest acres A little way from every troubling town,  A little way from factories, schools, laments. I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,  With only streams and birds for company. To build out of my life a few wild stanzas. And then it came to me, that so was death,  A little way away from everywhere. There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,  But let it go. Homesick for moderation,  Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away. If any find solution, let him tell it. Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation Where, as the times implore our true involvement,  The blades of every crisis point the way. I would it were not so, but so it is. Who ever made music of a mild day?  Mary Oliver