Sorcha's Scribblings

Just Because

Conscientious Objector

I shall die, but that is all that I
shall do for Death.

I hear him leading his horse out
of the stall; I hear the clatter
on the barn-floor.

He is in haste; he has business in
Cuba; business in the Balkans,
many calls to make this morning.

But I will not hold the bridle
while he cinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself: I
will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders
with his whip, I will not tell
him which way the fox ran.

With his hoof on my breast, I
will not tell him where the
black boy hides in the swamp.

I shall die, but that is all that I
shall do for Death; I am not
on his pay-roll.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

July is not National Poetry Month

Even so, I feel like sharing this, which I meant to get to in April.

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner

April is National Poetry Month

In the absence of scintillating new content of my own, I offer you one of my favorite poems to ponder during this, National Poetry Month....

Self Portrait
by David Whyte

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.