Thursday, March 12, 2015

watercolor poems


I don't have any photos to post yet of the watercolor
Emily Dickinson poetry project we did today. 
I will next week. 

Here is one of two poems that a student had found 
but didn't use.The bold line makes me see differently
 as Spring arrives: 

The mountain sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
His inquest everywhere.
The seasons prayed around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn the ancestor.

One former student is home for Spring Break and 
visited just in time to be part of this project. She  did a
beautiful poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins. Her eyes
sparkled and she read some of the lines slowly to me. 

Don't you love the words: delves and elves-eyes, 
alliteration here: Flake-doves sent floating forth 
at a farmyard scare...

May-mess
March-bloom

a poem to sit in for a few days and read over 
and over again...... this days of Spring... 
and think of the Starry Night with the full moon
right now...


The Starlight Night

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
   O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
   The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
   Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
   Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare! 
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! bid then! — What? — Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
   Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; within doors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
   Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

from The Murmuring Cottage

2 comments:

melissa said...

"The Seasons played around his knees"....my favorite line. :)

podso said...

Yes I love the mountain visual. Saw a pic of your students painting--a riot of color. Look forward to seeing some of them.