The Day That's In It

“Renew thyself completely each day;
do it again, and again, and forever again.”
King Tching Thang / quoted by Thoreau

Hanging Window Charm ~ Souvenir from Bangkok

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have posted these two poems previously,
but it seems they deserve a joint appearance,
pairing so naturally, with their matching titles:

Days

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

Days

What I admire most about days
Is their immaculate sense of timing.

They appear
inevitably
at first light

Eke
themselves out slowly
over noon

Then edge surefootedly
toward evening

To bow out
at the very soupcon
of darkness.

Spot on cue, every time.

Roger McGough (b. 1937)
(More by McGough,
a Liverpool Poet for all seasons . . . )

Another sad headstone
at the cemetery near our house.
He died barely a week beyond his 21st birthday
Sep. 8. 1818 ~ Sep. 19. 1839
"A student of the university of va."

The Peonies Have Their Day

" . . . and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities . . ."

from "The Peonies"
by Mary Oliver

Days

What I admire most about days
Is their immaculate sense of timing.

They appear
inevitably
at first light

Eke
themselves out slowly
over noon

Then edge surefootedly
toward evening

To bow out
at the very soupcon
of darkness.

Spot on cue, every time.

by Liverpool Poet, Roger McGough (b. 1937)
(More McGough, for all seasons . . . )


********************

And for good measure, the Rare Treat Iris

Who Knew?

I just keep thinking about the editors picking this photo for the front of their calendar, and then before the year was out, the buildings no longer existed. I know that all of the New York City Cow Statues are iconic, but this one especially so.

Flight Path (9/11)

A nice day for breakfast outside. Well-practised
by now, birds sing out the end of summer.
On the wall, a marmalade sphinx, unblinking
doesn't miss a twitch in the garden.

In a hurry for Heathrow and bored,
a 747 scratches its dirty fingernails
down the clearblue, blameless sky.
We wince, the birds, the cat and I.

* * *
Across the pond, excited at the prospect ahead
they are up at first light and praying. The drive
out to Logan will be uneventful. At check - in
a girl will thank them and smile: "Have a nice day."

by Liverpool Poet, Roger McGough (b. 1937)
(More McGough, for all seasons . . . )

********************

While working on our record album display, I realized that the Cow Parade Calendar that we have been saving for 18 years, fit right in with Gerry's favorite: Atom Heart Mother. The Taxi Cow appearing on the cover of the calendar does not feature on any of the twelve months inside. Here are a few others:

*****************
Previous 9 / 11 Posts

2009: Not a Normal Day

2010: Poem for Today and Tomorrow

2010: 9 / 11 Retrospective (Fortnightly)

2011: Alabaster Cities

2012: My Country's Heart

2013: On the Eve of that Other Perfect Day

2014: Back Before 9 / 11

2016: The Twain

2019: Who Knew?

Secret Garden

Our Urban Back Yard: Philadelphia, 2 October 2003
Though we had not a blade of grass in sight, Gerry still managed to create this delightful hidden retreat behind our urban row house in downtown Philadelphia. My favorite feature was the year - round white icicle lights twinkling against the white brick. This photograph looks summery, but in fact it was taken well after the official beginning of autumn, seven (7) years ago this very day, 2 October 2003. So late in the season, yet look at those full-bodied impatiens!

The flower bed, the robust bean vine, the trailing philodendron -- all perfectly capture the sentiment expressed by Elizabeth Jennings in her poem (posted earlier this week, scroll down or click), "Song at the Beginning of Autumn" :

. . . All looks like summer still;
Colours are quite unchanged, the air
On green and white serenely thrives.
Heavy the trees with growth and full
The fields. Flowers flourish everywhere.

. . . [yet] autumn gropes for us.

I can't say for sure how far beyond this early fall day the brilliant impatiens continued to flourish. Perhaps autumn was groping for them, but certainly at the moment of this photograph, they had never been happier.

As Roger McGough points out in his poem (posted last week, scroll down or click), "Trees Cannot Name the Seasons":

Nor flowers tell the time.
But when the sun shines
. . . they are charged with light . . .

They feel no need
To divide and itemize.
Nature has never needed reasons
For flowers to tell the time
Or trees put a name to the seasons.

~ a view of the back wall before Gerry restored the brick ~
For another view of the back garden,
see last October's post: "St. Peter's School - A Celebration,"
featuring my son Sam and his 4th grade teacher.

Which Season: Summer or Fall?

"When the leaves fall upwards to the trees" *
Trees Cannot Name the Seasons
Trees cannot name the seasons
Nor flowers tell the time.
But when the sun shines
And they are charged with light,
They take a day-long breath.
What we call "night"
Is their soft exhalation.

And when joints creak yet again
And the dead skin of leaves falls,
Trees don't complain
Nor mourn the passing of hours.
What we call "winter"
Is simply hibernation.

And as continuation
comes to them as no surprise
They feel no need
To divide and itemize.
Nature has never needed reasons
For flowers to tell the time
Or trees put a name to the seasons.

~by Roger McGough

[This poem can be found in McGough's
book Melting into the Foreground, 1986]

***********************************

* [Photograph caption is a line borrowed
from the title poem of Adrian Henri's
book Tonight At Noon, 1969]

Brush With Greatness

Not quite sure

how I got on a

middle - name - basis

with the Liverpool Poets;

but nice to have a

small collection of

autographed copies,

nonetheless!



Click below to hear

a reading of

Henri's classic poem

"Tonight at Noon":

sad

hopeful

beautiful

hopeless


Tonight at Noon

Tonight at noon
Supermarkets will advertise 3p extra on everything
Tonight at noon
Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home
Elephants will tell each other human jokes
America will declare peace on Russia
World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on
November 11th
The first daffodils of autumn will appear
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees

Tonight at noon
Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards
Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing fields
A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool
Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton
And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well
White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights
In front of the Black house
And the monster has just created Dr. Frankenstein

Girls in bikinis are moonbathing
Folksongs are being sung by real folk
Art galleries are closed to people over 21
Poets get their poems in the Top 20
There's jobs for everybody and nobody wants them
In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing
in broad daylight
In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly
bury the living
and
You will tell me you love me
Tonight at noon

--Adrian Henri

For more on Liverpool Poets: Henri, McGough & Patten
see post for April 28, 2010

on my blog of literary connection and coincidence
THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER

Bat Poem

Goodbat Nightman
God bless all policemen
and fighters of crime,
May thieves go to jail
for a very long time.

They've had a hard day
helping clean up the town,
Now they hang from the mantelpiece
both upside down.

A glass of warm blood
and then straight up the stairs,
Batman and Robin
are saying their prayers.

They've locked all the doors
and they've put out the bat,
Put on their batjamas
(They like doing that)

They've filled their batwater-bottles
made their batbeds,
With two springy battresses
for sleepy batheads.

They're closing red eyes
and they're counting black sheep,
Batman and Robin
are falling asleep.

Roger McGough (b 1937)
British poet from Liverpool

For more Bat Poems, see
the most recent post: "Happy Batday"
on THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER
my fortnightly literary blog
of connection and coincidence
www.kitticarriker.blogspot.com