A love poem

Thanks toJosie of ‘Two Shoes Tuesday’ who hosts this writing meme. Her prompts this week are ‘Fast’ or ‘Smile’. Participants may choose one or other or both of the prompt words. My response is a short love poem.

Fast,

Firm,

Constant,

Trustworthy

And unwavering,

Faithful, loving and resolute,

Your smile gladdens my heart and life.

Poetry Jam Laugh in the Face of Everything

The photo shows a Polish farming couple in Connecticut, 1940

Photo credit:

Public Domain Photograph from the Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection in the Library of Congress; Jack Delano, photographer.

The challenge from Poetry Jam is to respond to this photo of a Polish farmer and his wife in Connecticut in 1940. Times were hard but they found something to laugh about.

He wasn’t much to look at but

She’d loved him all her life,

He was a caring husband

And she a doting wife.

When people asked the secret

That kept their love alive

They smiled and said that hard work

And laughter made it thrive.

So when the days seem darkest

And things are at their worst

Remember this old couple

And put each other first.

Saturday Centus #64 Before I die

Jenny Matlock hosts this weekly meme. Thank you! J

Her challenge to participants this week is to use the prompt and up to 15 (fifteen???) more words to produce a piece of writing in any style. Click here to read more and perhaps be inspired to join in! The prompt is in red italics.

Before I die I want to see  

Peace and love and honesty

In this world for you and me.

Deep down in our hearts

Jinksy from ‘napple notes’ wrote the following verse in response to a remark from a friend of hers whose ‘driveway was beginning to resemble a babbling brook’. 

Floater's Dance

There, on a path where water is rushing 
over shingled drive not intended for gushing 
streams, leaves huddle, form a raft.
Without map or compass this craft 
will continue to dance to skirling song 
of wind and rain. Who knows how long
the piper has called this same tune
in other lands, under different moons?

I thought it was delightful but challenged her to pen something to make muddy pawprints acceptable. Almost immediately she responded with the following. 

Blokes, kids, cats and dogs

with mud on their feet

that treks in from the garden

or even the street,

can leave other traces,

much harder to beat -

deep down in our hearts -

and that's no mean feat!

Cleverly and succinctly Jinksy has captured the essence of our relationship with those we love. Thank you, Penny J

If you have not yet indulged yourself in a visit to ‘napple notes’ I urge you to do so. I promise you will not be disappointed.

ABC Wednesday L is for Laughter, Life and Love

Laughter, Life and Love - these are three words without which we could not, should not live (especially the second)

Are they intertwined, mutually dependent? I thought long and hard superficially about this as I attempted to sleep last night. The thinking wore me out bored me so I soon fell asleep.

I wonder whether I could spend any appreciable time with a humourless person. I haven’t met many who belong in this category though several have fitted the ‘takes him/herself too seriously’ set but then what makes me laugh may leave other people cold and vice versa. When others are rolling in the aisles chortling at slapstick or practical jokes my face is stony so then I’m the one without a sense of humour. I do know that the people with whom I spend most of my time – my family – frequently have me gasping for air as I giggle inanely at something one of them has said or done. Unfortunately, once I start guffawing I find it very hard to stop even though my face is wet with tears and my sides are aching and I’m attracting attention from strangers. I know that sharing my life with someone lacking a sense of humour, of the ridiculous, would be impossible for me.

It’s generally agreed that I’m quiet a misery in the mornings. I am either silent or aggressively monosyllabic. I couldn’t live with someone like me! On the extremely rare occasions that I start the morning in light-hearted mood I can guarantee that the day will not end well but when I’m in a bad mood Barry makes me laugh in spite of myself. He laughs a lot which belies his serious, deep-thinking character.

Life – of course we can’t live without it but the life I mean is enthusiasm, interest in others, a desire need to learn new things and different skills, to experience and try to understand what makes other people the characters personalities they are. Living in a rut is safe but the world is full of surprises and by that I don’t mean that travel is essential. To some people, of course, it is, but travel means little when interests may encompass space and deep sea, the inner workings of microbes or the deep resonant singing of a Russian basso profondo.

Love – it makes the world go round, apparently! There are many different aspects to love. Self-love is the most destructive and equally love or faith that becomes fanatical is dangerous. The Prophet Mohammed said, ‘Beware of extremism in religion; for it was extremism in religion that destroyed those who went before you.’

We love our family and our friends and also our pets, but we profess to love inanimate objects too and nature. Maybe it’s a different kind of love in each case but it fulfils a need in us and makes us feel happier. If we are happy we interact more kindly with each other. If we can make others happy there is at least a double benefit. Marcel Proust wrote, ‘Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls bloom.’

Finally, (‘At last’, you sigh, if you’re still reading this! And if you are, thank you!) Laughter, Life and Love need expression in activity, in play.

Friedrich Nietzsche – ‘In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.’ Amen to that and long may it be so.

Laud and thanksgiving to the Lovely Denise Nesbitt and her Loveably Loyal Lads and Lasses who organise and host this sometimes Loquacious meme. To see more Ls on earth, please click here.

Love has many hues

Noni at 'Peacock Blue' posted a beautiful poem by e e cummings for St Valentine's Day.
It reminded me of a poem written during the Second World War by Leo Marks, an English cryptographer with the Special Operations Executive (SOE). It has the feeling of a love poem but is called 'Code Poem for the French Resistance' and was given to Violette Szabo GC, MBE (1921-1945) a young SOE operative. It is thought that he wrote it originally for his girlfriend Ruth Hambro who died in an air crash in Canada.

Code Poem for the French Resistance

The life that I have is all that I have,

And the life that I have is yours.

The love that I have of the life that I have

Is yours and yours and yours.

 

A sleep I shall have

A rest I shall have,

Yet death will be but a pause,

For the peace of my years in the long green grass

Will be yours and yours and yours.

Leo Marks (1920-2001)

It is a poignant poem, even without knowing the circumstances surrounding its use.