Listening to rain
While reading poetry.
But why read poetry
When there is rain?
For there is poetry
In the rain.
—
Reading Clare
While listening to rain.
But why read Clare
For there
Is poetry in rain?
(The above is 2 versions of the same, maybe similar poem. The poem flows from me listening to the rain through my open bedroom window yesterday evening, while reading the poetry of John Clare).
I spent part of yesterday afternoon watching Into “The Wasteland” on the BBC Iplayer. The programme examines TS Eliot’s poem “The Wasteland”, arguing that much of the poem stems from the poet’s personal life, particularly his experiences with women and his nervous breakdown.
You can watch the programme here, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001d1yy#:~:text=An%20exploration%20of%20TS%20Eliot’s,20th%20century%2C%20The%20Waste%20Land. In order to do so you will need to have (or create) an account with the BBC Iplayer and click to confirm that you have a TV license. It is my understanding is that only those resident in the United Kingdom are able to avail themselves of the BBC Iplayer, so my apologies to those of my readers based outside of the UK.
I enter the graveyard
Where men forget regret
While the living
Forget their eternal
Bed is made
In waiting grave
And choose to lose
Their day
In play
With technology,
Which makes none free
Of the eternal grave.
I sat alone
On a train
In early morning.
When a young woman on her phone
Said, “are you still with your friend?”
The memory remains.
A couple yawning
In early morning.
And 2 strangers on a commuter train.
I pass by graves
On a rain soaked day.
I know those below
Do not regret the wet.
I relish the fresh
Scents of this passing day
For after my death
I will know
No rain below.
Leaves turn brown
‘Ere they fall
To waiting ground.
I heard
A bird’s
Alarm call.
Autumn will become
Winter. The sun
Will burn out.
Some still shout
Of human progress
While leaves fall.
I have known
In the biblical sense
Many young women.
I make no pretence
That their names
Where all known.
On hearing birdsong
I am glad
That I am here
To hear
Their sad, glad song.
We die
And our love
Dies with us.
No, it lives on
When we are gone
In those we love.
And the birds
Sing on
With no care
For where
We have gone.
In the early morning
Few birds I heard.
In the distance
Vehicles passed by.
On such autumn mornings
I have no resistance
To thoughts of mortality.
But half dark
Turns to light
And I must
Shake off dust.
But autumn
Must come
And leaves fall.
A small island in a great sea.
Once, half the world was painted red
And we engaged in slavery.
It is so often said
That the British Empire did no good.
Yet, (having abolished slavery), we patrolled seas
Stopping those who still engaged
In the cruel slave trade.
As I stood
In this remnant
Of the Great
North Wood
I thought on those who hate
This country.
Now our former colonies are free
To have their own mess
(Or progress.
And we
Have the cold sea
And what we
Call progress.
K Morris - Poet 