A Bit Late

The prompt for this week's Poetry Thursday was to write a poem about sex.

Ummm... yess ... rrright ...

I haven't written any poems about sex. One day I might, but that time is not right now.

Meanwhile ...

here is a John Donne poem I really like. It's about lovers tarrying in bed while outside, the sun shines.

THE SUN RISING.
by John Donne


BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

***

This Little House

HHH

A lazy Saturday on a cold winter's day. Well ... not all laziness - I did clean the glasshouse - all the glass on three sides. And what a difference - now it is no longer a greenhouse (the green being a surface-covering of mould) but has been lovingly restored, with soapy water and elbow grease, to its original form of clear glass, and again to its proper status of glasshouse. With a rather withered grapevine inside I call Grapey. Let's see if Grapey likes the sudden sight of light streaming into his home enough to revive and sprout some new leaves in spring and juicy, dark-red grapes in autumn.

I woke at mid-day. The reason for such a long lie-in being because I sat up and watched a late movie last night, and so slept on from 2.00 a.m. until I had had enough sleep. The movie was called 'In The Bedroom' which is somewhat of a misleading title as it is not about hot sex so much as about a middleaged couple (not that ... well, you know what I was going to say don't you? ... ) and how they dealt with the murder of their only son. I won't spoil it for anyone else, but it is a surprising film. It starred Sissy Spacek - she has got to be one of my favourite actors, whatever she stars in, she makes it real - and was set in Camden, Maine. The final shot over the town was simply chocolate-box beautiful.

When I look up Camden, I see that it was the birthplace of the poet Edna St Vincent Millay. From there I went on to read a little of her poetry - I have read her poetry before, but needed to refresh my memory. A lot of her poetry it seems is about death and grieving.

One example ...

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will, -- and would that night were here!
But ah! -- to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! -- with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, --
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, -- and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, --
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house.

(And from me in this little street and this little house - until the next time!)

***