February always brings me to love poetry and this is a poem that I hold very dear.
Spell
If, at your desk, you push aside your work,
Take down a book, turn to this verse,
and read that I kneel here, pressing
my ear where on your chest the muscles
arch as great books part, in seagull curves,
bridging the seasounds of your heart,
and that your hands run through my hair,
draw the wayward mass to strands
as flat as scarlet silk-thread bookmarks,
and stroke my cheeks as if smoothing
back the tissue leaves from chilly,
plated pages, and pull me near
to read my eyes alone, then you shall see,
silvered and monochrome, yourself,
sitting at your desk, taking down a book,
turning to this verse, and then, my love,
you shall not know which one of us is reading,
now, which is writing, and which written.
Kate Clanchy
(Source: Staying Alive, edited by Neil Astley, 2002: Bloodaxe Books).
Perhaps you’d care to tell me about your favourite love poem/s.
So beautiful!
Thanks Val. Glad you like it.
Here’s a poem that I wrote…It’s called “Miss You”…
I wrote a poem for you today…Time has stopped since you’ve been away…All I have are memories of days long ago…I want to tell you that I miss you so…Can we get past of what has been… And start this relationship again.
Joni, so poignant. I hope your words are heard and yield the answer you crave. Thanks very much for sharing. Jxxx
For some reason John McRae’s ww1 poem In Flanders field plays deep in my soul. I love it,I see it I feel it.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
A wonderful poem, Willow. One that lives in my heart too.
Of all the poems I could of picked I always go back to this one . It just begs me to listen.
I can more than understand that and there certainly are plenty to choose from.
yes there is really is!
What a beautiful poem, thank you for sharing it. I wasn’t familiar with Kate Clanchy so am happy to have discovered a new poet. I love poetry. Some of my favorite poetry about love? By Pablo Neruda…
Hi Letizia, thanks for writing.
Pablo Neruda was certainly a master of the love poem!
Total love.
Thanks Elen!
I loved Yeats’ “When Your Are Old” even when I was young. So far our love poems are a bit melancholy aren’t they? I wonder why.
Sandy, I consider Yeats’ ‘When You Are Old’ to be the greatest love poem ever written.
I guess the poems reflect the bittersweetness of love.
A meaningful poem is Flanders Field at this moment I don’t know the authors name. But It starts “In Flanders Field where poppies grow, all the graves row by row. A memorial to those who have lost their lives in World War I or II..I might even have the sentence incorrect but that is the way I recall it…I lost my oldest brother in the battle of the Bulge, I was just two years old and his picture hangs in our living room. A book called Parachute Soldier was written by one of his comrades and he mentions my brothers name in it.