Stop All the Clocks...

[Suefly]

I love the poem, Stop All Clocks, by W.H. Auden. I generally don't respond to poetry, but the poem speaks to me. The raw sense of grief and overwhelming sense of loss is so eloquently summed up in his piece. Do you have a favorite poem?

://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/au...

[Michael]

I like a lot of poems and can't really name a single favorite. I like (because I was just reading them again) Touch Me by Stanley Kunitz and Baptism by Ted Thomas.

[Heidi]

BATTY

The baby bat
Screamed out in fright,
'Turn on the dark,
I'm afraid of the light.'

- Shel Silverstein

[RandomAnthony]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQaREd...

[Jackie "the Librarian"]

RA, what is on the cover of that book? It looks like a penguin, but that doesn't seem right.

[RandomAnthony]

Heh. Like the penguin from Batman, maybe, a little:)

http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poems-...

[Jackie "the Librarian"]

Here's the text of the poem RA is reading, for those of you who, like me, have trouble focusing on anything but Mack in the background:

AFTER AN ANCIENT POEM

We the living, we’re passing travelers:
it’s in death alone that we return home.

All heaven and earth a single wayhouse,
the changeless grief of millennia dust,
moon-rabbit’s immortality balm is empty,
and the timeless fu-sang tree is kindling.

Bleached bones lie silent, say nothing,
and how can evergreen pines see spring?

Before and after pure lament, this life’s
phantom treasure shines beyond knowing.

[Jackie "the Librarian"]

Li Po DOES look like a penguin! Hee!

[janine]

i thought it was a penguin too.

[Heidi]

I like Edgar Lee Masters' stuff.

[Suefly]

Heidi wrote: "BATTY

The baby bat
Screamed out in fright,
'Turn on the dark,
I'm afraid of the light.'

- Shel Silverstein"

I love it!

[Scout]

Every time I see the title of this thread, I stop for a moment in appreciation of the poem. Great one.