Clown in the Moon by Dylan Thomas

Today, I received a poetry postcard:

"Clown in the Moon" by Dylan Thomas

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream. 

The House

The house in my dreams is familiar yet new;

I’ve lived here before, but forgotten some rooms.

There’s always a door that I open to find

some additional floor space.  I pull up a blind

on a garden that reaches way back to a wall

with another door opening into the hall.

I go around softly, discovering rooms:

a study, a workshop with rows of old tools,

a greenhouse, o’er run with a trellis and vines

a bathroom with deeply-welled tubs that are lined

with mossy green marks where the bathers have lain,

and I go around softly, again and again.

It’s a house of surprises, a place without time,

a house full of memories, not all of them mine,

and yet I belong here.  I am the house wife

in this house where I’ve wandered

my whole sleeping life.  
              --Agatha

Guest Poet: W.B. Yeats

Today, we sponsor a guest poet, William Butler Yeats. Here's a link to his poem "When You Are Old," read by Colin Farrell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42JPVCQ9EeM&feature=share

My Garden Face

Alone in the yard, I have on my garden face, 

although I can only imagine what it looks like, 

because there are no mirrors among the marigolds. 

I tie up a drooping vine, fill my bucket with weeds, 

rearrange a stack of bricks tumbled by the squirrel

in her haste to collect her ration of nuts

before the magpies wake up.

My jaw goes slack with heavy breathing.

Creases of concern relax, leaving faint

pencil-lines to mark their places. 

I pause and stare straight up at the sky, 

heavy with clouds and promise. 

Eyes glazed over with birdsong joy, 

I surely resemble the village idiot, 

delirious with simplicity.

               --Agatha 

Food, a Tradition

A food, a tradition:
the family gathers on Christmas Eve Day.
Cut those apples!
Stretch that dough!
If you're careless,
there's a hole.
Patch it up.
Breadcrumbs hot!
raisins, cinnamon, sugar, nuts, a lot.
Melt butter over all,
lift edge of cloth,
and begin to roll.
Strudel, apple strudel
(as in old Vienna).
          --Isadora

Head Down

Thirty degrees this morning and the

garden is still, chilled into silence. Birds

are holding their breath, hesitant to give

their side of the story. A sentinel cat

sits on the wall, scanning for tiny rustlings,

while the frosted grass holds still, wary

of giving clues to the whereabouts.

The sole surviving tulip leans

close to the ground,

keeping its head down, whipped

into submission by last night’s wind.

One velvety petal detaches into my hand.

I stroke its vulnerable pinkness

and think of new-born babies.

               --Agatha

White Chocolate Star

The prompt for this poem was "A food that inspires you."

Oh, delightful white chocolate star,

you tiny container of phenylethylamine

that wonderful natural monoamine alkaloid,

descendent of entactogens, anorectics, 

and psychedelics of yore!

You are the foundation of the 

chocolate theory of love and 

holder of rich raspberry splendor!

You modulate my neurons, 

make my heart race, and lift my spirits. 

My eyes light up when your chocolate-brown 

UPS chariot delivers you to me in 

your golden Godiva Chocolate box.

I ravish you!  
               --Agatha