I will love you more than me and more than yesterday if you can but prove to me you are the new day.
Send the sun in time for dawn, let the birds all hail the morning. Love of life will urge me say, you are the new day.
When I lay me down at night knowing we must pay, thoughts occur that this night might stay yesterday.
Thoughts that we as humans small could slow worlds and end it all lie around me where they fall before the new day.
One more day when time is running out for ev'ryone, like a breath I knew would come I reach for a new day
Hope is my philosophy, just needs days in which to be, love of life means hope for me, born on a new day.
Well, I don't know if it stands alone enough as a poem, but Welsh songwriter John David's song is very moving, especially as sung by The King's Singers (try to ignore Barney and the Teletubbies--I do):
The local community chorus with which I sing is singing an SATB arrangement (by former King's Singers member Peter Knight) of this song in our upcoming spring concert, along with some other lovely choices.
Poetry Friday is being hosted today by children's book author Julie Larios over at The Drift Record.
Melissa of Here in the Bonny Glen posted a picture of her TBR stack, and I thought it would make a nice meme to get others to share what is in theirs. Here's a pile of my TBRs:
What's in yours?
Hey--I just noticed that if you click on the photo the picture gets bigger and the titles are actually legible!
Today, in honor of Alaska's Last Great Race, the 2009 Iditarod, which begins tomorrow at 10 a.m. Alaska time (2 p.m. EST), I am posting the "spring" part of a poem celebrating the four seasons by Nancy White Carlstrom, from her book, Midnight Dance of the Snowshoe Hare--Poems of Alaska (1998), with the author's permission. The book's lovely illustrations are by Ken Kuroi.
from "Raven Cries River" by Nancy White Carlstrom
Snowshoe Hare, white on light, Sled Dog dreaming big race Grouse family comic Roosting tree like joke Red Squirrel carries sunshine. Gangly Moose Dangling new buds Stamping mud from snowmelt.
And Raven, Bold rascal Raven Cries River Ice chunks crashing Water rushing Spring breakup!
The rest of the poem tells of each of the other three seasons from the animals' perspectives. The other poems in the book are also told in the voices of various Snowshoe Hare--young ones, wise grandfather hare, and others. Carlstrom's usually spare verse doesn't verge into cutesieness, so, although this book is likely aimed at the four to eight crowd, older readers will also enjoy it.
For more of my posts about the Iditarod, including lists of books, dvds, and other resources concerning the race, Alaska, and the Arctic, visit one of my other blogs, Rockhound Place.
