It reminded me of one that moved me.

Not a great poem, but thought inducing.

I know why , did when I was young and more so now I am old.

Treasure the moment.

Yes sentimental trash, but I care not.

A.E. Houseman


Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my three score years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.



. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.



XL. Into my heart on air that kills





INTO my heart on air that kills

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?



That is the land of lost content, 5

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

Crossing The Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Not a poem, but an extract from my favorite play by the late Sarah Kane:
“Once you have perceived that life is very cruel, the only response is to live with as much humanity, humour and freedom as you can.”
― Sarah Kane

Strange Meeting

BY WILFRED OWEN

It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had groined.



Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.



With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,

And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.

“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”

“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,

The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,

Was my life also; I went hunting wild

After the wildest beauty in the world,

Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,

But mocks the steady running of the hour,

And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.

For by my glee might many men have laughed,

And of my weeping something had been left,

Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,

The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled.

Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.

They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.

None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery;

Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:

To miss the march of this retreating world

Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,

I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,

Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.

I would have poured my spirit without stint

But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.



“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now. . . .”



The pity of war, the pity war distilled.

Now men will go content with what we spoiled.

Sad , worthless scum, sad;always counting the cost at the expense of mutual enjoyment. Very christian.

Not the only poem,……….Bitter Fruit by Abel Meeropol

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The big bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the leafs to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

A song drew my attention to the poem (a Billie Holiday cover, but I do believe someone else did sing it before Holiday):



The photograph that stirred Meeropol:

www.eachoneteachone.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/lynching-of-Thomas-Shipp-Abram-Smith-in-Indiana_1930--1024x544.jpg

www.npr.org/2012/09/05/158933012/the-strange-story-of-the-man-behind-strange-fruit

Whilst the World War I poets are well known for their moving works, less well known is the World War II poet, Keith Douglas.  This brings tears to my eyes every time I read it:

---

How to Kill
Under the parabola of a ball,
a child turning into a man,
I looked into the air too long.
The ball fell in my hand, it sang
in the closed fist: Open Open
Behold a gift designed to kill.

Now in my dial of glass appears
the soldier who is going to die.
He smiles, and moves about in ways
his mother knows, habits of his.
The wires touch his face: I cry
NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears

And look, has made a man of dust
of a man of flesh. This sorcery
I do. Being damned, I am amused
to see the centre of love diffused
and the wave of love travel into vacancy.
How easy it is to make a ghost.

The weightless mosquito touches
her tiny shadow on the stone,
and with how like, how infinite
a lightness, man and shadow meet.
They fuse. A shadow is a man
when the mosquito death approaches

---

He died during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. He was 24.