The Birthday -- Christina Rossetti
The Birthday
was recommended in an email to me by one of my friends. She said:
i dont know if you've come across this one before - this such a lovely upbeat poem! if youre ever in love, it should feel like this! :-)
m.
A BIRTHDAY
by Christina Georgina Rossetti
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
Still I Rise -- Maya Angelou
This poem was recommended, in an email to me, by Mridula. Her comments, and the poem:
Thought this would be a nice addition : classic maya angelou - the one who wrote phenomenal woman? this is in the same awesome spirit!
STILL I RISE
BY MAYA ANGELOU
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Shell Silverstein
This is a poem that was suggested by one of my friends. She remarked:
I love this one. Makes you feel great, doesn't it! :-)
m.
Colors
by Shell Silverstein
My skin is kind of sort of brownish
Pinkish yellowish white.
My eyes are greyish blueish green,
But I'm told they look orange in the night.
My hair is reddish blondish brown,
But it's silver when it's wet.
And all the colors I am inside
Have not been invented yet.
Indian Weavers by Sarojini Naidu
WEAVERS, weaving at break of day,
Why do you weave a garment so gay?...
Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,
We weave the robes of a new-born child.
Weavers, weaving at fall of night,
Why do you weave a garment so bright?...
Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green,
We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.
Weavers, weaving solemn and still,
What do you weave in the moonlight chill?...
White as a feather and white as a cloud,
We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.
Sarojini Naidu
At school, I was a textbook fan of Sarojini Naidu. I remember three of her poems from my school textbooks - the above quoted, "Palanquin Bearers" and "Bazaars of Hyderabad". Her writing is intensely Indian, and her words reflect the richness of medieval and post-medieval Indian culture. But, as I grew older - she started sounding a bit amateurish to me or perhaps just a bit shallow - but I later felt that can just be my prejudice from reading too much from the occident. Oriental poetry (Haiku for example), always revels in bringing out beauty and richness and the underlying message is very simple and subtle and sometimes just not there. For poetry in these parts is a medium of celebration and rarely of dissonance. The above - is almost a nursery rhyme that you can teach your kids - and still graceful, symbolic and subtly melancholy.
