{"id":1397,"date":"2008-08-08T00:19:02","date_gmt":"2008-08-08T06:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1397"},"modified":"2008-08-08T00:19:39","modified_gmt":"2008-08-08T06:19:39","slug":"poetry-friday-green-and-dying-with-dylan-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1397","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: Green and dying with Dylan Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gwalia Farm in Wales<\/a><\/p>\n

August is the cruelest month — Eliot<\/strong><\/a> had it all wrong. As a child I always hated that my birthday coincided with the end of summer and the beginning of the new school year. It took some of the shine off of the childish thrill of turning another year older, especially on those one or two years when school started exactly<\/em> on the day itself. Once I was out of school and had passed all the good milestone birthdays, it didn’t matter so much. But now I find myself immersed in academia just in time for my 35th. Not good timing. I’m already finding new gray hairs on a near-daily basis, and I’m about to have to cope with knowing I’m closer to 40 than 30. Having everyone around me preoccupied with the passing of summer’s relative freedom and the beginning of the school year’s drudgery just doesn’t help my frame of mind.<\/p>\n

So I’m sharing one of my very favorite poems of all time, “Fern Hill”<\/strong><\/a> by Dylan Thomas<\/strong><\/a>. Aside from the sheer gorgeousness of the poem — Thomas is a true Poet-with-a-capital-P, and every line just sings<\/em> beauty — the whole youth-as-carefree-summer metaphor is working for me right now. Oh, and those last lines that sneak up on you after all the sing-songy run-on sentences about apples and foxes and sunshine; that whole last stanza when he realizes his own mortality, sees that every day he played in the sun was a day closer to death, reveals that Time is more of a jail warden than a generous benefactor… oof<\/em>. It shakes me in my bones. It should be really depressing, but it’s just so lovely that every time I finish it my eyes zip right back up to the top to start it all over. It’s a good pain. Here’s a sample:<\/p>\n

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
\nAbout the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
\n——–<\/font>The night above the dingle starry,
\n—————-<\/font>Time let me hail and climb
\n——–<\/font>Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
\nAnd honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
\nAnd once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
\n—————-<\/font>Trail with daisies and barley
\n——–<\/font>Down the rivers of the windfall light. <\/p>\n

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
\nAbout the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
\n——–<\/font>In the sun that is young once only,
\n—————-<\/font>Time let me play and be
\n——–<\/font>Golden in the mercy of his means,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click here<\/strong><\/a> to read the rest. Seriously, does it get better than that? No. No it does not. This is a poem to be savored — kind of like youth, like life itself. Savor the beauty and innocence and laughter while you can. We don’t get to play in the sun forever, you know.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

Hey, ya’ll — check it out! My Cybils-buddy Becky is on Poetry Friday round-up detail over at Becky’s Book Reviews<\/strong><\/a>. Thanks, Becky!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August is the cruelest month — Eliot had it all wrong. As a child I always hated that my birthday coincided with the end of summer and the beginning of the new school year. It took some of the shine off of the childish thrill of turning another year older, especially on those one or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}