Sonnet II, from "To W.P." -- George Santayana

Guest poem sent in by Jeffrey Sean Huo

(Poem #1767) Sonnet II, from "To W.P." With you a part of me hath passed away; For in the peopled forest of my mind A tree made leafless by this wintry wind Shall never don again its green array. Chapel and fireside, country road and bay, Have something of their friendliness resigned; Another, if I would, I could not find, And I am grown much older in a day. But yet I treasure in my memory Your gift of charity, and young hearts ease, And the dear honour of your amity; For these once mine, my life is rich with these. And I scarce know which part may greater be,-- What I keep of you, or you rob from me. -- George Santayana

A brief biography of George Santayana was run with Minstrels Poem #25 ("The
Poet's Testament"). This poem was first published in 1896, as part of
Santayana's collection "Sonnets and other Verses". The W.P. of the title was
Warrick Potter, who tragically died of complications from a boating accident
three years earlier. Santayana suffered a number of significant personal
griefs and shocks as he approached his 30th birthday, including the tragic
deaths of many of his close friends.  But the death of Potter, whom
Santayana described as his "last real friend", hit Santayana particularly
hard. Today's poem is the second of four sonnets written by Santayana in
memory of his friend.

For me, Santayana in this sonnet captures a very deep idea within his lines.
Every death is a sorrow. But there are a rare few individuals close to us,
who filled our lives and the lives of all around them with life and laughter
and joy. Who touched us deeply with their wit and wonder, humor and
imagination, kindness and beauty. Those deaths hurt especially deeply
precisely because their lives enriched us so. Or, to turn around Santayana's
closing: we wouldn't be filled with so much sorrow at their deaths, if their
lives hadn't filled us with such laughter and joy.

There was a young lady of brilliant humor and wonderful imagination, founder
and moderator of an online humor quotations community myself and many of my
friends are a part of. In August, she went to the emergency room for severe
abdominal pain and was discovered to have a highly aggressive metatastic
colon cancer. Despite heroic measures, she died on Thursday, exactly a month
before her thirty-third birthday.

This poem is submitted to Minstrels in her memory.

Jeffrey Huo

Uncle and Auntie -- John Hegley

Guest poem submitted by Laura Simeon:

(Poem #1766) Uncle and Auntie my auntie gave me a colouring book and crayons I begin to colour after a while auntie leans over and says you've gone over the lines what do you think they're there for eh? some kind of statement is it? going to be a rebel are we? your auntie gives you a lovely present and you have to go and ruin it I begin to cry my uncle gives me a hanky and some blank paper do some doggies of your own he says I begin to colour when I have done he looks over and says they are all very good he is lying only some of them are -- John Hegley

I first encountered John Hegley on Minstrels last year (Poem #1584, Go and
play in the middle) and it was love at first sight.  On a trip to England
this summer I picked up a volume of his poetry entitled _Glad to Wear
Glasses_.  It was difficult to pick just one poem to submit, but I find this
one a delightful example of his unpretentious, razor sharp wit.  His website
may be viewed at: [broken link] http://www.johnhegley.co.uk.

Thank you,
Laura Simeon.

Foolish, not Social -- Sankha Ghosh

Guest poem sent in by Sarah Korah

(Poem #1765) Foolish, not Social Returning home do you feel you talked too much? Cleverness, do you feel very tired? Do you feel like sitting quiet in the blue cottage Burning incense, after a bath, on return? Do you feel like wearing a human body at last After taking off the demon's dress? Liquid time carries moisture into the room. Do you feel like an ananta-shayana on her floating raft? If you feel like that, come back. Cleverness, go away. Does it really matter? Let them say foolish, let them say unsocial. -- Sankha Ghosh

Note: ananta-shayana: Vishnu sleeping on the cosmic serpent Ananta.

I like people, and enjoy being outdoors. But on some weekends, I just long
to curl up with a book.. and have a cup of tea. Very antisocial and very
foolish - but quite enjoyable :-)

Sarah Korah

A brief bio of Sankha Ghosh can be found at
http://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/sankhaghosh.html

An Attempt At Unrhymed Verse -- Wendy Cope

Guest poem submitted by Monica Bathija:

(Poem #1764) An Attempt At Unrhymed Verse People tell you all the time, Poems do not have to rhyme. It's often better if they don't And I'm determined this one won't. Oh dear. Never mind, I'll start again. Busy, busy with my pen...cil. I can do it if I try-- Easy, peasy, pudding and gherkins. Writing verse is so much fun, Cheering as the summer weather, Makes you feel alert and bright, 'Specially when you get it more or less the way you want it. -- Wendy Cope

Here's one more by Wendy Cope, increasingly a favourite along with Sara
Teasdale thanks to Minstrels. Pencil and gherkins. Isn't that just so much
an effortless effort...

I loved it.

Monica.

My Little One -- Tennessee Williams

Guest poem sent in by Lakshmi Jagad

(Poem #1763) My Little One My little one whose tongue is dumb, whose fingers cannot hold to things, who is so mercilessly young, he leaps upon the instant things, I hold him not. Indeed, who could? He runs into the burning wood. Follow, follow if you can! He will come out grown a man and not remember whom he kissed, who caught him by the slender wrist and bound him by a tender yoke which, understanding not, he broke. -- Tennessee Williams

I don't think we have any of Tennessee Williams' work on Minstrels, do we?

Am not much of a critic (not yet) but I can say that I love this poem for its
faintly wistful charm. Not even sure what it is about it that reminds me of
lost innocence and the passage of time. Most of the times, we only remember
what we lost with time, rarely what we gained. The memory clings to the
negative!

Lakshmi

[Links]

Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Williams

Mitchell's "Beatrix is Three" makes a nice companion piece to today's poem:
  http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/810.html