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Night Poem From Khandro

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Khandro | 21:38 Sat 06th Feb 2021 | ChatterBank
28 Answers
The Donkey

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

G. K. CHESTERTON
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I have always, always loved that poem since I came upon it as a child. One envisages so much - and then a brilliant light bursts out of the last lines. Thank you, Khandro. :)
Mending Wall
BY ROBERT FROST
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Another lovely poem, woofgang. I'm a bit of a Robert Frost fan. My younger daughter, at the end of her gap year, wanted to go to USA again so she and I set off and toured New England (very adventurous - booking motels by the night etc.) I aimed for both of Frost's homes and it was a very worthwhile trip. Thank you, too.
Chesterton's poem is a rhyming version of a non-existent 'event'. Sounds good, but is a made-up feel-good dream.
I remember The Donkey from years ago.

Another Robert Frost fan here too.

Thanks for those.
Innit,love?
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Atheist, you must be the life & soul of all the parties you get invited to.
Have always liked that poem. Thanks.
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eleanor; Thank you sincerely; as a Mancunian (but not only for that) it brings a tear to my eye.
X
Khandro; now I realise why I never get invited to parties!
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Atheist: If you cheer up, I'll invite you to my next one :0)
Sorry, must be me, found those two poems ridiculously silly.

Just abstract thoughts in no particular order.

"Eskimo Nell" is a much better poetic work.
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/ must be me, found those two poems ridiculously silly./

Yes.
More likely The Emperors new clothes syndrome.
I find Chesterton and his ilk tricky. Interesting essays, perceptive aphorisms, etc., but at the back of my mind is his rampant anti-semitism and blatant racism.

I fear that the scales always tip against him.

There was a young lady from Ealing......
Oh Eleanor and of course Tony, thanks so much. ♥

That took me right back to the hours upon hours, days upon days and weeks spent at the Christie and the blanket of love,care,hope and will to survive that held everyone together.
Hi APG.

Who hung upside down from the ceiling,
she laughed out aloud as she weed on the crowd
And said what a wonderful feeling.
Sparklykid "Sorry, must be me, found those two poems ridiculously silly.
Just abstract thoughts in no particular order.
"Eskimo Nell" is a much better poetic work."

I suspect you are not sorry at all

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Night Poem From Khandro

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