WADDINGTON, Miriam

…..
keep bees and grow asparagus.

listen to the wind

instead of the politicians,

make up your own stories

and believe them if you want to live

the good life
…..


Crazy Time

When the birds riot

and the airplanes walk,

when the busy sit,

and the silent talk;

When the rains blow

and the winds pour,

when the sky is a land

and the sea its shore,

When shells grow snails

and worms eat toads,

when winters chase summers

on upside-down roads,

We'll sit by our fires

and warm our hands,

and tell old tales

of bygone lands.

Someone Who Used To Have Someone

There used to be someone

to whom I could say do you

love me and be sure that the

answer would always be yes;

there used to be someone to

whom I could telephone and

be sure when the operator

said do you accept the charges

the answer would always be yes;

but now there is no one to ask

no one to telephone from the

strangeness of cities in the

lateness of nightness now there

is no-one always now no-one

no someone no never at all.

Can you imagine what it is

like to live in a world where

there is no-one now always no

no-one and never some some-

one to ask do you love me and

be sure that the answer would

always be yes? I live in a world

where only the billboards are

always they’re twenty feet tall

and they circle the city they

coax and caress me they heat

me and cool me they promise and

plead me with colour and comfort

you get to sleep with me

tonight (the me being ovaltine)

but who wants to get to sleep

with a cup of ovaltine what

kind of sleep is that for some-

one who used to have someone

to ask do you love me and

be sure that the answer

would always be yes?

Thou didst say me

Late as last summer

Thou didst say me, love

I choose you, you, only you.

oh the delicate delicate

serpent of your lips

the golden lie bedazzled

me with wish and flash

of joy and I was fool.

I was fool, bemused

bedazed by summer, still

bewitched and wandering

in murmur hush in greenly

sketched-in fields

I was, I was, so sweet

I was, so honied with

your gold of love and love

and still again more love.

Late as last autumn

thou didst say me, dear

my doxy, I choose you and

always you, thou didst pledge

me love and through the redplumed

weeks soberly

I danced upon your words

and garlanded these

tender dangers.

Year curves to ending now

and thou dost say me, wife

I choose another love, and oh

the delicate delicate

serpent of your mouth

stings deep, and bitter

iron cuts and shapes

my death, I was so fool.

Parting

All the fires we lit are dead,

But still the quiet ashes fall;

The bitter wind frets overhead

And weaves long shadows on the wall

I sit here lonely and grow mad

To count the years that come and go,

I ponder the farewell we had

In the wind and stinging snow.

All the things I loved were lost

Once upon a mountainside

In a bitter night of frost

When the wind blew tall and wide;

No matter all the words he said,

No matter that he kissed my hands -

On that night my love froze dead

Where the marble statue stands.

While all about us thick snow fell

High upon the mountainside,

I said my weary last farewell

For the sake of soul and pride

Too much of good and more of bad

That in a short swift year may grow.

- All lost with that farewell we had

In the wind and stinging snow.

Of Dreams

How many dreams are loosened and torment

The unrequited solitary mind,

Like fragrances that fall from women's hair

Whose shadowy faces can not be defined,

Or vivid truths refuting argument -

Such lingering dreams are there

That constantly besiege the lonely mind.

How many dreams are dreamed and all unknown,

Beyond all purpose, outside any end?

Dim flowing out of the primeval urge -

Or weapons wrought by weaklings to defend

Who cannot build rude barricades of stone;

So strangely dreams emerge

To plague and haunt the mind until its end.

Erosion

There is a certain wear and tear

That comes from living merely

And things that once had seemed so fair

Are ugly now or nearly.

There is a certain coarsening

As mind shrinks at the edges

What is there worth remembering

Of youth save fun in hedges?

We never read the hidden look

Upon the face held coolly

We never read within a book

What was intended fully.

For life grows down and love wears thin

It comes from living merely

What if the heart still grieves within?

The mind's at peace, or nearly.