Break, break, break

Break, break, break,
    On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
    The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
    That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
    That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
    To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
    And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
    At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
    Will never come back to me.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

ICU

ICU

Peekaboo. Last game for a while.

I open my eyes, smile,

and see but cannot touch

your hands, the only part

awake while you sleep.

They're picking apart the kite-string

of your life, even as you rise

out of reach

like a balloon, like a blessing.

I think you're dreaming

of a distant beach

building castles for the waves to live in.

I see you're

so quiet people'd think

you almost weren't breathing

with the drip silent in your arm

a string about to fray

but I can't see

for the life of me

the far-off

places

to which

you

stray

By Grace Chua

Lament

LAMENT

Listen, children:

Your father is dead.

From his old coats

I'll make you little jackets:

I'll make you little trousers

From his old pants.

There'll be in his pockets

Things he used to put there,

Keys and pennies

Covered with tobacco;

Dan shall have the pennies

To save in his bank;

Anne shall have the keys

To make a pretty noise with.

Life must go on,

And the dead be forgotten.

Life Must Go On,

Though good men die;

Anne, eat your breakfast.

Dan, take your medicine;

Life must go on;

I forget just why.

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Imagination

Imagination

(variation of an old Irish folk hymn)

I am the salmon vaulting up the stream,

Wind’s force and wave’s form in the sea:

I am the spark igniting thought from dream.

I am rumbling surf, the oxen’s steam,

I wait on a rock for carrion, gild the tree –

I am the salmon vaulting up the stream.

I am the frail rose in the hedge, the gleam

Of a mad boar’s gnash, a fish-flick – see

I am the spark igniting thought from dream.

I am the low lake where the mountains seem

Scattered by winds – I hold all arts in me:

I am the salmon vaulting up the stream.

I am the word of power, the cutting beam

From the edge of war, mind’s energy –

I am the spark igniting thought from dream.

Who brings the tablets to the tribes, the scheme

Of sundown and moonphase, if not me?

I am the salmon vaulting up the stream,

I am the spark igniting thought from dream.

By Diana Wynne Jones

Unveiling - Linda Pastan

In the cemetery
a mile away
from where we used to live,
my aunts and mother
my father and uncles lie
in two long rows,
almost the way
they used to sit around
the long planked table
at family dinners.
And walking beside
the graves today, down
one straight path
and up the next,
I don't feel sad, exactly,
just left out a bit,
as if they kept
from me the kind
of grown-up secret
they used to share
back then, something
I'm not quite ready yet
to learn.

[Qian Ling]

Song in Space

When man first flew beyond the sky
He looked back into the world's blue eye.
Man said: What makes your eye so blue?
Earth said: The tears in the oceans do.
Why are the seas so full of tears?
Because I've wept so many thousand years.
Whay do you weep as you dance through space?
Because I am the Mother of the Human Race.


Adrian Mitchell


[Rachel]