Christina's World

I love art. More specifically, I love paintings.
I especially love those painters who mainly use people as their subjects. Because it is so interesting to imagine the untold stories that hide within the colours and brush strokes.

One of my favourite paintings is "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth.


The first time I saw this picture I was absolutely intrigued by it. Something about it really struck me; I just wanted to stare at it and wonder.... What did it mean? Why is that Christina's world?
I later found out it was inspired by his neighbour who had polio. (Read more here.)
I almost wish I hadn't found that out. But I don't really regret knowing the truth. Because for me speculation is never as satisfying as fact. But still, there is something about not knowing... and being able to give your own meaning to paintings or poems.

Do you prefer to know the meaning behind things or are you content to see in them what you will?

Full Moon

By Elinor Wylie

My bands of silk and miniver

Momently grew heavier;

The black gauze was beggarly thin;

The ermine muffled mouth and chin;

I could not suck the moonlight in.

Harlequin in lozenges

Of love and hate, I walked in these

Striped and ragged rigmaroles;

Along the pavement my footsoles

Trod warily on living coals.

Shouldering the thoughts I loathed,

In their corrupt disguises clothed,

Morality I could not tear

From my ribs, to leave them bare

Ivory in silver air.

There I walked, and there I raged;

The spiritual savage caged

Within my skeleton, raged afresh

To feel, behind a carnal mesh,

The clean bones crying in the flesh.

 

(A lovely little poem I found at poetryoutloud.org. I had never heard of her before but she is such a wonderful writer! xxx)

Invaded

This, my dears, is why a blog is not supposed to be a part of a relationship. My just now ex was trying to communicate through my blogs. I have changed both of the url's which will hopefully keep him away and all of you here. I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience. I have gotten so accostumed to my urls that it is almost sad to part with them. I hope this doesn't cause any problems for any of you.
Wish you well
xxx

Just some Snow Quotes that I stumbled upon...

... And thought you might enjoy. You are lovely, dears. xxx

Lo. sifted through the winds that blow, Down comes the soft and silent snow, White petals from the flowers that grow In the cold atmosphere. ~

George W. Bungay

~ Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. ~

John Ruskin

~ In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago. ~

Christina Rossetti

~ Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back. ~

William Shakespeare

~ Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies, Mocks the slow sight, and hides the gloomy skies; The fleecy clouds their chilly bosoms bare, And shed their substance on the floating air. ~

George Crabbe

~ Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow. ~

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

~ Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof when your own doorstep is unclean. ~

Confucius

~ Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know ~

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

I am currently reading Selected Poems by T. S. Eliot and I have simply fallen in love with him.
I had never read much, if any, of his poems but from the first stanza I was hooked! Isn't it just wonderful discovering "new" poets?

So far, one of my favourite Eliot poems has been "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" which is one of his most famous poems.
It is a rather long poem so I will only share an excerpt from it. (This excerpt starts {and ends} somewhere in the middle of the poem. I chose this particular section because I amazingly found three images on weheartit that go with it.)



















Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?














And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
___________________________

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
















{Pictures found here, here, and here.}

You are invasions,
skin deep molecules of sun.
I
am
hapless.
I was once Happy
brilliance hidden under windowsills
gentle curtained silks lining my days,
though it never seemed that way.
If only I could see me now...
(Hello again, dears. Just a reminder that any authors wanting to join our blog can email me sernityr101@sbcglobal.net or just comment below to leave your email address. I saw the most amazing thing the other day that I thought might inspire someone. I was stopped at a red light and in the lawn beside us there was a water spout. I have no idea why it was there, but it appeared to have been on recently because...
There was ice, frozen and floating,
a stream in midair...
.... And it was beautiful...
Xxx)

For Ever

{Ever, this is for you. It was inspired by your comment on this post. Do you remember? You later included it one of your lovely posts but what I didn't tell you was that it had also inspired me to write this poem. I never posted it but I thought it seemed fitting to finally post it on here.}

"I'm falling apart," you say
I will put you back together, I vow
I will add some things to you
Beautiful things

In your eyes I will infuse a poem by Plath
That is sad and delicate
and someday some boy will endeavor to make them happy again
(perhaps he will suceed)

In your voice, your words I will weave a
symphony of sounds by Tchaikovsky
Arpeggios by Chopin, by Debussy

In your bones
You will have a strength, a wiseness
Dickens & Austen
But also a touch of Carroll
(We cannot be complete without some whimsy, some humour).

Your tears will fall as snowflakes,
Your laughter will plant seeds that grow into wildflowers

And finally, in your heart & soul you will have
a great capacity for feeling, for loyalty, for love
But I cannot get these for you from anywhere
No, you must find these yourself:
You must be unique
You must be wholly yourself
as well as part of everything else