Tag: National Poetry Month

Upside Down Thoughts

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

UPSIDE-DOWN THOUGHTS
by Margaret Penner Toews
from her book, FLY HIGH MY KITE

I sit and ponder on some things
that once my Saviour said:
The greatest isn’t one who leads
but one who is gladly led.
The greatest thinks about himself
as being truly small.
The poor in spirit really are
the richest ones of all.

The weak are strong. The first are last.
who dies to self shall live.
Who keeps is poor, but rich are those
who give and give and give.

His mathematics aren’t like
the numbers that we use–
But, Oh! how rich His promise if
His reckoning I choose!
The way He tallies might seem queer
and even make us frown,
But it is never He, but we
who are thinking “upside-down”.

As well as being a great poet and writer of devotional books, Margaret was a dear friend of mine. So I’ll post this verse in honor of her, as my contribution to National Poetry Month today.

Limericks Are Poems Too

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

A tribute to poetry, such as I’m doing during National Poetry Month, must include these witty little verses. I was surprised yesterday to discover, as I looked through my new/used book, The Best Loved Poems of the American People, that a limerick well known to most of us was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

There was a little girl, she had a little curl
right in the middle of her forehead;
and when she was good, she was very, very good,
and when she was bad she was horrid.

Now I’ll try my hand at one. Grab the air freshener. 😉

A hermit who lives by the zoo
claims bathing is no good for you.
“And if y’re really healthy
yer neighbors should smell ye
before ye come into view.”

Little Brown Beggars

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

For my contribution to National Poetry Month today, I’m going to write about a famous western Canadian poetess, Edna Jacques. (Pronounced Jakes) She was our Edgar Guest, a poet who wrote about home, often her prairie home during the Depression years. Altogether she wrote some 3,000 poems and published about half a dozen books of her verses, most of them available, as used copies, on Amazon.

Edna Jacques was born in Collingwood, Ontario in 1891 and moved with her family to a homestead SE of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan when she was eleven. She married Ernest Jamieson at age 20 and they had one daughter. If I recall correctly, he later had mental health problems, so Edna did not have an easy life — still she wrote cheerful verses about nature, the seasons and domestic life in general. Altogether she wrote some 3,000 poems and published about half a dozen books of her verses.

You can find a few online and I’d like to post one of her verses here, but she only died in Sept 1978. Which means that technically they are still under copyright and I don’t want legal problems. 🙂

Fire in the Wind

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 14 Comments

Hello everyone,

I read an interesting tidbit the other day from one of these life-coach-advisor types: If you have goals in life you really want to accomplish, or if you feel like your time management ability leaves something to be desired, leave the internet alone for the first three hours of each day. This includes cell phone calls and messages.

He claims most people who’ve achieved success in life don’t start their days online. They rather spend those first prime hours reading, meditating, focusing on goals and planning their day. Conversely, people who start their day hopping and skipping around the internet, reading e-mails, and leaving short comments or messages, tend to carry on through the day with the same lack of focus and end up not getting much done and feeling very unsatisfied.

I’ve decided to follow his advice and see how it works, as I’ve been very frustrated at my tendency to be distracted, or lack of self-discipline. So I tried it this morning: I left the computer alone and read some devotional thoughts about Easter — then focused on some needed housework.

The upside: I feel like I accomplished something today. 🙂
The downside: Morning is my prime writing time. If I got busy with other things, I don’t get to my computer until the evening. (Mind you, it dosn’t help that I have a jigsaw puzzle on the go right now. 😉 )

Now, on to the Fire Wind:

Today was warm and the wind gusting high at times — and it’s been extremely dry here this spring. I was outside for a few minutes around 5 pm and thought: a bad day for a fire. As I’ve mentioned, over the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to burn our “trash pile” of dead and/or pruned branches. I had a little fire last Thursday, but then the municipal Fire Ban went into effect and we can’t burn ANYTHING now. Small wonder, though: last week Saturday our volunteer firemen were called out to three big fires in this area, and we heard there was a bad one near Saskatoon last Saturday.

I came in from outside and puttered around a few minutes, then opened the west side window, since it was so warm — and I got a strong whiff of smoke. Looked out and saw smoke billowing into the sky;  it seemed to come from the farm across the field about a mile south of us. We decided to drive out and see what was happening — after all, the wind was blowing the smoke in our direction and that does make one nervous!  When we reached the road our farmer-neighbour went by in his tractor and headed across the field toward the fire.

We heard later that our son-in-law, on his way home from work, spotted the flames and called in the alarm, then went back to fight the fire. Volunteer firemen arrived and then the firetrucks, and we saw our neighbour going back and forth across the field next to that farm, plowing a fireguard to keep the fire from spreading this way in the high wind.

It burned for at least an hour and now, several hours later, there are still flashing lights at that farm. The fire was burning in their trees, so I imagine some firemen are watching to see it doesn’t flare up again.

I haven’t posted anything in honor of National Poetry Month for a few days, but thinking of fire makes me think of Aussie poet Frank Prem’s book DEVIL IN THE WIND, about the devastating bush fires he witnessed in 2009. This promises to be a fascinating account in poem form! It’s for sale now on Amazon. Here’s the dazzling cover — and the link (Amazon .com)

Devil In The Wind: Voices from the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires (Poetry Anthology Book 2) by [Prem, Frank]

 

A Rusty Nail

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

In honour of Good Friday, this poem by Robert W Service will be my contribution today to National Poetry Month:

A Rusty Nail

I ran a nail into my hand,
The wound was hard to heal;
So bitter was the pain to stand
I thought how it would feel,
To have spikes thrust through hands and feet,
Impaled by hammer beat.

Then hoisted on a cross of oak
Against the sullen sky,
With all about the jeering folk
Who joyed to see me die;
Die hardly in insensate heat,
With bleeding hands and feet.

Yet was it not that day of Fate,
Of cruelty insane,
Climaxing centuries of hate
That woke our souls to pain?
And are we not the living seed
Of those who did the deed!

Of course, with thankful heart I know
We are not fiends as then;
And in a thousand years or so
We may be gentle men.
But it has cost a poisoned hand,
And pain beyond a cry,
To make me strangely understand
A Cross against the sky.

Robert William Service