The Velveteen Rabbit...
07/05/08 07:24 Filed in: Poetry | Children's Literature
A short while ago, a friend sent me a passage from a children's story called "The Velveteen Rabbit". They had heard their five-year-old daughter reading it to a young friend and they, like me, were struck by its profundity of its emotional wisdom so I'm reproducing it here.
I've included a couple of other pieces too. There is a poem from "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" – I did not really enjoy this book but the poem says so much that's true about love for me. There are two other poems: "To Love is Not to Possess" by James Kavanaugh. Perhaps this is not my all-time favourite but I like the idea of love free from possessiveness and childish dependency that resonates in its words.
Finally there is another poem by Michael Shepherd called "Love's Grammar Book." Shepherd is an English poet from Lancashire (Born 1929) of whom I had not heard until very recently. His work is prolific. I'll stow this one away in my kitbag! I love it. It's funny, clever and insightful too. I hope you enjoy these pieces as I did.
From "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams (1929)
"What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When someone loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," asked the Rabbit, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
From Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
Love is a temporary madness,
it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.
That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.
To Love is Not to Possess by James Kavanaugh
To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit..
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are:
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another – and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are – and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.
Love's Grammar Book by Michael Shepherd
I love you.
That's it, really.
all there is to say.
sums it up.
in a nutshell.
the long and the short of it.
the be-all and the end-all.
I know what I mean;
you know what I mean.
more or less.
we know what I mean.
most of the time.
But though love's sometimes
best defined by silence
it may be good
to say a few good words
since you, and love, have taught me
love's grammar-book:
I love 'love'.
though love as noun is difficult to define.
I love love as an adjective:
love's.. just lovely, isn't it?
But most of all
I love love as verb.
and this I know:
this my love's active voice:
I love. (you) .
I loved you. How well I remember.
I have loved you. I'm so grateful for that.
I shall love you. That I promise.
and when all is done, I'll be proud to remember that
I shall have loved you;
and that
we shall have loved.
And in love's passive voice,
I'm so blessed that
I am loved;
rejoice in the hope that
I shall be loved
and promise that
you shall be loved.
I'll always be blessed that
I have been loved.
and that I can say
you shall have been loved (forever) .
Then there are love's moods
as they're called in grammar:
the indicative - I love you; do you love me?
the exciting imperative mood:
'Love me, do - I promise I'll be true...' or better,
'Love me! Now! ';
the subjunctive mood
which is rather subtler in other languages:
'Don't leave me, please';
'May we love each other till we die...';
'If only you were to love me
as much as I love you..'
And then, those other parts of speech
that few of us get around to sorting out
but all lurking there under 'amo'
in the Latin grammar-book of love:
The perfect infinitive:
'It is better - to have loved - and lost - than
not -to have loved -at all';
that great feeling
called future infinitive:
to be about to love;
and that dizzy future infinitive passive:
to be about to be loved;
the gerund:
'Oh the loving and the kissing
and the kissing and the loving...';
that cautious supine:
'in order to love...';
the passive imperative -
the parents' wish (with qualifications) :
'let her be loved'...
and that loaded gerundive:
'fit to be loved'...
All of which, I hope, leaves you
in that state curiously undefined
by grammar -
a sort of active gerundive:
'fit to love' - to love
love's grammar-book
in full
for love conquers all, it's said,
even a hatred of grammar.
I've included a couple of other pieces too. There is a poem from "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" – I did not really enjoy this book but the poem says so much that's true about love for me. There are two other poems: "To Love is Not to Possess" by James Kavanaugh. Perhaps this is not my all-time favourite but I like the idea of love free from possessiveness and childish dependency that resonates in its words.
Finally there is another poem by Michael Shepherd called "Love's Grammar Book." Shepherd is an English poet from Lancashire (Born 1929) of whom I had not heard until very recently. His work is prolific. I'll stow this one away in my kitbag! I love it. It's funny, clever and insightful too. I hope you enjoy these pieces as I did.
From "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams (1929)
"What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When someone loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," asked the Rabbit, "or bit by bit?"
From Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
Love is a temporary madness,
it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.
That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.
To Love is Not to Possess by James Kavanaugh
To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit..
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are:
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another – and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are – and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.
Love's Grammar Book by Michael Shepherd
I love you.
That's it, really.
all there is to say.
sums it up.
in a nutshell.
the long and the short of it.
the be-all and the end-all.
I know what I mean;
you know what I mean.
more or less.
we know what I mean.
most of the time.
But though love's sometimes
best defined by silence
it may be good
to say a few good words
since you, and love, have taught me
love's grammar-book:
I love 'love'.
though love as noun is difficult to define.
I love love as an adjective:
love's.. just lovely, isn't it?
But most of all
I love love as verb.
and this I know:
this my love's active voice:
I love. (you) .
I loved you. How well I remember.
I have loved you. I'm so grateful for that.
I shall love you. That I promise.
and when all is done, I'll be proud to remember that
I shall have loved you;
and that
we shall have loved.
And in love's passive voice,
I'm so blessed that
I am loved;
rejoice in the hope that
I shall be loved
and promise that
you shall be loved.
I'll always be blessed that
I have been loved.
and that I can say
you shall have been loved (forever) .
Then there are love's moods
as they're called in grammar:
the indicative - I love you; do you love me?
the exciting imperative mood:
'Love me, do - I promise I'll be true...' or better,
'Love me! Now! ';
the subjunctive mood
which is rather subtler in other languages:
'Don't leave me, please';
'May we love each other till we die...';
'If only you were to love me
as much as I love you..'
And then, those other parts of speech
that few of us get around to sorting out
but all lurking there under 'amo'
in the Latin grammar-book of love:
The perfect infinitive:
'It is better - to have loved - and lost - than
not -to have loved -at all';
that great feeling
called future infinitive:
to be about to love;
and that dizzy future infinitive passive:
to be about to be loved;
the gerund:
'Oh the loving and the kissing
and the kissing and the loving...';
that cautious supine:
'in order to love...';
the passive imperative -
the parents' wish (with qualifications) :
'let her be loved'...
and that loaded gerundive:
'fit to be loved'...
All of which, I hope, leaves you
in that state curiously undefined
by grammar -
a sort of active gerundive:
'fit to love' - to love
love's grammar-book
in full
for love conquers all, it's said,
even a hatred of grammar.
|
Poetry by Rumi
07/05/08 07:09 Filed in: Poetry
I love this poem.
What is it that beats inside me now?
Only the rhythm of your blood
only the waves of the ocean
into which you have cast me.
Knowing not how to swim,
I am at peace
Drowning without choice
In these unknown waters
Alone
Bereft of all things
save this one gift
to be so emptied
as to become myself
the cup of longing
filled to the brim…….
Many …have I known,
Yet none have known me
Never has one knocked on this door
Which you have pierced and entered
Before I even thought
To lay a stone across the way
against your coming.
What is it that you offer me,
That my being opens,
as a tide turning,
as a flowers face
knowing the direction of the sun?
Nothing can you give me.
Yet all my being
Opens
Without thought of price
And gives itself to You.
What is it that beats inside me now?
Only the rhythm of your blood
only the waves of the ocean
into which you have cast me.
Knowing not how to swim,
I am at peace
Drowning without choice
In these unknown waters
Alone
Bereft of all things
save this one gift
to be so emptied
as to become myself
the cup of longing
filled to the brim…….
Many …have I known,
Yet none have known me
Never has one knocked on this door
Which you have pierced and entered
Before I even thought
To lay a stone across the way
against your coming.
What is it that you offer me,
That my being opens,
as a tide turning,
as a flowers face
knowing the direction of the sun?
Nothing can you give me.
Yet all my being
Opens
Without thought of price
And gives itself to You.