Wednesday 29 April 2015

Y is for Yearning.....and Yeats





Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939)


I don't think I can get up the nerve required to summarise Yeats in two lines.  


I was introduced to Yeats as a child by a slightly older, teenager friend; the first poem I read was For Anne Gregory, and I still remember it verbatim. Yeats - so uber fab that Yeatsian is an adjective.  So utterly captivating as to be beyond description. Such a Maestro of Maestros that when he died Auden wrote - 'Earth, receive an honoured guest/William Yeats is laid to rest.'



There are a hundred favourites, but today it's his The Lake Isle of Innisfree that's the prompt.



Making Peace


I would leave, go to some deserted nook
- maybe an unknown, old mansabdar’s* tomb
tumbled stones now beside a dried-up brook
and build nothing there, just find some room


and sit below the small dome where pigeons
fill afternoons with their iridescent throats;
and conflicts recede, greed and need, religions,
images of screaming children in some remote


city but close enough to scorch tears dry.
Dusk drops there a broken dragonfly wing
tender and translucent. The light leaps high
in a flaming mauve, a last, frantic fling.




* a military official in the Indian Mughal court (1527-1857)




Would you have to leave if you wanted some peace and quiet?  Or are you okay right where you are, like me, panicking sometimes but then calming down with a bit of Yeats and managing to get back on track? :) One more and it's done!!  




Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2015



7 comments:

  1. transluscent is the memory of schoolgirl tome containing these words that glance upon my mind differently this dawn.

    zannierose
    A-Z

    ReplyDelete
  2. I cannot leave, my presence is required. I find solace in a book, just words take me away when life gets painful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know, DG. Books are my escape route too, when I can't go away.

      Delete
  3. I am in a wonderful place. I don't need to "go" anywhere but where I am.
    Love what you did with the A to Z Challenge. I may have to go back and read other days when time permits!
    Donna Smith
    AtoZ
    <a href="http://mainelywrite.blogspot.com>Mainely Write</a>

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm okay right here. I love your descriptions of Yeats. Lovely post.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeats was an awesome poet! Sometimes an escape sounds nice but I'm okay here. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fortunately I can find my own peace where I am, usually through music.

    ReplyDelete