Poems that make you think of Trip and T'Pol

[Alelou]

Just generally romantic, so why not?

Anniversary: One Fine Day
by Walter McDonald

Who would sit through a plot as preposterous as ours,
married after years apart? Chance meetings may work
early in stories, but at operas, darling, in Texas?
A bachelor pilot, I fled Laredo for the weekend,
stopping at the opera from boredom, music I least expected.
Of all the zoos and honky-tonks south of Dallas,
who would believe I would find you there on the stairs,

Madame Butterfly about to start? When you moved
four years before, I lost all hope of dying happy,
dogfighting my way through pilot training, reckless,
in terror only when I saw the man beside you.
I had pictured him rich and splendid in my mind
a thousand times, thinking you married with babies
somewhere in Tahiti, Spain, the south of France.

When I saw the lucky devil I hated-only your date,
but I didn't know-he stopped gloating, watching you wave,
turned old and bitter like the crone in Shangri La.
Destiny happens only in plays and cheap movies-
but here, here on my desk is your photo, decades later,
and I hear sounds from another room of our house,
and when I rise amazed and follow, you are there.

"Anniversary: One Fine Day" by Walt McDonald, from Blessings the Body Gave. © Ohio State University Press, 1998. Reprinted with permission in The Writer's Almanac: http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message ... c8576e82d7

[panyasan]

To celebrate the Eurovision song contest, I bring you a Dutch love song "Avond", meaning "Tonight" by the old troubadour, Boudewijn de Groot. Somehow the lyrics reminded me of Trip and T'Pol.

Nu hoef je nooit je jas meer aan te trekken
(now you never have to put on your coat)
En te hopen dat je licht het doet
(and to hope that the light (of your bike) is working)
Laat buiten de stormwind nu maar razen in het donker
(Let the stormy wind rage now in the darkness outside)
Want binnen is het warm en licht en goed
(Because inside it's warm and light and good)
Hand in hand naar buiten kijken waar de regen valt
(Hand in hand looking ouside where the rain falls)
Ik zie het vuur van hoop en twijfel in je ogen
(I see the fire of hope and doubt in your eyes)
En ik ken je diepste angst
(And I know your deepest fear).

refr.: Want je kunt niets zeker weten en alles gaat voorbij
Maar ik geloof, ik geloof, ik geloof, ik geloof, ik geloof in jou en mij
(You never know something for sure and everything will pass,
but I believe in you and me)

En als je 's morgens opstaat ben ik bij je
(If you raise in the morning, I am with you)
En misschien heb ik al thee gezet
(And even made you some tea)
En als de zon schijnt buiten gaan we lopen door de duinen
(If the sun is shining we are going for a walk through the dunes)
En als het regent gaan we terug in bed
(And if it rains, back to bed)
Uren langzaam wakker worden, zwevend door de tijd
(Hours waking up slowly, floating through the time)
Ik zie het licht door de gordijnen en ik weet
(I see the light through the curtains and I know)
Het verleden geeft geen zekerheid
(The past doesn't give security)

(Chorus)

Ik doe de lichten uit en de kamer wordt nu donker
(I turn out the lights and the rooms becomes dark)
Een straatlantaarn buiten geeft wat licht
(A street lantern outside gives some light)
En de dingen in de kamer worden vrienden die gaan slapen
(And the things in the room become friends that go to sleep)
De stoelen staan te wachten op 't ontbijt
(And the chairs are waiting for breakfast)
En morgen word ik wakker met de geur van brood en koffie
(and tomorrow I awake with the smell of bread and coffee)
De glans van 't gouden zonlicht in jouw haar
(the shining of the golden sunlight in your hair)

En de dingen in de kamer, ik zeg ze welterusten
(And the things in the room, I say goodnight to them)
Vanavond gaan we slapen en morgen zien we wel
(Tonight we are going to sleep and tomorrow we will see)
Maar de dingen in de kamer zouden levenloze dingen zijn zonder jou
(But the things in the room with be lifeless things without you)

Chorus

[Alelou]

That's lovely.

[Asso]

That's lovely.

Immensely!

[panyasan]

The great thing about this song is also the chorus. When the singer is giving a concert you see all this couples looking each other in the eye and singing "I believe, I believe in you and me."

[Alelou]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB7C_8vk ... re=related

Pretty music, too. Thanks, Panyasan.

[Little Red]

Wow! You guys have such wonderful poetic taste.

My T'Pol has always come a little from this, by Mary Oliver:

"Wild Geese"

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-- Little Red

[evcake]

being to timelessness as it's to time
e e cummings

being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love will end:
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land

(do lovers suffer?all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad?only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear:
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

- -do lovers love?why then to heaven with hell.
whatever sages say and fools,all's well

[Alelou]

Both lovely poems.

I'm not sure I ever read a poem by Mary Oliver I didn't like.