Poetry Friday

Surprise! I'm actually participating in Poetry Friday, which I think I've only done once in my two years of blogging. But I don't know - I'm just feeling it today. Even with the 83 degrees of predicted warmth today, there's still a nip in the air that prompted me to wrap my pale pink pashmina around my neck this morning. I sit with some green tea, sipping and hoping that my stomach will soon be ready for more Pumpkin Spice Lattes...or perhaps a Grazin' Angus burger with prosciutto and Gorgonzola (Wednesday night's dinner this week)... The time just seems right to share some of my favorite poetry.

I'm sure I've mentioned at some point that I'm a passionate fan of anything Walt Whitman put on paper. I discovered him at that impressionable age of 14, thanks to Dead Poets Society, and I've never been the same since. As you know his poems can be rather long so I've excerpted only the first three stanzas of "A Song of Joys":

Song of Joys

by Walt Whitman

O to make the most jubilant song!

Full of music — full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!

Full of common employments — full of grain and trees.

O for the voices of animals —

O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!

O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!

O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

O the joy of my spirit — it is uncaged — it darts like lightning!

It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,

I will have thousands of globes and all time.

I love that. My spirit is uncaged.

Eat, drink, and have lovely long weekend!