Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Boxing Day 2012

And so this is the day after Christmas....and in the "what have we done?" spirit it is time to think about New Year's resolutions, like blogging more, and also about who we are and what we want to do in the world. In that spirit, I offer up this poem I recently came across, from (Pulitzer winner!) Edwin Arlington Robinson:

DEAR FRIENDS

Dear friends, reproach me not for what I do,
Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say
That I am wearing half my life away
For bubble-work that only fools pursue.
And if my bubbles be too small for you,
Blow bigger then your own: the games we play
To fill the frittered minutes of a day,
Good glasses are to read the spirit through.

And whoso reads may get him some shrewd skill;
And some unprofitable scorn resign,
To praise the very thing that he deplores;
So, friends (dear friends), remember, if you will,
The shame I win for singing is all mine,
The gold I miss for dreaming is all yours.

-- from Edwin Arlington Robinson, Poems, Everyman Library copyright 2007, p. 19


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Linda, good takeoff of the Beatles' song. Interesting if not obscurish poem. I think I relate to it. (I'm probably all wrong in my interpretation, in school my teachers used to say "What did the author mean? Don't worry, there are no wrong answers." At that point I knew I was sunk. The next thing I heard from the teacher, upon hearing my interpretation, was usually "No, that's wrong." Anyway, I have my life and live it my way and if anyone else has a problem with it, then that is their problem. Dad.