Whilst cooking a roast this afternoon (chicken - I made the yorkshire puddings from scratch) my mum had left Radio 4 on in the background. I have no idea what programme it was, but all of a sudden I was listening to a poem I haven't heard in years. It took me back to a time when my dad would read me his favorite poetry and then being the precocious 12 year old that I was, I would read them out in English class, much to the amusement of my peers (yet another nail in my social coffin).I remember this one in particular, remember thinking how beautiful it was, how it flowed. I didn't get it at the time, never having dared even talk to a boy, not really knowing or even comprehending how age or love or regret affect a person, maybe I still don't, but I still think its one of the most evocative poems I've ever read.
Edna St. Vincent Millay - Sonnet XLIII
"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more."
And on a lighter note, here are those puddings... There's a homemaker in me yet...
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