A surinam cherry from our hedge. The birds keep stealing them.
Tweetspeak Poetry has issued an all-inclusive (that means to you, too) dare to commit W.B. Yeats’ poem “The Stolen Child” during National Poetry Month. Some suggest that it helps to turn the words of a poem into a song when you’re trying to memorize it. No need to with this one. Tweetspeak has already posted a couple of pre-made beauties, and I’ve listened to The Waterboys’ haunting version several times. I also wrote the poem out by hand and practiced reciting it during a long car ride and several times one night during a period of sleeplessness. I’ve partnered with my friend and now poetry buddy for the month, Michelle Ortega, to hold each other accountable to complete one stanza a week. Michelle found that sketching out the poem and creating “funny” hand and arm motions were helpful.
So, do you dare?
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Oh, fun!
I had trouble remembering that Sleuth Wood was *in* the lake (so now I’d like to see this wood-in-a-lake).
Sandra, love that cherry badge.
(And, Michelle, great to see you here.)
I had trouble remember that the rocky highland dipped and didn’t lie. And I had trouble saying “drowsy water-rat.” It kept coming out as “drowsy rotor-rat.”
Great job, Sandra!
And what a lovely poem – I envisioned myself as that “human child” venturing into a fairy land of wonder.
Blessings!
Thanks, Martha. Those cherries would have enticed me. That cherry up above? They told me they were edible and very sweet. They said to wait until they were more purple. I waited. I tried one. I spit it out.