Poetry Thursday

Well, I followed prompt and carted my kids to Barnes & Noble's poetry section today. (They are out of school for conferences today and tomorrow.) A very generous gift card from my lovely ladies at Bible Study was burning a hole in my pocket so I took the plunge and bought, "Poem A Day - 366 poems old and new" so that I'd have ready amunition to participate in Poetry Thursdays.

So here is the poem on the page marked "May 18". Fitting as I'm writing from the suburbs of Portland, Oregon - the City of Roses. I love the capital letters in this poem - giving seeming importance to everyday things. Perhaps this is the message, the importance is in the ordinary things like bread and books and roses as well as the abstract ideas of paradise, sovereignty and treasure.

from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam of Naishapur
translated by Edward Fitzgerald (March 31, 1809 - June 14, 1883)

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

"How sweet is mortal Sovranty!" - think some:
Others - "How blest the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of distant Drum!

Look to the Rose that blows about u s - "Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow:
"At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
"Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes - or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two - is gone.