So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by William Blake’s poem, Eternity.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

I AM THE LITTLE LIFE

I am the little life.
My heart is sometimes torn.
On my skin and in my bones,
are carved Time’s little reckonings.

I am the little life.
My heart is sometimes whole.
Today, I am an idle cloud.
Tomorrow—the sky’s eternity.

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OUR INSPIRATION

ETERNITY
by William Blake

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.

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Notes:

William Blake, 1757-1827. Born in London England. English Romanticism
Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-blake
Link to Poem: https://poets.org/poem/eternity

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One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by William Butler Yeats’ poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

WORD OF OLYMPUS

Child of Olympus,
you are a word that falls like rain.

Snows melt and rush headlong for the sea,
past rock and fallen tree,
tumbling from the mountaintop.

In nature we find our tidings.
Find your lesson in the river’s tide.

It spills you out to sea,
into a buoyant, breathless stillness—
under a wine-red sky,
you tread water and to turn to look
at all the world in miniature.

And the ocean swells like an enraged beast,
as if Amphitrite had loosed her husband’s cart.

You drink the briny deep
and sink into her slumbering, loving clutches,
having spent your patrimony on the broken crags
of this awful, delightful, bequeathed world.
How will you accounts be settled or will they be settled at all?
The market, too, is washed away with the tide.

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OUR INSPIRATION

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
by William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

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Notes:
William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939. Born in Sandymount, Ireland.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats
Link to Poem: https://poets.org/poem/lake-isle-innisfree

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The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

Anton Chekhov

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!