'My selection of poems'

I read a book 'She walks in beauty'- a Woman's Journey Through Poems, a good book with good selection of poems by the author Ms. Caroline Kennedy who selected and introduced those poems therein. Before proceeding to poems one by one [I will try to post a poem a day like an apple a day! ] & before that, it is relevant to quote some excerpts from the author Ms. Caroline Kennedy. It inspired me. She says ---
"Women have always been at the center of poetry---throughout history we have been its inspiration, and more recently, women are the authors of the most profound poetry of our time. One of the oldest known poets in the world is a woman---Sappho---and her fragments of verse are as emotionally piercing today as the work of many modern writers. The love poetry of medieval troubadours, Renaissance playwrights, and Romantic poets (almost exclusively men) celebrated female beauty and mystery; conquest, heartbreak, and desire. In the 20th century, women poets gave voice to the pain and joy, relationship and loneliness, the work and the life of women. In today's world, as women struggle to balance work and family, to be good mothers and friends, to care for our children and our parents, poetry can help us accept our limitations, and inspire us to overcome them. In a world where language is too often used to manipulate, poems can help us find our authentic voice.

The book is divided broadly to encompass the milestones in a woman's life -----"Falling in Love,", "Breaking Up,"
"Marriage," "Motherhood," "Death and Grief" --- intended to be helpful. Other topics like "Friendship" or "Beauty." My favorite section is the one titled "How to Live." It includes the poems that started this book, and many others, each containing wisdom that has helped me on my own journey.

Collecting these poems reminded me that when I was younger, I thought my task was to forge ahead and succeed as an individual. But growing older has helped me realize that our success lies in our relationships--with the family we are born into, the friends we make, the people we fall in love with, and the children we have. Sometimes we struggle, sometimes we adapt, and at other times we set a course for others to follow. We are all leaders and followers in our lives. We are constantly learning from and teaching one another. We learn, too, that the most work is not done by those who seem the most important, but by those who care the most.

Women have always been the weavers of the world, literally and figuratively. We weave people together, we weave the experiences of life into patterns, and we weave our stories into words. Poetry has been one of the ways we do this. Poems distill our deepest emotions into a very few words---words that we can remember, carry with us, and share with others as we talk and weave the cloth of life."

With this introduction, let me start quoting the author's introduction of poems of Ms.Caroline Kennedy one by one:

Love's Philosophy
[Percy Bysshe Shelly]

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? ----

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me? :thumbsup
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"Renukamanian" {Comments are welcome}

 

Thank you 'Coffeelover' for your comments. First, I admired for the bunch of simile before going to the beautiful aspect of Love's philosophy, the main thing. For example, she quotes :

"See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another."
I feel that is the power of the Poet. It is nice you have posted a poem (I will study that) and I will also look forward a spate of poem from your side.

Bye and good wishes,

"Renukamanian"