Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Tuesday Night Post

Hey Folks,
Its been a bit of a bumpy past couple of weeks over here, so that's the reason for not having many posts as of late. I am training for a 5k coming up in about a month. I can run two miles no problem and it's a great feeling! I am determined to continue losing weight this semester/school year until I reach my goal weight (still about  22 pounds away...)
In the midst of training and running, I have also been involved with writing and analyzing tons of short stories (thanks to my creative writing/intro to fiction course).
Take a peak at this article. I thought it interesting enough to repost and I agree with their conclusions just from my own experience of training and running.
 Enjoy!
http://www.fastcompany.com/1783263/the-creative-brain-on-exercise

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Not a Song, But a Poem (or Two or Three)

October! Don't you just love it? If is officially fall in TN and the poor little leaves are starting to dry up and fall from the trees. Here, everything seems to be warm and gold and red and orange; simply lovely. Here are three of my favourite poems about October.

Happy Fall, everyone! 

"O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away."
-   Robert Frost, October


"October" by John Updike 
The month is amber,
Gold, and brown. 
Blue ghosts of smoke
Float through the town. 

Great V's of geese 
Honk overhead, 
And maples turn a fiery red. 

Frost bites the lawn. 
The stars are slits 
In a black cat's eye 
Before she spilts. 

At last, small witches, 
Goblins, hags, 
And pirates armed 
With paper bags, 

Their costumes hinged
On saftey pins, 
Go hanut a night 
Of pumpkin grins. 


"Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley 
I


O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
 
  Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 
 
  Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou         5
  Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 
 
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, 
  Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 
 
  Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill  10
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
  With living hues and odours plain and hill; 
 
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; 
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear! 
 
II


Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
  15
  Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, 
 
  Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread 
On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 
  Like the bright hair uplifted from the head  20
 
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge 
  Of the horizon to the zenith's height, 
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 
 
  Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,  25
  Vaulted with all thy congregated might 
 
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear! 
 
III


Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
 
  The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,  30
Lull'd by the coil of his crystàlline streams, 
 
  Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay, 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
  Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 
 
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers  35
  So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou 
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 
 
  Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
  The sapless foliage of the ocean, know  40
 
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, 
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! 
 
IV


If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
 
  If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share  45
 
  The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even 
  I were as in my boyhood, and could be 
 
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 
  As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed  50
Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven 
 
  As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! 
  I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 
 
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd  55
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud. 
 
V


Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
 
  What if my leaves are falling like its own? 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 
 
  Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,  60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, 
  My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! 
 
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, 
  Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth; 
And, by the incantation of this verse,  65
 
  Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! 
  Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth 
 
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, 
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?