Ode to Coffee

Every time I drink a Cup
My Sleepy brain gets Fired Up.
Without Coffee There'd be no Words
And I'd be Nothing but a ... Nerd!
~ Meg North

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Come to Me ...

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me.

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth.
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
~ Matthew Arnold

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A Sonnet

Before my grave a night-dress be
when slumb'ring 'neath the moss,
for me to wear for eternity -
I have borne a worthy loss.
Misplaced I the pain'd remorse
of the wounded slain within.
Shadowed is the haunted course
of ghostly, spectral sin.
Thine hand in mine to pull me from
the phantom of my past.
I sigh for thy words of balm
and off my shroud doth cast.
Until the eve of our last kiss
each day with thee resides in bliss.
~ Meg North

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Good Company

"My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company."
~ Persuasion, by Jane Austen

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Two Writers, Separated by Time

Yes, a picture of Me
In my Civil War dress.
I feel like Louisa today,
My alter ego Authoress!

For I have completed,
After ten Long years,
A Book about War,
Love, family, and tears.

So, Hello dear World
and Welcome my Story
With thine Open Arms
and Louisa's past Glory.

I give Miss Alcott a Nod
For my talent and Name.
Thank you, lovely Writer,
For thy spot I shall Claim!
~ Meg North


~ Louisa May Alcott, age 25

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Pandora

Pandora, Pandora
What did you see?
Pandora, Pandora
In that box by the sea?
Pandora, Pandora
What did you free?
Pandora, Pandora
All sin lies with thee ....
~ Meg North

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Libra ~ The Scales

If Beauty is Truth
And Truth a Beauty,
Wherefore camest
A woman’s Duty

To Balance Both
On silver Scales?
One side: Joys!
The other - Travails.
~ Meg North

*The painting is Libra, by Josephine Wall

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Grandfather Tree

When I was a little Girl
I sat beneath a Tree.
I called it my Grandfather,
And it spoke to Me.

I believed in its Answers
And slept in its Shade.
The Tree was my friend.
Oh, what games we Played!

I am now a Grown-Up.
I Know I Know it All.
Trees don’t talk to me.
I cannot hear their Call.

I have all the Answers now
That a Tree won’t Reveal.
But when We Dare to ask It
Souls begin to Heal.
~ Meg North

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Sang the Jolly Autumn

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain'd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

'The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.

'The spirits of the air live in the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.'
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.
~ William Blake

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The Opera Ghost

The Opera Ghost really existed. He was not, as long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom; that is to say, of a spectral shade.
~ Gaston Leroux

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To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

~ Keats

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Dreaming Garden Thoughts Today

With a basket, a hoe, a trowel, and broom,
I've created in my garden my own little room.
Where roses are walls and moss a floor,
Wisteria is the ceiling and sunflowers the door!
~ Meg North

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Paring Down

Almost settled In
To our new Little Home.
I threw out so Much
Yet still so much I own.

Thoreau, where are you now?
"Simplify!" you said.
Heaven knows I won't use
Any of this stuff when I'm dead!

What to Keep? What not?
What is truly Dear?
What is junk and what is true
Value for me Here?

Long ago, in a century Past
Folks Simplified stuff.
What they had was what they had,
And that was enough!

So, I guess, my real question
Is what happened to us?
Are we nothing but Consumers?
Can we Simplify without Fuss?

I know I can, and I am Ready
To Create and live, not Consume.
To One day Fit all I Possess
Into one little Room!

~ Meg North

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September 17, 1862

On a fall morning,
Not so very Long ago,
The silence was Shattered
By the Sounds of Woe.

Clash! Screamed the cannons,
And the Armies did meet
By the shores of a Creek
And a Cornfield colored wheat.

Slain by the thousands,
They Fell and they moaned
In a Sunken Road, by a Church,
And across a Bridge of Stone.

Ode to Antietam,
Favored battle for Me.
I salute Thee on this day,
Our Bloodiest anniversary.
~ Meg North

Battle of Antietam

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For Lisa, My Sister

"Please Tell me a Story,"
Little Sister Said,
"Of Faeries and Magic Days
All Trapped in your Head!"

So I sat down to Tell Her
Of Lands far and Wide.
Of Journeys to Wonder
And Dragons to Ride.

She listened with Wide Eyes
And a big Smile as Well.
"Oh, you should be a Writer!
So Many Stories to Tell!"

Ah, little Sister,
Don't you know You're First
Reader of my Tales?
For I have been Cursed ...

To Watch Others Dare -
Rowling, Baum, and Dahl.
To Read Their Stories
For Girls, Boys, and All.

But someday, Little Sister,
My Books will Be
Sitting on the Shelf
Beside those Three!

Until that wondrous Day,
I Thank You, my Dear,
For Being the first to
Believe what You Hear!
~ Meg North

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Queen of Books

The words I write are seasoned so
By tick of monthly clock.
For wooden words I stroke the fire
To burn the dreaded block.

Enthroned within a bookcase,
A cover for scepter, words for wand.
Crowned above my subjects
I reign in a kingdom land.

~ Meg North

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Around the Wheel We Go ...

JANUARY

Janus am I; oldest of potentates;

Forward I look, and backward, and below

I count, as god of avenues and gates,

The years that through my portals come and go.

I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;

I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;

My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,

My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.

FEBRUARY

I am lustration, and the sea is mine!

I wash the sands and headlands with my tide;

My brow is crowned with branches of the pine;

Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide.

By me all things unclean are purified,

By me the souls of men washed white again;

E'en the unlovely tombs of those who died

Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain.

MARCH

I Martius am! Once first, and now the third!

To lead the Year was my appointed place;

A mortal dispossessed me by a word,

And set there Janus with the double face.

Hence I make war on all the human race;

I shake the cities with my hurricanes;

I flood the rivers and their banks efface,

And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains.

APRIL

I open wide the portals of the Spring

To welcome the procession of the flowers,

With their gay banners, and the birds that sing

Their song of songs from their aerial towers.

I soften with my sunshine and my showers

The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide

Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours

Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.

MAY

Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim

My coming, and the swarming of the bees.

These are my heralds, and behold! my name

Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.

I tell the mariner when to sail the seas;

I waft o'er all the land from far away

The breath and bloom of the Hesperides,

My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.

JUNE

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine

The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights

And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,

The foliage of the valleys and the heights.

Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;

The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;

I am the mother of all dear delights;

I am the fairest daughter of the year.

JULY

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe

The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land;

My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,

And bent before me the pale harvests stand.

The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,

And there is thirst and fever in the air;

The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand;

I am the Emperor whose name I bear.

AUGUST

The Emperor Octavian, called the August,

I being his favorite, bestowed his name

Upon me, and I hold it still in trust,

In memory of him and of his fame.

I am the Virgin, and my vestal flame

Burns less intensely than the Lion's rage;

Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claim

The golden Harvests as my heritage.

SEPTEMBER

I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoise

The night and day; and when unto my lips

I put my trumpet, with its stress and noise

Fly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships;

The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips;

Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight;

The hedges are all red with haws and hips,

The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night.

OCTOBER

My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves,

Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed;

I do not boast the harvesting of sheaves,

O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside.

Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride,

The dreamy air is full, and overflows

With tender memories of the summer-tide,

And mingled voices of the doves and crows.

NOVEMBER

The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I,

Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace;

With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,

A steed Thessalian with a human face.

Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chase

The leaves, half dead already with affright;

I shroud myself in gloom; and to the race

Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.

DECEMBER

Riding upon the Goat, with snow-white hair,

I come, the last of all. This crown of mine

Is of the holly; in my hand I bear

The thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones of pine.

I celebrate the birth of the Divine,

And the return of the Saturnian reign;--

My songs are carols sung at every shrine.

Proclaiming "Peace on earth, good will to men."

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Faery Story-Telling

Hey little Faery from my Story
Where did you go?
Can you come out now?
Can we play Tell-and-Show?

I won’t talk About You,
I won’t tell a Soul.
So please, little Faery Story,
Help me Reach my Goal.

Sprinkle me with Star light
And Faerie magic dust.
Let’s sit and tell our Tales,
Before they Tarnish and Rust.

Ride a Snail to Town, Faery,
Hop on Dragon-Flies,
I will ride and hop with You
When I Close my Eyes.

Time to say good-night, Faery,
So let’s prepare for Bed.
We’ll Snuggle beneath the Moon,
For Stories to be Read.

~ Meg North

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To Her Great Delight!

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first idea was that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them.

However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high; she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!

~ Lewis Carroll

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Harvest Moon and Autumn Sun

On fields o'er which the reaper's hand has pass'd
Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,
My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind
And of such fineness as October airs,
There after harvest could I glean my life
A richer harvest reaping without toil,
And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will
In subtler webs than finest summer haze.
~ Henry David Thoreau

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Not Yet Done

I present myself as unfinished,
Head full of work not yet done.
Time and words collide and create -
it will never end,
nor has it yet begun.

~ M. North

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British Beauty

To a place I’ve never been:
To a place I’ve never seen:
What the photograph captures -
Geographical raptures
Of England, of a land and time.

To the literature I’ve read:
To the lines of dialogue said:
What glows upon the stage,
Or meandering on the page,
Is England, of a land and time.

~ M. North

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Whale Cottage

In a Cottage by the Sea,

Roses grow above Me,

And the Whales sing Songs,

So I sing Along.

In a Cottage by the Sea,

Whales swim as Free.

Waves crash on the Shore,

And I am home Forevermore.

~ M. North

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Mermaid Magic

It's been years since I felt the pebbled shore. I had seen a handsome boy walking these stray rocky beaches, so I came up to see him. Perhaps I will let him catch a glimpse of me.

By the crashing waves, I crouch, curled and comfortable on a bed of sweet-smelling seaweed. I can only breathe pure air for a short time ... but I would wait until my final dried out breath if only to ensnare a look at him. If only to net him with my gaze, as he would want to net me and keep me behind glass.

Humans can be cruel, and not simply tender, to magic they don't understand.

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Nature is Beauty

I live in a William Morris world.

Thick tapestries burst with twiney vines, undulating and sensuous as Eden's serpents. Fresh fruits and florals are embraced by leafy bowers. Rabbits and trees create enchanted forests, twisting and bending into woodsy delight. A bird sings, embedded in this magical garden of olde.

In his eyes, all nature becomes beauty, and all beauty is nature.

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Unicorn Moon

I sat down beside the spring with the sweet unicorn. I could feel its breath, the scent of stardust, upon my arm. Its pretty eyes glowed, twin suns that shone with fire. And its white coat was the white of the first fresh-fallen December snow. White like the inside of the summer's first rose, blushed with cream. White like the moon on a February eve, bathing the icy world below with its ethereal pearl.

I remembered a horse I once rode, long ago in a summer when I was a child. He was a magnificent stallion. I am glad he came back to me.

We will ride together again.

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Why do We Fight?

Dearest lover, why do we fight?
Canst we not remember the you and the I
That lays, breath-swollen, blossomed,
Tipped cups in the night?

Dearest lover, why do we fight?
Canst thee not open thy gates that once
Stole mine lips, awake, embittered,
Throwing barb'd quills at thy sight?

Dearest lover, why do we fight?
Canst thee not dry my tears and quench my fears
With a kiss, only now, a surprise,
Which mak'st anger take flight?

Dearest lover, let us not fight ...
For you and I,
The tears that we cry,
The words that we say,
The love in each day,
Could disappear ...
Tonight.
~ M. North

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Motoring

When I picture an ideal Quest
Of Traveling ‘bout the Globe,
I don’t imagine a time I’ll Rest
‘Twixt the Places I want to Probe.

Let’s go to Paris, Dublin, Rome,
And off to London Town.
Olde Graves found not at Home
As we travel up or Down.

Shut the books! It’s time to Go
And use our Open Eyes.
Of things Abroad I will Know
To count myself as Wise.

Grab up the Wheel in Ship or Car,
To Steer us all About.
Of Sights to see some are Bizarre,
And others merely Route.

One day I’ll boast of places Roam’d
And Adventures had Galore.
When all is Done, I’ll dock at Home,
Safe in bed once More.
~ M. North

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Deepening Autumn

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

How deep some have gone! How deeply they have rent our hearts by their too-soon passing! I have one book of Emerson essays, barely taking up four inches of shelf space. But it is enough to last my lifetime and enough for another century of generations to stumble upon him ...

I adore quiet hours. I sit in the September sunshine, washed by golden rays. I smell early-fall in the air, a twinge of frosty cold, a nip of crispy autumn.

How deep we go. Yet, I must remember to bring back the treasures I find in the deep - for who would ever know about them ... or share them with me?

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Nesting

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
~ Emily Dickinson

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Within my pretty Cottage
I have found a Place to Nest.
I tuck my Wings and Settle in,
Never feeling more Blest.
~ M. North

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