tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post2932212367842250233..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: "How Beautifully It Falls"Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-16299693955597448632015-02-23T11:24:24.524-08:002015-02-23T11:24:24.524-08:00Ms Prithviraj: Thank you very much for visiting, a...Ms Prithviraj: Thank you very much for visiting, and for your kind words. And thank you as well for the poem by Cummings, which is lovely. I seem to recall reading it years ago, but I completely forgot about it. I appreciate your reminding me.<br /><br />As you know from reading the blog, I am very fond of autumn and falling leaves. In connection with a single leaf falling, you might wish to look here as well: http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2010/10/single-leaf.html, and: http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.com/2010/10/single-leaf-revisited-dorothy.html.<br /><br />Again, thank you very much for visiting, and for sharing the poem.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-68619293972267638972015-02-23T04:10:43.518-08:002015-02-23T04:10:43.518-08:00You have compiled some of the best leaf tinged poe...You have compiled some of the best leaf tinged poems here. It was lovely to read them. <br />Leaving a beautiful autumn poem you seem to have missed out.<br /><br />l(a<br /><br />le<br /><br />af<br /><br />fa<br /><br />ll<br /><br />s)<br /><br />one<br /><br />l<br /><br />iness<br /><br />—E. E. CummingsPriya Prithvirajhttp://priyaprithviraj.blogspot.in/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-46891997362905725902012-10-30T16:10:39.467-07:002012-10-30T16:10:39.467-07:00Mr. Floyd: thank you for Stevens's poem. It ...Mr. Floyd: thank you for Stevens's poem. It is one of my favorites, and I try to read it each autumn.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-11499267345999009362012-10-30T16:09:30.346-07:002012-10-30T16:09:30.346-07:00Mr. Sigler: thank you for those thoughts. I haven...Mr. Sigler: thank you for those thoughts. I haven't read much of Raine's poetry, but I have been meaning to. As you know, she wrote a great deal on Blake, and I can see his influence in other poems of hers as well.<br /><br />Thanks for stopping by.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-82045585988443335782012-10-29T13:50:54.283-07:002012-10-29T13:50:54.283-07:00And after the leaves have fallen, another kind of ...And after the leaves have fallen, another kind of stillness comes upon the world, a gray silence, one unlike the golden and serene silence of high autumn. Wallace Stevens speaks of it in "The Plain Sense of Things":<br /><br /><br /> <br />After the leaves have fallen, we return<br />To a plain sense of things. It is as if<br />We had come to an end of the imagination,<br />Inanimate in an inert savoir.<br /> <br />It is difficult even to choose the adjective<br />For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.<br />The great structure has become a minor house.<br />No turban walks across the lessened floors.<br /> <br />The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.<br />The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.<br />A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition<br />In a repetitiousness of men and flies.<br /> <br />Yet the absence of the imagination had<br />Itself to be imagined. The great pond,<br />The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,<br />Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence<br /> <br />Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,<br />The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this<br />Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,<br />Required, as a necessity requires.<br /> <br />bruce floydnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-47499385869973018752012-10-29T11:08:39.808-07:002012-10-29T11:08:39.808-07:00Thank you for making the connection between Kathle...Thank you for making the connection between Kathleen Raine, one of my favorite poets, and Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" for this one, Mr. Pentz. I also see the element of how the individual getting absorbed in perception becomes absorbed as an individual life into something larger. It's as a character in the stunning new movie <i>Cloud Atlas</i> puts it "the ocean is nothing more than a multitude of drops."WAShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10403669322174979974noreply@blogger.com