Wandering Clouds and Wandering Aengus

I checked out The Sound of Colors by Jimmy Liao from the library, but it is so gorgeous that I would like to get my own copy. This picture book, which was also made into a movie, is about a young girl coming to grips with the loss of her sight. She goes into the subway on a “journey of the imagination.”

Poet and storyteller Edgar Allan Poe explained that poetry is "the rhythmical creation of Beauty.” E.A. Robinson define poetry as “language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction, something that can not be said.” For those two reasons, I'm including The Sound of Colors in Poetry Friday.

When at last I walk out of the tunnel,
I can't see the light,
but I can feel the leaves
falling like sunshine all around me.


“I’ve forgotten how blue the sky can be,” the girl says,
“But in my mind I still
watch the clouds change shape.”


~~~~

Another book-related poem...I picked up The Land of the Silver Apples by Nancy Farmer (sequel to The Sea of Trolls, which I loved). After the pages listing the cast of characters, there was a poem called The Song of Wandering Aengus. I assumed it was written by the author, so as I read it, I thought, “That Nancy Farmer can write a nice poem.” But then my eyes flicked to the bottom and I saw William Butler Yeats had actually written it. My bad.

Well, I think it's already been established that W.B. can write a nice poem. See for yourself:

The Song of Wandering Aengus
By W.B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.