Wednesday 3 June 2009

Wednesday poem...thank you for the days.


I have been reading Philip Larkin again.
As ever, I find him challenging and absorbing, yet strangely not the least depressing, joyous almost.
He lifts my spirits and enhances my sense of direction, just as he did in my student days.
Time has crept up on me, distilling that broad sweep of the future into manageable, recordable days.
Read Larkin my friends, smile, and rejoice in your days.

Days
By Philip Larkin

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for this inspirational poem, we often forget to live now waiting for something better to happen.

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  2. Nice poem selection. At a recent memorial service the brother of the deceased described her as a spiritual being on a human path.

    Days upon this earth are the crumbs of that human path. They are the stage upon which we fret.

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  3. Hi Michael. Thanks for calling on me - do call again. I am paying a return call and am pleased I did as I don't know this lovely little Larkin poem at all and it is most interestingly simple. He always says such wise things is such beautiful words.

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  4. Days are certainly where I live. Now, at least. So much meaning in these simple words.

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  5. I adore that last phrase, "running over the fields". It's poignant, yet humorous, imagining the doctor and the priest on foot.

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  6. Thank you for intoducing this poem here. "Sunny Prestatyn" is the Larkin poem that really stayed with me and perhaps somewhat blotted out the poet's more gentle views of the world! I really love this one!
    Thanks for always stopping by my blog!

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