The Catholic Writers Guild

A poem a day might well keep despair away. I’ve been reading 150 Most Famous Poems published by Poetry House with works by Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and many more. What I find so extraordinary is that while reading, I enter a sort of dreamland, an extra sensory awareness shared by many fellow humans. It’s the strangest sort of community in that we never have to have met or even speak a word to each other, yet we share a fathomless bond.

It’s the images, the juxtaposition of contrary thoughts, even transitions from this world to the other world so smoothly delved that the reader discovers they have entered someone else’s dreamscape, yet, it feels like home.

As William Blake so perfectly states in his poem Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,

            And heaven in a wildflower.

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

            And eternity in an hour.

Or as George Gordon, Lord Byron reveals in There Is Pleasure in the Pathless Woods

There is a rapture in the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes…

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Emily Dickenson hits the mark in her poem Hope is the thing with Feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words…

With shocking insight, Paul Lawrence Dunbar strips our pretense away in We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise…

These poems and so many others embrace the sunrise in company with souls alight with mystical spirit. No matter the day or year, highborn or low, city dwellers or country folk, they fellowship in a shared human journey. In a world torn by strife and divided along so many lines, these voices rise like a chorus, reminding me, no matter how painful my steps or proud my goals, I have never journeyed alone.

Photo https://pixabay.com/illustrations/dreaming-night-moon-dream-fantasy-5224816/

A. K. Frailey

As a teacher with a degree in Elementary Education who has taught in big cities and small towns, Ann Frailey homeschooled all of her children. She manages her rural homestead with her kids and their numerous critters, authors books, and writes a Friday blog alternating between short stories and her My Road Goes Ever On series. Put Your Mind in a Better Place—Entertainment for Life