I have never been big on poetry. Even when I started this category, I did it mostly because it went along with the mood of the website...poetry after all is inspiring and uplifting. And then I saw this clip on the BBC by pure chance. It made me realize, in all these years, I have never bothered to think which type of poetry I like best, or what poems make me take a pause.
Poetry can bring solace in our darkest times, whether they are religious chants (even those who are not overly religious tend to seek religious chants and poetry in times of crisis) or whether they are motivational pieces or passages that are uplifting. The BBC correspondents who share and read their favorite poetry pieces certainly exude emotion. (See link to the BBC video at the end of this post).
I love Robert Frost's "The road not taken", mostly because it resonates with my own life and career path! My dad sent it to me upon graduation (undergrad, Bachelor of Architecture) knowing fully well I suppose I would not take a linear path!
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52165950/poetry-power-bbc-correspondents-read-their-favourites
That ones truly my favourite too!!!... this one from Rabindranath Tagore has won my heart...
The Tame bird and the free bird
The tame bird was in a cage,
the free bird was in the forest.
They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate.
The free bird cries, "O my love, let us fly to the wood."
The cage bird whispers, "Come hither, let us both live in the cage."
Says the free bird, "Among bars, where is there room to spread one's wings?"
"Alas," cries the caged bird, "I should not know where to sit perched in the sky."
The free bird cries, "My darling, sing the songs of the woodlands."
The cage bird sings, "Sit by my side, I'll teach you the speech of the learned."
The forest bird cries, "No, ah no! songs can never be taught."
The cage bird says, "Alas for me, I know not the songs of the woodlands."
There love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing to wing.
Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to know each other.
They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, "Come closer, my love!"
The free bird cries, "It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of the cage."
The cage bird whispers, "Alas, my wings are powerless and dead."
I had not heard this poem before, it is beautiful. You can almost feel the agony of the love birds!