Let Us Now Praise Old Things

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Laura at Author Amok for Roundup (and all sorts of other poetic goodness!). Big thanks to everyone who signed up for our 2015 Progressive Poem. Our roster is FULL! Poets who signed up, I will be in touch the last week of March with more information. So happy to have you join us -- it's going to be fun!

This week I had the great fortune to spend some time with my dear friend Pat in Cullman, Alabama, where we shopped the thrift stores and treated ourselves to lunch. We also visited Deb's Bookstore. And the whole day I was thinking how much I love old things. AND THEN, lo and behold, posted on the wall at one of the junk shops was a poem called "I Love Old Things" by Wilson MacDonald. 

Turns out Mr. MacDonald was a pretty prolific Canadian poet, so beloved, there's even a museum named after him! What joy to discover a new (old) poetic voice! And extra-appropriate, as I will soon travel to Austria, Germany and Switzerland to experience all sorts of old (new to me!) things! So here's the poem, with a shout-out to one Amy LV, who did that amazing series of Thrift Shop poems for National Poetry Month last year!:

I LOVE OLD THINGS

by Wilson MacDonald

I love old things:

Streets of old cities

Crowded with ghosts

And banked with oranges,

Gay scarfs and shawls

That flow like red water.

I love old abbeys

With high, carved portals

And dim, cool corners

Where tired hearts pray:

I join them in the silence

And repair my soul.

I love old inns

Where floors creak eerily

And doors blow open

On windless nights,

Where heavy curtains

Dance a slow waltz.

I love old trees

That lift up their voices

High above the grasses.

They do not sing

At the light wind's bidding:

They chant alone to storms.

I love old china,

Knowing well the flavour

Of great, strong men

And fair, sweet women

Lurks at the rim

Of each deep brown bowl.

I love old books

Frayed from the searching

Of truth-hungry fingers:

Their warm, soft vellum

Leads me up through sorrow

Like a dear friend's hand.

I love old men

And old, dear women

who keep red cheeks

As the snows of winter

Keep the round red berry

Of the wintergreen.

I love old things:

Weather-beaten, worn things,

Cracked, broken, torn things,

The old sun, the old moon,

The old earth's face,

Old wine in dim flagons

Old ships and old wagons...

Old coin and old lace,

Rare old lace.