For A Child Expected
Lovers whose lifted hands are candles in winter,
Whose gentle ways like streams in the easy summer,
Lying together
For secret setting of a child, love what they do,
Thinking they make that candle immortal, those streams
forever flow,
And yet do better than they know.
So the first flutter of a baby felt in the womb,
Its little signal and promise of riches to come,
Is taken in its father's name;
Its life is the body of his love, like his caress,
First delicate and strange, that daily use
Makes dearer and priceless.
Our baby was to be the living sign of our joy,
Restore to each the other's lost infancy;
To a painter's pillaging eye
Poet's coiled hearing, add the heart we might earn
By the help of love; all that our passion would yield
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poem by Anne Barbara Ridler
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Poem For A Christmas Broadcast
Woman s Voice
Perhaps you find the angel most improbable?
It spoke to men asleep, their minds ajar
For once to admit the entrance of a stranger.
Few have heard voices, but all have made a journey:
The mind moves, desiring dedication,
Desiring to lay its gifts, as a dog its bone,
At the feet of the first creation. 'Take it or leave it'
Says pride, 'You made it; You must bear the blame.'
But secretly the heart 'O make it good.'
'Either God acts in vain, or this is God.'
1st King
Melchior brings gold. O teach me to give,
For this was infancy's first love:
Its first possession; its adult passion
O new creation
Take my treasure and make me free.
2nd King
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poem by Anne Barbara Ridler
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Collected Poems (1994)
Lying in bed this morning, just a year
Since our first days, I was trying to assess -
Against my natural caution - by desire
And how the fact outdid it, my happiness:
And finding the awkwardness of keeping clear
Numberless flamingo thoughts and memories,
My dear and dearest husband, in this kind
Of rambling letter, I'll disburse my mind.
Technical problems have always given me trouble:
A child stiff at the fiddle, my ear had praise
And my intention only; so, as was natural,
Coming to verse, I hid my lack of ease
By writing only as I thought myself able,
Escaped the crash of the bold by salt originalities.
This is one reason for writing far from one's heart;
A better is, that one fears it may be hurt.
By an inadequate style one fears to cheapen
Glory, and that it may be blurred if seen
Through the eye's used centre, not the new margin.
It is the hardest thing with love to burn
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poem by Anne Barbara Ridler
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A Letter
Lying in bed this morning, just a year
Since our first days, I was trying to assess --
Against my natural caution -- by desire
And how the fact outdid it, my happiness:
And finding the awkwardness of keeping clear
Numberless flamingo thoughts and memories,
My dear and dearest husband, in this kind
Of rambling letter, I'll disburse my mind.
Technical problems have always given me trouble:
A child stiff at the fiddle, my ear had praise
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poem by Anne Barbara Ridler
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