[New-Poetry] from the Writer's Almanac

[Anny Ballardini]

 To a Leaf Falling in Winter

by W. S. Merwin<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,cf70,dv,2dnv,e9yz,3hrs,fxvj>

At sundown when a day's words
have gathered at the feet of the trees
lining up in silence
to enter the long corridors
of the roots into which they
pass one by one thinking
that they remember the place
as they feel themselves climbing
away from their only sound
while they are being forgotten
by their bright circumstances
they rise through all of the rings
listening again
afterward as they
listened once and they come
to where the leaves used to live
during their lives but have gone now
and they too take the next step
beyond the reach of meaning

"To a Leaf Falling in Winter" by W.S. Merwin from *Present Company*. (c)
Copper Canyon Press, 2007. Reprinted with permission. (buy
now<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,cf70,dv,9aow,lksg,3hrs,fxvj>)



It is also the birthday of Marie Antoinette:

It's the birthday of *Marie
Antoinette<http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,cf70,dv,afkp,46w3,3hrs,fxvj>
*, born in Vienna, Austria, in 1755, child number 15 out of 16 born to the
Empress Maria Theresa and the Emperor Francis I. To preserve the alliance
between Austria and France, Marie was married to the future king of France,
Louis the 16th, when she was 14 years old.

Louis and Marie were very different. He loved hunting and eating, and he was
introverted. She loved to go out, to dance and gamble. She was beautiful,
with long blond hair and perfect posture, and she spent lots of money on
fashionable clothes and jewelry, which made her a target for the French
people, who were growing increasingly resentful of the monarchy.

The French Revolution began in 1789. Marie and Louis were stripped of power,
put on trial, and both sentenced to death. Marie Antoinette was executed at
the guillotine in October of 1793.

Marie Antoinette is one of the most famously misquoted people in history. It
was actually an earlier princess, Maria Theresa of Spain, who is quoted as
saying, "If there is no bread, let them cake."


A thought occurred to me, maybe the Monarchy would have never allowed for
the Holocaust to take place. Grumman, if you made it all the way down to
here, what do you think?





-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
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