The Poetry Group will meet March 3rd to share their original writings and their favorite
verses about a variety of subjects including springtime. The study poem for March is
Fern Hill by Welch poet Dylan Thomas. Fern Hill recounts memories of time Thomas
spent on his uncle’s farm as a child, a youth, and an emerging adult. Through the
poem, we gain insight into the metamorphosis of the man. Can you call up a place or
an experience that was a touchstone in your life? If so, there may be a poem hidden in
the memory of it!
-
Val Reed, First Monday Poetry Group
• 8 •
The Pinecone
|
March 2014
Our employee of the month is Activities Assistant, Alexa Hoover. She is very
knowledgeable in all phases of her job and always has a smile for residents
and staff alike. She is more than happy to stop what she is doing to help any
and all that come into the activities office. Alexa follows through on all of
her duties and is helpful to anyone in need. She is an intelligent and capable
employee and we are proud to have her here at Kirby Pines.
-
Cheryl Grimes, Activities Director
Alexa Hoover
Congratulations
emp l o y ee o f t h e mon t h
FERN HILL
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
On to the fields of praise.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
-
by Dylan Thomas
