Category: Poetry
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Today’s poem is “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold — a timeless piece from 1867 that speaks with quiet power about a world losing its sense of unity. Arnold, a poet and cultural critic of the Victorian era, captured the feeling of a society drifting apart long before our modern age gave it new forms. His…
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In this episode of Musical Poetry, we explore one of Shakespeare’s most intimate and contemplative works: Sonnet 73. Through images of fading autumn leaves, dying daylight, and a fire resting on its own ashes, the sonnet reflects on time, aging, and the deepening strength of love in the face of impermanence. Join me as we…
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In this episode of Musical Poetry, we travel back to 14th-century England and step into the world of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest journeys ever written in the English language. The episode begins with a brief reflection on the Prologue, a living tapestry of medieval society, where knights, friars, merchants, and storytellers…
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This poem is a call for unity in a world divided by pride, labels, and self-interest. It reminds us that all our problems — from war to hunger to environmental collapse — share one root: our separation from one another. Through vivid imagery and honest reflection, “People of the World, Unite” invites us to remember…
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Welcome to Musical Poetry,where timeless words still breathe and whisper across the years. Autumn keeps me going — and so, we already have a new episode. But today is something new.We’re not presenting a poem born from our own creative power —today, we turn to a classic. One of the most beloved in the English…
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A leaf speaks — from its birth in spring to its fiery farewell in autumn. Carried by the wind, it journeys far beyond the tree that once held it, discovering beauty in release and freedom in letting go. “I was the highest leaf” — a piece of musical poetry by Michael Appelt. I was the…
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“I Will Not Give You My Children” is a dramatic poem set to music — a litany of words naming greed, tyranny, deception, and despair, broken again and again by a single unyielding refrain: “I will not give you my children.” It is both lament and defiance, resistance and promise. A cry that innocence will…
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It is not a poem of answers, but of wounds — emptiness, hunger, illness, guilt, and mistrust — spoken in words pared down to their essence. It names the weight many of us carry, yet ends with the simple, stubborn act of rising again, and the haunting question: Who will lift me? The Poem of…
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How do we measure a wave when we are caught inside it? How do we measure a movement in our world — by its noise, its rules, or by what it leaves behind? This reflection weaves the storm on the Sea of Galilee, when the men in the boat saw Christ walking toward them, with…
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The Coin and the Kingdom — a chant-like poem inspired by Christ’s miracle of the coin in the fish. It weaves universal longings for peace and justice with wisdom from many traditions, and ends with my own choice to anchor my life in Christ. The Coin and the Kingdom What matters? Not the shouting in…
Michael Appelt 