The Haiku Shack Podcast - ‘Monna Innominata’ by Christina Rossetti

The Haiku Shack is dedicated to inspiration and poetry. Host Cendrine Marrouat reads her own poems and those from her favorite poets.

In today's episode, I read Christina Rossetti's "Monna Innominata [I wish I could remember]".

Background music: Piano Sonata No. 38 in F major, Hob.XVI:23 (Joseph Haydn) by Ivan Ilić - Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license via Wikimedia Commons

Monna Innominata [I wish I could remember] - Christina Rossetti

I wish I could remember that first day,

First hour, first moment of your meeting me,

If bright or dim the season, it might be

Summer or Winter for aught I can say;

So unrecorded did it slip away,

So blind was I to see and to foresee,

So dull to mark the budding of my tree

That would not blossom for many a May.

If only I could recollect it, such

A day of days! I let it come and go

As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;

If only now I could recall that touch,

First touch of hand in hand – Did one but know!

Source: Wikisource

That's it for today! Thank you for reading!

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Cendrine Marrouat is a writer, photographer, podcaster, blogger, anthology editor, and the co-founder of Auroras & Blossoms and A Warm Cup of Cozy. She has authored and co-authored more than 40 books, including The Train: A Short Story (2023), In Her Own Words: A Collection of Short Stories & Flashku (2022), After the Fires of Day: Haiku Inspired by Kahlil Gibran & Alphonse de Lamartine (2021), Rhythm Flourishing: A Collection of Kindku and Sixku (2020), Walks: A Collection of Haiku (2019-2020), and In the Silence of Words: A Three-Act Play (2018).

Cendrine's work has appeared in many publications. She is the creator of the Sixku, Flashku, Sepigram, and Reminigram; as well as the co-creator of the Kindku, Pareiku, Vardhaku, and Hemingku.