The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the water’s plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
smoke rises from trees now gone I think of these friends that came from seed their shade, their colors, their leaves now brown we tidy up their broken bones the rains are here, the rains are here desert winds blow no more along with fearsome flame relief once more , the rains are here we labor deep with sweating brow, must tidy, tidy, tidy cause the rains are here as we end our day in reverent peace the curling smoke haunts the valley view our blackened hands, our face with ash relief the task is done once more and as rains dance on our roof of iron we celebrate the rains are here, the rains are here.
A saturated meadow,
Sun-shaped and jewel-small,
A circle scarcely wider
Than the trees around were tall;
Where winds were quite excluded,
And the air was stifling sweet
With the breath of many flowers,—
A temple of the heat.
These were bowed us in the burning,
As the sun’s right worship is,
To pick where none could miss them
A thousand orchises;
For though the grass was scattered,
Yet every second spear
Seemed tipped with wings of color,
That tinged the atmosphere.
We raised a simple prayer
Before we left the spot,
That in the general mowing
That place might be forgot;
Or if not all is favoured,
Obtain such grace of hours,
That none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers.
By Andrea Fisher (on what may be her last day on earth)
Rest for the Living
The best rest for the living Is not oblivion But hearing the hot tires of passing cars Hiss by in the cooling rain, Or the dry leaves of the trees by the window Shuffle like a restless crowd, Or well-known voices murmur close by, No words but the sounds familiar, For even as we turn our stiff, blind faces Away from the baffling world, Our bodies hum like empty shells With songs of other creatures, sung In an ocean of which we are part, And in our weary hearts, In the weary marrow of our bones We want to feel life going on around us, To know that it will go on, Even while we nestle, quietly, Curling around our heartbeats, Curling into sleep.
By Andrea Fisher (on what may be her last day on earth)
Rest for the Living
The best rest for the living Is not oblivion But hearing the hot tires of passing cars Hiss by in the cooling rain, Or the dry leaves of the trees by the window Shuffle like a restless crowd, Or well-known voices murmur close by, No words but the sounds familiar, For even as we turn our stiff, blind faces Away from the baffling world, Our bodies hum like empty shells With songs of other creatures, sung In an ocean of which we are part, And in our weary hearts, In the weary marrow of our bones We want to feel life going on around us, To know that it will go on, Even while we nestle, quietly, Curling around our heartbeats, Curling into sleep.
"Love is the wind, the tide, the waves, the sunshine. Its power is incalculable; it is many horse-power. It never ceases, it never slacks; it can move the globe without a resting-place; it can warm without fire; it can feed without meat; it can clothe without garments; it can shelter without roof; it can make a paradise within which will dispense with a paradise without.â
I belong to a poetry group that's really been a lot of fun. The challenge is to write one a week on a theme/word/phrase, then poll the entries and the most popular poet picks the theme/word/phrase for the following week. It's a pretty diverse mix of styles each week. Here is mine from a week where the phrase you had to include was "the way that I used to".
I just don't give a fuck, not the way that I used to do back when shit mattered before the churn of humanity changed everything destroying the spirit of life unveiling the truth of man where under the skin infections of the rich seep upon the poor the weary and the weak suppressing their resiliency feasting upon the will taken from those who can no longer think for themselves and eventually cease to give a fuck like me.
So in this case it's fun in the way that a word or phrase can be used to manipulate the ether or has the ether done its job and the author is given to autopilot?
In which case I think you're lying in state. I'm not convinced. But then, the way that I used to mean something entirely opposite changed with the onion...
I belong to a poetry group that's really been a lot of fun. The challenge is to write one a week on a theme/word/phrase, then poll the entries and the most popular poet picks the theme/word/phrase for the following week. It's a pretty diverse mix of styles each week. Here is mine from a week where the phrase you had to include was "the way that I used to".
I just don't give a fuck, not the way that I used to do back when shit mattered before the churn of humanity changed everything destroying the spirit of life unveiling the truth of man where under the skin infections of the rich seep upon the poor the weary and the weak suppressing their resiliency feasting upon the will taken from those who can no longer think for themselves and eventually cease to give a fuck like me.
J'ai de la boucane dans les yeux Quand je les leves vers Dieu J'veux voir plus clair J'veux voir plus loin J'veux oublier hier Pi me souvenir de demain
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Mar 8, 2019 - 9:12pm
It Is Time by Laura Davies Foley
It is time to gather sticks of wood so we can cook the sap that we have drawn from the earth. We will bore holes into the maple trees, collect buckets, stir the froth as it boils. Then we'll finish it on the stove in the barn. We will do this together, balancing the heavy iron vat, pouring the hot syrup, tasting the sweetness. We did it through the pregnancies, the births. Let's do it once again. And then we will cultivate the honey bees and tend to the alfalfa in the fields. It will be the best of times once more, fourteen loads of fresh hay, and my hair will be long and we will collect raspberries, and make a pie. The garden will yield a bumper crop of beets and basil, and we will split wood all fall, and stack it, and be ready for the winter, when you will weave a blanket on your loom with dog hair and horse hair and my hair and some dyed wool too. And I will nurse the babies by the fire, and neither of us will grow older, and we will never forget, and nothing will ever die. We need to gather sticks now and build a fire quickly, before the season passes on, before the field, where you are sleeping, blossoms.
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of Heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow'd.
What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a Poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden In a palace-tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embower'd In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflower'd, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awaken'd flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, Sprite or Bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus Hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Match'd with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
