Home ⇒ 📌Eamon Grennan ⇒ On A Cape May Warbler Who Flew Against My Window
On A Cape May Warbler Who Flew Against My Window
She’s stopped in her southern tracks
Brought haply to this hard knock
When she shoots from the tall spruce
And snaps her neck on the glass.
From the fall grass I gather her
And give her to my silent children
Who give her a decent burial
Under the dogwood in the garden.
They lay their gifs in the grave:
Matches, a clothes-peg, a coin;
Fire paper for her, sprinkle her
With water, fold earth over her.
She is out of her element forever
Who was air’s high-spirited daughter;
What guardian wings can I conjure
Over my own young, their migrations?
The children retreat indoors.
Shadows flicker in the tall spruce.
Small birds flicker like shadows
Ghosts come nest in my branches.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Cape Breton Out on the high “bird islands,” Ciboux and Hertford, The razorbill auks and the silly-looking puffins all stand With their backs to the mainland In solemn, uneven lines along the cliff’s brown grass-frayed edge, While the few sheep pastured there go “Baaa, baaa.” (Sometimes, frightened by aeroplanes, they stampede And fall over into the sea […]...
- Boy at the Window Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a God-forsaken stare As outcast Adam […]...
- At a Window Give me hunger, O you gods that sit and give The world its orders. Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love, A voice to speak to me in the day […]...
- At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
- Song by the Window Before Bed Little Star, little Star, Come down quick. The Moon is a bogey-man; He’ll eat you certain if he can. Little Star, little Star, Come down quick! Little Star, little Star, Whisper “Yes.” The trees are just niggers all, They look so black, the are so tall. Little Star, little Star, Whisper “Yes” Little Star, little […]...
- Learning by Doing They’re taking down a tree at the front door, The power saw is snarling at some nerves, Whining at others. Now and then it grunts, And sawdust falls like snow or a drift of seeds. Rotten, they tell us, at the fork, and one Big wind would bring it down. So what they do They […]...
- Frolic THE CHILDREN were shouting together And racing along the sands, A glimmer of dancing shadows, A dovelike flutter of hands. The stars were shouting in heaven, The sun was chasing the moon: The game was the same as the children’s, They danced to the self-same tune. The whole of the world was merry, One joy […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls: Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city, And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea, Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
- THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS L’eternite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans Cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux: “Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!” JACQUES BRIDAINE. Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country-seat. Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw; And from its station in the hall An ancient […]...
- One Inch Tall If you were only one inch tall, you’d ride a worm to school. The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool. A crumb of cake would be a feast And last you seven days at least, A flea would be a frightening beast If you were one inch tall. If you were […]...
- Adam Pos'd Cou’d our First Father, at his toilsome Plough, Thorns in his Path, and Labour on his Brow, Cloath’d only in a rude, unpolish’d Skin, Cou’d he a vain Fantastick Nymph have seen, In all her Airs, in all her antick Graces, Her various Fashions, and more various Faces; How had it pos’d that Skill, which […]...
- 'Tis my first night beneath the Sun ‘Tis my first night beneath the Sun If I should spend it here Above him is too low a height For his Barometer Who Airs of expectation breathes And takes the Wind at prime But Distance his Delights confides To those who visit him...
- At the Window I have not always had this certainty, this pessimism which reassures the best among us. There was A time when my friends laughed at me. I was not the master of my words. A certain indifference, I Have not always known well what I wanted to say, but most often it was because I had […]...
- It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
- The Window She looks out in the blue morning And sees a whole wonderful world She looks out in the morning And sees a whole world She leans out of the window And this is what she sees A wet rose singing to the sun With a chorus of red bees She leans out of the window […]...
- A Strange Gentlewoman Passing By His Window As I out of a casement sent Mine eyes as wand’ring as my thought, Upon no certayne object bent, But only what occasion brought, A sight surpriz’d my hart at last, Nor knewe I well what made it burne; Amazement held me then so fast I had no leasure to discerne. Sure ’twas a Mortall, […]...
- Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
- Verses on Sir Joshua Reynold’s Painted Window at New College, Oxford Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace Those faultless forms of elegance and grace! Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass, With Titian’s pencil, o’er the speaking glass! Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin’d, The fond illusions of my wayward mind! For long, enamour’d of a barbarous age, A faithless […]...
- Momus Momus is the name men give your face, The brag of its tone, like a long low steamboat whistle Finding a way mid mist on a shoreland, Where gray rocks let the salt water shatter spray Against horizons purple, silent. Yes, Momus, Men have flung your face in bronze To gaze in gargoyle downward on […]...
- At The Window Every morning, as I walk down From my dreary lodgings, toward the town, I see at a window, near the street, The face of a woman, fair and sweet, With soft brown eyes and chestnut hair, And red lips, warm with the kisses left there. And she stands there as long as she can see […]...
- Spicewood The spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky, In moist unchimneyed places, in a wind, That whips it all before, and all behind, Into one thick, rude flame, now low, now high, It is the first, the homeliest thing of all At sight of it, that lad that by it fares, Whistles afresh his foolish, […]...
- I see around me tombstones grey I see around me tombstones grey Stretching their shadows far away. Beneath the turf my footsteps tread Lie low and lone the silent dead – Beneath the turf – beneath the mould – Forever dark, forever cold – And my eyes cannot hold the tears That memory hoards from vanished years For Time and Death […]...
- Child The young child, Christ, is straight and wise And asks questions of the old men, questions Found under running water for all children And found under shadows thrown on still waters By tall trees looking downward, old and gnarled. Found to the eyes of children alone, untold, Singing a low song in the loneliness. And […]...
- Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; (As the last gun ceased-but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried-I charge […]...
- Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
- The Skies Ay! gloriously thou standest there, Beautiful, boundless firmament! That swelling wide o’er earth and air, And round the horizon bent, With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall, Dost overhang and circle all. Far, far below thee, tall old trees Arise, and piles built up of old, And hills, whose ancient summits freeze, In the fierce […]...
- Submergence When along the pavement, Palpitating flames of life, People flicker round me, I forget my bereavement, The gap in the great constellation, The place where a star used to be. Nay, though the pole-star Is blown out like a candle, And all the heavens are wandering in disarray, Yet when pleiads of people are Deployed […]...
- I Sit By The Window I said fate plays a game without a score, And who needs fish if you’ve got caviar? The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass And turn you on no need for coke, or grass. I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen. When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn’t often. I […]...
- The Bed By The Window I chose the bed downstairs by the sea-window for a good death-bed When we built the house, it is ready waiting, Unused unless by some guest in a twelvemonth, who hardly suspects Its latter purpose. I often regard it, With neither dislike nor desire; rather with both, so equalled That they kill each other and […]...
- Long Time I Lay In Little Ease LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE LONG time I lay in little ease Where, placed by the Turanian, Marseilles, the many-masted, sees The blue Mediterranean. Now songful in the hour of sport, Now riotous for wages, She camps around her ancient port, As ancient of the ages. Algerian airs through all the place Unconquerably […]...
- The Window All night long, by a distant bell, The passing hours were notched On the dark, while her breathing rose and fell, And the spark of life I watched In her face was glowing or fading, who could tell? And the open window of the room, With a flare of yellow light, Was peering out into […]...
- This Window is This window is confidence, Documenting proceedings, Capturing moments, Cleansing views Challenging sentiment. This window is nourishment Filling the eyes With strong drink, And acidly piercing Over-elaborate structures. This window is furniture Re-hung like a picture, Recording new outlooks When the old pleases No more. This window is doorway To feelings, Good feelings and bad, All […]...
- Window I looked out the window at dawn and saw a young apple tree Translucent in brightness. And when I looked out at dawn once again, an apple tree laden with Fruit stood there. Many years had probably gone by but I remember nothing of what Happened in my sleep....
- The Window In the sweet, Atlantic Breathing of spring My curtain’s like a butterfly, Huge, fluttering Like a Hindu widow To a pyre’s golden blaze, Like a drowsy Naiad To past-window seas....
- Man in a Window I don’t know man trust is a precious thing A kind of humility Offer it to a snake and get repaid with humiliation Luckily friends rally to my spiritual defense I think they’re reminding me I mean it’s important to me it’s Important to me so I leave my fate to fate and come back […]...
- At the Window The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter; While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters. Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede, Winding about their dimness the mist’s grey cerements, after The street lamps in the […]...
- They called me to the Window, for They called me to the Window, for ” ‘Twas Sunset” Some one said I only saw a Sapphire Farm And just a Single Herd Of Opal Cattle feeding far Upon so vain a Hill As even while I looked dissolved Nor Cattle were nor Soil But in their stead a Sea displayed And Ships of […]...
- Out Of The Watercolored Window, When You Look When from the watercolored window idly you look Each is but and clear to see, not steep: So does the neat print in an actual book Marching as if to true conclusion, reap The illimitable blue immensely overhead, The night of the living and the day of the dead. I drive in an auto all […]...
- Bells Of Gray Crystal Bells of gray crystal Break on each bough The swans’ breath will mist all The cold airs now. Like tall pagodas Two people go, Trail their long codas Of talk through the snow. Lonely are these And lonely and I…. The clouds, gray Chinese geese Sleek through the sky....