For an Earth-Landing

Related poetry:

1. Earth the Healer, Earth the Keeper So swift the hours are moving Unto the time unproved: Farewell my love unloving, Farewell my love beloved! What! are we not glad-hearted? Is there no deed to do? Is not all fear departed And Spring-tide blossomed new? The sails swell out above us, The sea-ridge lifts the keel; For They have called who love […]...
2. The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods, against a stormy sky, Their giant branches tost; And the heavy night hung dark The hills and water o’er, When a band of exiles moored their bark On the wild New England shore. Not as the conqueror comes, They, the true-hearted, […]...
3. Is White a Color? White, pristine, unblemished They say it is not a color I love white mists, clouds Lingering on blue mountains. White, no shades No off white, cream Pure as snow on shimmering peaks Is my favorite sight. Nurses, priests, politicians Are bound, chained to white White nebulous clouds Evoke deep nostalgic thoughts. They swaddled my father […]...
4. Not Ideas About The Thing But The Thing Itself At the earliest ending of winter, In March, a scrawny cry from outside Seemed like a sound in his mind. He knew that he heard it, A bird’s cry, at daylight or before, In the early March wind. The sun was rising at six, No longer a battered panache above snow… It would have been […]...
5. Blue Winter Winter uses all the blues there are. One shade of blue for water, one for ice, Another blue for shadows over snow. The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice- Both different blues. And hills row after row Are colored blue according to how for. You know the bluejay’s double-blur device Shows best when there […]...
6. The Perch There is a fork in a branch Of an ancient, enormous maple, One of a grove of such trees, Where I climb sometimes and sit and look out Over miles of valleys and low hills. Today on skis I took a friend To show her the trees. We set out Down the road, turned in […]...
7. Landing Under Water, I See Roots All the things we hide in water Hoping we won’t see them go- (forests growing under water Press against the ones we know)- And they might have gone on growing And they might now breathe above Everything I speak of sowing (everything I try to love)....
8. Bixby's Landing They burned lime on the hill and dropped it down here in an iron car On a long cable; here the ships warped in And took their loads from the engine, the water is deep to the cliff. The car Hangs half way over in the gape of the gorge, Stationed like a north star […]...
9. Sonnet 03: Mindful Of You The Sodden Earth In Spring Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring, And all the flowers that in the springtime grow, And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing The summer through, and each departing wing, And all the nests that the bared branches show, And all winds that in […]...
10. The Left Bank Don’t walk away, Renee, I’m just getting warmed up Your body is like a river And I’m going to swim across I want to explore the left Bank of you then the right You’re the only woman in This room with a sunflower In her hair and you take Forever in the bathroom Making me […]...
11. Pray to What Earth Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong, Which asks no duties and no conscience? The moon goes up by leaps, her cheerful path In some far summer stratum of the sky, While stars with their cold shine bedot her way. The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky, And far and near upon […]...
12. The Earth Falls Down If I could blame it all on the weather, The snow like the cadaver’s table, The trees turned into knitting needles, The ground as hard as a frozen haddock, The pond wearing its mustache of frost. If I could blame conditions on that, If I could blame the hearts of strangers Striding muffled down the […]...
13. BURNT SHIPS TO skies that were brighter Turned he his prows; To gods that were lighter Made he his vows. The snow-land’s mountains Sank in the deep; Sunnier fountains Lulled him to sleep. He burns his vessels, The smoke flung forth On blue cloud-trestles A bridge to the north. From the sun-warmed lowland Each night that betides, […]...
14. Snow SNOW took us away from the smoke valleys into white mountains, we saw velvet blue cows eating a vermillion grass and they gave us a pink milk. Snow changes our bones into fog streamers caught by the wind and spelled into many dances. Six bits for a sniff of snow in the old days bought […]...
15. Earth's Answer Earth raised up her head. From the darkness dread & drear, Her light fled: Stony dread! And her locks cover’d with grey despair. Prison’d on watery shore Starry Jealousy does keep my den Cold and hoar Weeping o’er I hear the father of the ancient men Selfish father of men Cruel jealous selfish fear Can […]...
16. Tz'u No. 8 To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” My courtyard is small, windows idle, Spring is getting old. Screens unrolled cast heavy shadows. In my upper-story chamber, speechless, I play on my jasper lute. Clouds rising from distant mountains Hasten the fall of dusk. Gentle wind and drizzling rain Cause a pervading gloom. Pear blossoms can […]...
17. My Future “Let’s make him a sailor,” said Father, “And he will adventure the sea.” “A soldier,” said Mother, “is rather What I would prefer him to be.” “A lawyer,” said Father, “would please me, For then he could draw up my will.” “A doctor,” said Mother, “would ease me; Maybe he could give me a pill.” […]...
18. It seldom snowed – Part III It seldom snowed they said, and they were nearly right. In all of nine eventful Seasons crystal white on average graced the place just twice a year. A smaller Fall, an over-night preceded heavy snow. And heavy snow remained a week, Blocked drains and closed the Desert Road; but no complaints, our children Played in […]...
19. Talent This is the word tightrope. Now imagine A man, inching across it in the space Between our thoughts. He holds our breath. There is no word net. You want him to fall, don’t you? I guessed as much; he teeters but succeeds. The word applause is written all over him....
20. Cloony The Clown I’ll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown Who worked in a circus that came through town. His shoes were too big and his hat was too small, But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all. He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes, He had a green dog and a thousand […]...
21. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
22. The Strength of the Lonely (What the Mendicant Said ) The moon’s a monk, unmated, Who walks his cell, the sky. His strength is that of heaven-vowed men Who all life’s flames defy. They turn to stars or shadows, They go like snow or dew- Leaving behind no sorrow- Only the arching blue....
23. Earth Voices I I heard the spring wind whisper Above the brushwood fire, “The world is made forever Of transport and desire. “I am the breath of being, The primal urge of things; I am the whirl of star dust, I am the lift of wings. “I am the splendid impulse That comes before the thought, The […]...
24. To Thomas Butts TO my friend Butts I write My first vision of light, On the yellow sands sitting. The sun was emitting His glorious beams From Heaven’s high streams. Over sea, over land, My eyes did expand Into regions of air, Away from all care; Into regions of fire, Remote from desire; The light of the morning […]...
25. Said Grenfell to my Spirit Said Grenfell to my spirit, “You’ve been writing very free Of the charms of other places, and you don’t remember me. You have claimed another native place and think it’s Nature’s law, Since you never paid a visit to a town you never saw: So you sing of Mudgee Mountains, willowed stream and grassy flat: […]...
26. Snow Late December: my father and I Are going to New York, to the circus. He holds me On his shoulders in the bitter wind: Scraps of white paper Blow over the railroad ties. My father liked To stand like this, to hold me So he couldn’t see me. I remember Staring straight ahead Into the […]...
27. We Astronomers We astronomers are nomads, Merchants, circus people, All the earth our tent. We are industrious. We breed enthusiasms, Honour our responsibility to awe. But the universe has moved a long way off. Sometimes, I confess, Starlight seems too sharp, And like the moon I bend my face to the ground, To the small patch where […]...
28. At the End In another time, a linen winding sheet Would already have been drawn About her, the funeral drums by now Would have throbbed their dull tattoo Into the shadows writhing Behind the fire’s eye While a likeness Of her narrow torso, carved And studded with obsidian Might have been passed from hand To hand and rubbed […]...
29. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
30. Sketch THE shadows of the ships Rock on the crest In the low blue lustre Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide. A long brown bar at the dip of the sky Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt. The lucid and endless wrinkles Draw in, lapse and withdraw. Wavelets crumble and […]...
31. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
32. Young Night-Thought All night long and every night, When my mama puts out the light, I see the people marching by, As plain as day before my eye. Armies and emperor and kings, All carrying different kinds of things, And marching in so grand a way, You never saw the like by day. So fine a show […]...
33. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
34. The Joy of Earth OH, the sudden wings arising from the ploughed fields brown Showered aloft in spray of song the wild-bird twitter floats O’er the unseen fount awhile, and then comes dropping down Nigh the cool brown earth to hush enraptured notes. Far within a dome of trembling opal throbs the fire, Mistily its rain of diamond lances […]...
35. The Earth THEY tell me that the earth is still the same Although the Red Branch now is but a name, That yonder peasant lifting up his eyes Can see the marvel of the morning rise, The wonder Deirdre gazed on when she came. I cannot think the hearts that beat so high Had not a lordlier […]...
36. How Much Earth Torn into light, you woke wriggling On a woman’s palm. Halved, quartered, Shredded to the wind, you were the life That thrilled along the underbelly Of a stone. Stilled in the frozen pond You rinsed heaven with a sigh. How much earth is a man. A wall fies down and roses Rush from its teeth; […]...
37. The Earth God loafs around heaven, Without a shape But He would like to smoke His cigar Or bite His fingernails And so forth. God owns heaven But He craves the earth, The earth with its little sleepy caves, Its bird resting at the kitchen window, Even its murders lined up like broken chairs, Even its writers […]...
38. Wild Dark Love Song Her man, A wild dark love song Borne deep within her gypsy soul He’s gone to live in jagged mountains Where salmon jump and sing In tarns High above The cloud lines Beyond the silver moon In the shadow of the Cader Idris In misty mountains Where meadowlarks are known to wing And wild geese […]...
39. Strings in the Earth and Air Strings in the earth and air Make music sweet; Strings by the river where The willows meet. There’s music along the river For Love wanders there, Pale flowers on his mantle, Dark leaves on his hair. All softly playing, With head to the music bent, And fingers straying Upon an instrument....
40. When Cold in the Earth When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved, Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then; Or, if from their slumber the veil be removed, Weep o’er them in silence, and close it again. And oh! if ’tis pain to remember how far From the pathways of light he was […]...