Good neighbours

Related poetry:

1. Other side The dung was recent, not an event Unusual in itself but difficult to explain Of cows grazing the other side of the fence. Too new to be dismissed without a thought, Disturbing evidence which brought A desired state of bovine restraint Into an irksome disgrace. We couldn’t see a beast Ranging free, eating And defecating […]...
2. Wires The widest prairies have electric fences, For though old cattle know they must not stray Young steers are always scenting purer water Not here but anywhere. Beyond the wires Leads them to blunder up against the wires Whose muscle-shredding violence gives no quarter. Young steers become old cattle from that day, Electric limits to their […]...
3. Neighbours My neighbour has a field of wheat And I a rood of vine; And he will give me bread to eat, And I will give him wine. And so we are a jolly pair, Contentedly unwed, Singing with supper as we share Red wine and crusty bread. Now venison is mighty meat And so is […]...
4. Grand-Pa's Whim While for me gapes the greedy grave It don’t make sense That I should have a crazy crave To paint our fence. Yet that is what I aim to do, Though dim my sight: Jest paint them aged pickets blue, Or green or white. Jest squat serenely in the sun Wi’ brush an’ paint, An’ […]...
5. Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World Whether what we sense of this world Is the what of this world only, or the what Of which of several possible worlds which what? something of what we sense May be true, may be the world, what it is, what we sense. For the rest, a truce is possible, the tolerance Of travelers, eating […]...
6. Agoraphobia My whole world is all you refuse: A black light, angelic and cold On the path to the orchard, Fox-runs and clouded lanes and the glitter of webbing, Little owls snagged in the fruit nets Out by the wire And the sense of another life, that persists When I go out into the yard And […]...
7. The First Surveyor ‘The man who brought the railway through our friend the engineer.’ They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! ‘Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. Before the engineer was born we’d settled with our stock Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock A […]...
8. Growing Apart We knew their names Or thought we did, we knew their faces From an album of places we’d played In a fabulous lifetime of childhood shared. Events of our beginnings declared us united By common ascent, whether they liked it or cared, But they were there to be watched and we knew, If we dared […]...
9. The Amateur Rider Him goin’ to ride for us! Him with the pants and the eyeglass and all. Amateur! don’t he just look it it’s twenty to one on a fall. Boss must be gone off his head to be sending out steeplechase crack Out over fences like these with an object like that on his back. Ride! […]...
10. Lines Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance Between the lines is fine but don’t Turn corners, cross, cut in, go over Or out, between two points of no Return’s a line of flight, between Two points of view’s a line of vision. But a line of thought […]...
11. Hydrangeas Dragoons, I tell you the white hydrangeas turn rust and go soon. Already mid September a line of brown runs over them. One sunset after another tracks the faces, the petals. Waiting, they look over the fence for what way they go....
12. The Pick I watched him swinging the pick in the sun, Breaking the concrete steps into chunks of rock, And the rocks into dust, And the dust into earth again. I must have sat for a very long time on the split rail fence, Just watching him. My father’s body glistened with sweat, His arms flew like […]...
13. Piscine kind of kinship To glibly say that Joe was sort of odd Quite missed the point. Peculiar in many Ways and kind of weird, I would have Been afraid of him were I a child (if I ever Was a meek and mild retiring kid), avoided Him as if the plague. But he was good to Mutti, And […]...
14. Ad Invasions Advertisements, they’ve trashed the web, Somehow they’ve gotten into bed With common sense; ubiquitous And so intense, insistent As to cause offense, Intrusive and quite truculent, I would they should all go away. [Your Ad Here] But like the course of politics A stronger force reserves its place, Creates a vacuum in the space It […]...
15. I'm sorry for the Dead Today I’m sorry for the Dead Today It’s such congenial times Old Neighbors have at fences It’s time o’ year for Hay. And Broad Sunburned Acquaintance Discourse between the Toil And laugh, a homely species That makes the Fences smile It seems so straight to lie away From all of the noise of Fields The Busy […]...
16. Sonnet X: Reason Reason, in faith thou art well serv’d, that still Wouldst brabbling be with sense and love in me: I rather wish’d thee climb the Muses’ hill, Or reach the fruit of Nature’s choicest tree, Or seek heav’n’s course, or heav’n’s inside to see: Why shouldst thou toil our thorny soil to till? Leave sense, and […]...
17. Dream Song 36: The high ones die, die. They die The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and who’s there? €”Easy, easy, Mr Bones. I is on your side. I smell your grief. €”I sent my grief away. I cannot care Forever. With them all align & again I died And cried, and I have to live. €”Now there you exaggerate, Sah. […]...
18. Late Evening Song For a while Let it be enough: The responsive smile, Though effort goes into it. Across the warm room Shared in candlelight, This look beyond shame, Possible now, at night, Goes out to yours. Hidden by day And shaped by fires Grown dead, gone gray, That burned in other rooms I knew Too long ago […]...
19. Over the fence Over the fence Strawberries grow Over the fence I could climb if I tried, I know Berries are nice! But if I stained my Apron God would certainly scold! Oh, dear, I guess if He were a Boy He’d climb if He could!...
20. Dreams of better days At break of day we rested, the contest of our wills Declined to wrest the peace away and where The foreign powers held sway a quiet was in abundance; A ghostly calm entranced the crowd shrouded In the shadow dance we left them, proud and unafraid, We fled the play, we fled the crowd, we […]...
21. Lover's Gifts XLVIII: I Travelled the Old Road I travelled the old road every day, I took my fruits to the market, My cattle to the meadows, I ferried my boat across the stream and All the ways were well known to me. One morning my basket was heavy with wares. Men were busy in The fields, the pastures crowded with cattle; the […]...
22. Die in shame! You hide your face in shame, But I can see your private parts, Have you no contrition, To expose yourself, shamelessly, thus? Tell me what does it feel, To be watched while you strain? Is that why you hang your head in shame; Has all embarrassment left you? I know it’s hard; you need your […]...
23. I cannot let the moment pass I cannot let the moment pass without a weary greeting, Or retard the recent past where shadows still are fleeting, I’d sabotage the future by just staring in a mirror And never let the glimmer pass and try to hold my image fast In healing my dilemma. Time is gliding in array, I sense it […]...
24. When the Children Come Home On a lonely selection far out in the West An old woman works all the day without rest, And she croons, as she toils ‘neath the sky’s glassy dome, ‘Sure I’ll keep the ould place till the childer come home.’ She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs, She drives the old horse […]...
25. The Explorer There’s no sense in going further it’s the edge of cultivation,” So they said, and I believed it broke my land and sowed my crop Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop. Till a voice, as bad as […]...
26. To Music Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps: Silence of paintings. You language where all language Ends. You time Standing vertically on the motion of mortal hearts. Feelings for whom? O you the transformation Of feelings into what? : into audible landscape. You stranger: music. You heart-space Grown out of us. The deepest space in us, Which, rising […]...
27. Exiles It goes on being Alexandria still. Just walk a bit Along the straight road that ends at the Hippodrome And you’ll see palaces and monuments that will amaze you. Whatever war-damage it’s suffered, However much smaller it’s become, It’s still a wonderful city. And then, what with excursions and books And various kinds of study, […]...
28. It's Ours there is always that space there Just before they get to us That space That fine relaxer The breather While say Flopping on a bed Thinking of nothing Or say Pouring a glass of water from the Spigot While entranced by Nothing That Gentle pure Space It’s worth Centuries of Existence Say Just to scratch […]...
29. Ambition cannot find him Ambition cannot find him. Affection doesn’t know How many leagues of nowhere Lie between them now. Yesterday, undistinguished! Eminent Today For our mutual hone, Immortality!...
30. A Mountain Station I bought a run a while ago, On country rough and ridgy, Where wallaroos and wombats grow The Upper Murrumbidgee. The grass is rather scant, it’s true, But this a fair exchange is, The sheep can see a lovely view By climbing up the ranges. And She-oak Flat’s the station’s name, I’m not surprised at […]...
31. Punctuality Man Naturally loves delay, And to procrastinate; Business put off from day to day Is always done to late. Let ever hour be in its place Firm fixed, nor loosely shift, And well enjoy the vacant space, As though a birthday gift. And when the hour arrives, be there, Where’er that “there” may be; Uncleanly […]...
32. Mending Wall Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it And spills the upper boulder in the sun, And make gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, […]...
33. What Birds Plunge Through Is Not The Intimate Space What birds plunge through is not the intimate space, In which you see all Forms intensified. (In the Open, denied, you would lose yourself, Would disappear into that vastness.) Space reaches from us and translates Things: To become the very essence of a tree, Throw inner space around it, from that space That lives in […]...
34. Sin Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us; then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws;-they send us bound To rules of reason, holy messengers, Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, Blessings […]...
35. Panels THE WEST window is a panel of marching onions. Five new lilacs nod to the wind and fence boards. The rain dry fence boards, the stained knot holes, heliograph a peace. (How long ago the knee drifts here and a blizzard howling at the knot holes, whistling winter war drums?)...
36. The Sands of Dee 1 “O Mary, go and call the cattle home, 2 And call the cattle home, 3 And call the cattle home 4 Across the sands of Dee”; 5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam, 6 And all alone went she. 7 The western tide crept up along the sand, 8 And o’er […]...
37. Opening the Geode When the molten earth seethed In its whirling cauldron Nobody watched the pot From a tall wooden stool Set out in windy space Beyond flame’s reach; And when the spattering mush Steamed, gurgled, boiled over, Mounded up in smoking hills No giant mixing spoon Smoothed out the lumps and bubbles As the pottage cooled to […]...
38. T. y. s. o. n Across the Queensland border line The mobs of cattle go; They travel down in sun and shine On dusty stage, and slow. The drovers, riding slowly on To let the cattle spread, Will say: “Here’s one old landmark gone, For old man Tyson’s dead.” What tales there’ll be in every camp By men that Tyson […]...
39. The Whitsun Weddings That Whitsun, I was late getting away: Not till about One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out, All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense Of being in a hurry gone. We ran Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence The river’s level […]...
40. A Fence NOW the stone house on the lake front is finished and the Workmen are beginning the fence. The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that Can stab the life out of any man who falls on them. As a fence, it is a masterpiece, and will shut off the rabble And all […]...