Home ⇒ 📌Jane Kenyon ⇒ February: Thinking of Flowers
February: Thinking of Flowers
Now wind torments the field,
Turning the white surface back
On itself, back and back on itself,
Like an animal licking a wound.
Nothing but white the air, the light;
Only one brown milkweed pod
Bobbing in the gully, smallest
Brown boat on the immense tide.
A single green sprouting thing
Would restore me. . . .
Then think of the tall delphinium,
Swaying, or the bee when it comes
To the tongue of the burgundy lily.
(2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Thinking Of A Friend At Night In this evil year, autumn comes early… I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters, The wind on my hat…And you? And you, my friend? You are standing maybe and seeing the sickle moon Move in a small arc over the forests And bivouac fire, red in the black valley. You are […]...
- The Portent Hanging from the beam, Slowly swaying (such the law), Gaunt the shadow on the green, Shenandoah! The cut is on the crown (Lo, John Brown), And the stabs shall heal no more. Hidden in the cap Is the anguish none can draw; So your future veils its face, Shenandoah! But the streaming beard is shown […]...
- 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 […]...
- 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 […]...
- Potomac Town in February THE BRIDGE says: Come across, try me; see how good I am. The big rock in the river says: Look at me; learn how to stand up. The white water says: I go on; around, under, over, I go on. A kneeling, scraggly pine says: I am here yet; they nearly got me last year. […]...
- In Memory of a Happy Day in February Blessed be Thou for all the joy My soul has felt today! O let its memory stay with me And never pass away! I was alone, for those I loved Were far away from me, The sun shone on the withered grass, The wind blew fresh and free. Was it the smile of early spring […]...
- Just Thinking Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window. No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held For awhile. Some dove somewhere. Been on probation most of my life. And The rest of my life been condemned. So these moments Count for a lot peace, you know. Let the bucket of memory down into […]...
- The Death of the Flowers The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs […]...
- In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams I. The poem is important, but Not more than the people Whose survival it serves, One of the necessities, so they may Speak what is true, and have The patience for beauty: the weighted Grainfield, the shady street, The well-laid stone and the changing tree Whose branches spread above. For want of songs and stories […]...
- The Flowers All the names I know from nurse: Gardener’s garters, Shepherd’s purse, Bachelor’s buttons, Lady’s smock, And the Lady Hollyhock. Fairy places, fairy things, Fairy woods where the wild bee wings, Tiny trees for tiny dames These must all be fairy names! Tiny woods below whose boughs Shady fairies weave a house; Tiny tree-tops, rose or […]...
- Moccasin Flowers All my life, So far, I have loved More than one thing, Including the mossy hooves Of dreams, including’ The spongy litter Under the tall trees. In spring The moccasin flowers Reach for the crackling Lick of the sun And burn down. Sometimes, In the shadows, I see the hazy eyes, The lamb-lips Of oblivion, […]...
- February Begin, my muse, the imitative lay, Aonian doxies sound the thrumming string; Attempt no number of the plaintive Gay, Let me like midnight cats, or Collins sing. If in the trammels of the doleful line The bounding hail, or drilling rain descend; Come, brooding Melancholy, pow’r divine, And ev’ry unform’d mass of words amend. Now […]...
- Walking To Oak-Head Pond, And Thinking Of The Ponds I Will Visit In The Next Days And Weeks What is so utterly invisible As tomorrow? Not love, Not the wind, Not the inside of a stone. Not anything. And yet, how often I’m fooled I’m wading along In the sunlight And I’m sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining Days ahead I can see the light spilling Like a shower […]...
- XVII (Thinking, Tangling Shadows…) Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude. You are far away too, oh farther than anyone. Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images, Burying lamps. Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there! Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes, Taciturn miller, Night falls on you face downward, far from the city. Your presence is foreign, as strange to […]...
- The Tuft of Flowers I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the leveled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. But he […]...
- The Fury Of Flowers And Worms Let the flowers make a journey On Monday so that I can see Ten daisies in a blue vase With perhaps one red ant Crawling to the gold center. A bit of the field on my table, Close to the worms Who struggle blinding, Moving deep into their slime, Moving deep into God’s abdomen, Moving […]...
- Flowers in Winter How strange to greet, this frosty morn, In graceful counterfeit of flower, These children of the meadows, born Of sunshine and of showers! How well the conscious wood retains The pictures of its flower-sown home, The lights and shades, the purple stains, And golden hues of bloom! It was a happy thought to bring To […]...
- 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 […]...
- From "THE TALK OF FLOWERS" I do not know, whether the sun Accomplished it, The rain or wind – But I was missing so The whiteness and the snow. I listened to the rustling Of spring rain, Washing the reddish buds Of chestnut-trees, – And a tiny spring ran down Into the valley from the hill – And I was […]...
- A single Clover Plank A single Clover Plank Was all that saved a Bee A Bee I personally knew From sinking in the sky ‘Twixt Firmament above And Firmament below The Billows of Circumference Were sweeping him away The idly swaying Plank Responsible to nought A sudden Freight of Wind assumed And Bumble Bee was not This harrowing event […]...
- Flowers Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth’s firmament do shine. Stars they are, wherein we read our history, As astrologers and seers of eld; Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Like the burning […]...
- The Reaper and the Flowers There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between. “Shall I have naught that is fair?” saith he; “Have naught but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give […]...
- February: The Boy Breughel The birches stand in their beggar’s row: Each poor tree Has had its wrists nearly Torn from the clear sleeves of bone, These icy trees Are hanging by their thumbs Under a sun That will begin to heal them soon, Each will climb out Of its own blue, oval mouth; The river groans, Two birds […]...
- Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews, But never deemed the dripping prize Awaited their low Brows Or Bees that thought the Summer’s name Some rumor of Delirium, No Summer could for Them Or Arctic Creatures, dimly stirred By Tropic Hint some Travelled Bird Imported to the Wood Or Wind’s bright signal to the […]...
- Lebennin Silver flow the streams from Colos to Erui In the green fields of Lebennin! Tall grows the grass there. In the wind from the Sea The white lilies sway, And the golden bells are shaken of mallos and alfirin In the green fields of Lebennin, In the wind from the Sea!...
- AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY The day is ending, The night is descending; The marsh is frozen, The river dead. Through clouds like ashes The red sun flashes On village windows That glimmer red. The snow recommences; The buried fences Mark no longer The road o’er the plain; While through the meadows, Like fearful shadows, Slowly passes A funeral train. […]...
- February 23 Light rain is falling in Central Park But not on Upper Fifth Avenue or Central Park West Where sun and sky are yellow and blue Winds are gusting on Washington Square Through the arches and on to LaGuardia Place But calm is the corner of 8th Street and Second Avenue Which reminds me of something […]...
- 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 […]...
- Oh, see how thick the goldcup flowers Oh, see how thick the goldcup flowers Are lying in field and lane, With dandelions to tell the hours That never are told again. Oh may I squire you round the meads And pick you posies gay? ‘Twill do no harm to take my arm. ‘You may, young man, you may.’ Ah, spring was sent […]...
- A Calendar of Sonnets: February Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white; And reigns the winter’s pregnant silence still; No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill, And willow stems grow daily red and bright. These are days when ancients held a rite Of expiation for the old year’s ill, And prayer to purify the new year’s will: […]...
- Do you know who is thinking of you? If you start out every day in the same old gloomy way It’s little wonder what other people think of you, but The ones who matter most are the ones who hold you close In their hearts, who’re always thinking of you; Do you know, do you know, Do you know who is thinking of […]...
- Flood-Tide of Flowers IN HOLLAND The laggard winter ebbed so slow With freezing rain and melting snow, It seemed as if the earth would stay Forever where the tide was low, In sodden green and watery gray. But now from depths beyond our sight, The tide is turning in the night, And floods of color long concealed Come […]...
- Images of snow – february 1996 snow is a thousand flowers The chinese probably said Hundreds and thousands this morning Drop their garlands on my head Last night the festoons started Long before we went to bed Snow is a white-furred rabbit The chinese probably wrote Hedgerows and fields this morning Wear a similar fluffy coat Last night the winter danced […]...
- On Thinking Faculty 1/ One sorriest thing in life is our capacity With which we think that we think. Some do it with brains, some with hearts, Some stomachs, and some genitals. 2/ Vocabulary is useless without thoughts....
- The Picture Of Little T. C. In A Prospect Of Flowers See with what simplicity This Nimph begins her golden daies! In the green Grass she loves to lie, And there with her fair Aspect tames The Wilder flow’rs, and gives them names: But only with the Roses playes; And them does tell What Colour best becomes them, and what Smell. Who can foretel for what […]...
- Morning at the Window THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates. The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts […]...
- Thinking For Berky In the late night listening from bed I have joined the ambulance or the patrol Screaming toward some drama, the kind of end That Berky must have some day, if she isn’t dead. The wildest of all, her father and mother cruel, Farming out there beyond the old stone quarry Where highschool lovers parked their […]...
- Thinking of an Afterlife When was the beginning, In the fertilising, in the flower, Or was it deeper, In the earth beneath? No end of wonderment Shall cease such a quest, Or know how it is unknowable. We gaze on our cosmos in the cusp of a bloom, To glimpse the mysterious, grasp at reality, Surrender a dearth of […]...
- Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
- Black Oaks Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary, Or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance And comfort. Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays Carp and whistle all day in the branches, without The push of the wind. But to tell the truth after a […]...