How Much Earth

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1. Sacrifices All winter the fire devoured everything Tear-stained elegies, old letters, diaries, dead flowers. When April finally arrived, I opened the woodstove one last time And shoveled the remains of those long cold nights Into a bucket, ash rising Through shafts of sunlight, As swirling in bright, angelic eddies. I shoveled out the charred end of […]...
2. The Strangest Creature On Earth You’re like a scorpion, my brother, You live in cowardly darkness like a scorpion. You’re like a sparrow, my brother, Always in a sparrow’s flutter. You’re like a clam, my brother, Closed like a clam, content, And you’re frightening, my brother, like the mouth of an extinct volcano. Not one, not five Unfortunately, you number […]...
3. 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 […]...
4. Earth-Moon Once upon a time there was a person He was walking along He met the full burning moon Rolling slowly twoards him Crushing the stones and houses by the wayside. She shut his eyes from the glare. He drew his dagger And stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. The cry that quit the moon’s wounds Circled […]...
5. The Little Lives Of Earth And Form The little lives of earth and form, Of finding food, and keeping warm, Are not like ours, and yet A kinship lingers nonetheless: We hanker for the homeliness Of den, and hole, and set. And this identity we feel – Perhaps not right, perhaps not real – Will link us constantly; I see the rock, […]...
6. A Bunch of Roses Roses ruddy and roses white, What are the joys that my heart discloses? Sitting alone in the fading light Memories come to me here tonight With the wonderful scent of the big red roses. Memories come as the daylight fades Down on the hearth where the firelight dozes; Flicker and flutter the lights and shades, […]...
7. A Cradle Song Sweet dreams form a shade, O’er my lovely infants head. Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, By happy silent moony beams Sweet sleep with soft down. Weave thy brows an infant crown. Sweet sleep Angel mild, Hover o’er my happy child. Sweet smiles in the night, Hover over my delight. Sweet smiles Mothers smiles, All the […]...
8. They leave us with the Infinite They leave us with the Infinite. But He is not a man His fingers are the size of fists His fists, the size of men And whom he foundeth, with his Arm As Himmaleh, shall stand Gibraltar’s Everlasting Shoe Poised lightly on his Hand, So trust him, Comrade You for you, and I, for you […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. Mother Earth Mother of all the high-strung poets and singers departed, Mother of all the grass that weaves over their graves the glory of the field, Mother of all the manifold forms of life, deep-bosomed, patient, impassive, Silent brooder and nurse of lyrical joys and sorrows! Out of thee, yea, surely out of the fertile depth below […]...
11. Peace on Earth He took a frayed hat from his head, And “Peace on Earth” was what he said. “A morsel out of what you’re worth, And there we have it: Peace on Earth. Not much, although a little more Than what there was on earth before I’m as you see, I’m Ichabod,- But never mind the ways […]...
12. As from the earth the light Balloon As from the earth the light Balloon Asks nothing but release Ascension that for which it was, Its soaring Residence. The spirit looks upon the Dust That fastened it so long With indignation, As a Bird Defrauded of its song....
13. By the Earth's Corpse I “O Lord, why grievest Thou? – Since Life has ceased to be Upon this globe, now cold As lunar land and sea, And humankind, and fowl, and fur Are gone eternally, All is the same to Thee as ere They knew mortality.” II “O Time,” replied the Lord, “Thou read’st me ill, I ween; […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. Picture Postcard From The Other World Since I don’t know who will be reading This or even if it will be read, I must Invent someone on the other end Of eternity, a distant cousin laboring Under the same faint stars I labored All those unnumbered years ago. I make you Like me in everything I can a man Or woman […]...
16. Grumpy Grandpa Grand-daughter of the Painted Nails, As if they had been dipped in gore, I’d like to set you lugging pails And make you scrub the kitchen floor. I’m old and crotchety of course, And on this point my patience fails; I’d sue my old girl for divorce If she showed up with painted nails. Grand-daughter […]...
17. Holy Sonnet VII: At The Round Earth's Imagined Corners Blow At the round earth’s imagined corners blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go, All whom the flood did, and fire shall, overthrow, All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes Shall behold God, and […]...
18. Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee Shall Earth no more inspire thee, Thou lonely dreamer now? Since passion may not fire thee Shall nature cease to bow? Thy mind is ever moving In regions dark to thee; Recall its useless roving – Come back and dwell with me – I know my mountain breezes Enchant annd soothe thee still – I […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. Move Eastward, Happy Earth Move eastward, happy earth, and leave Yon orange sunset waning slow: From fringes of the faded eve, O, happy planet, eastward go: Till over thy dark shoulder glow Thy silver sister world, and rise To glass herself in dewey eyes That watch me from the glen below. Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne, Dip […]...
21. In the Train AS we rush, as we rush in the Train, The trees and the houses go wheeling back, But the starry heavens above the plain Come flying on our track. All the beautiful stars of the sky, The silver doves of the forest of Night, Over the dull earth swarm and fly, Companions of our flight. […]...
22. Ode To Salt This salt In the saltcellar I once saw in the salt mines. I know You won’t Believe me, But It sings, Salt sings, the skin Of the salt mines Sings With a mouth smothered By the earth. I shivered in those solitudes When I heard The voice of The salt In the desert. Near Antofagasta […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. Compass Rose I’d buy you a Babushka doll, my heart, And brush your ash-blonde hair until it gleams, Were Russia and our land not laid apart By ocean so much deeper than it seems. I have an oval pin, though glossy lacquer Hand-made in Moscow, after glasnost came, With fine, deft roses on a background blacker Perhaps, […]...
26. Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor […]...
27. The Division Of The Earth “Take the world!” Zeus exclaimed from his throne in the skies To the children of man “take the world I now give; It shall ever remain as your heirloom and prize, So divide it as brothers, and happily live.” Then all who had hands sought their share to obtain, The young and the aged made […]...
28. For an Earth-Landing the sky sinks its blue teeth Into the mountains. Rising on pure will (the lurch & lift-off, The sudden swing Into wide, white snow), I encourage the cable. Past the wind & crossed tips of my skis & the mauve shadows of pines & the spoor of bears & deer, I speak to my fear, […]...
29. Love Lives Beyond The Tomb Love lives beyond the tomb, And earth, which fades like dew! I love the fond, The faithful, and the true. Love lives in sleep: ‘Tis happiness of healthy dreams: Eve’s dews may weep, But love delightful seems. ‘Tis seen in flowers, And in the morning’s pearly dew; In earth’s green hours, And in the heaven’s […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. I AM NOT A NATIVE OF THIS PLACE I am not a native of this palce.(Yosimasu G.) Nor yet a stranger. With the rst of you I hunt for shade My boots half off To let the air through. My head is on my shoulders & is real. I plant cucumbers Twice a year & count the bounty. Often I read The papers […]...
32. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
33. The Twilight of Earth THE WONDER of the world is o’er: The magic from the sea is gone: There is no unimagined shore, No islet yet to venture on. The Sacred Hazels’ blooms are shed, The Nuts of Knowledge harvested. Oh, what is worth this lore of age If time shall never bring us back Our battle with the […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. The missing the way loss seeps Into neck hollows And curls at temples Sits between front teeth Cavity Empty and waiting For mourning to open The way mourning stays Forever shadowing vision Shaping lives with memory A drawer won’t close Sleep elusive Smile illusive The only real is grief Forever counting the days Minutes missing without knowing […]...
36. Sonnet 146: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, My sinful earth these rebel powers array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy […]...
37. My Father's Love Letters On Fridays he’d open a can of Jax After coming home from the mill, & ask me to write a letter to my mother Who sent postcards of desert flowers Taller than men. He would beg, Promising to never beat her Again. Somehow I was happy She had gone, & sometimes wanted To slip in […]...
38. Teeth English Teeth, English Teeth! Shining in the sun A part of British heritage Aye, each and every one. English Teeth, Happy Teeth! Always having fun Clamping down on bits of fish And sausages half done. English Teeth! HEROES’ Teeth! Hear them click! and clack! Let’s sing a song of praise to them – Three Cheers […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. The earth has many keys The earth has many keys, Where melody is not Is the unknown peninsula. Beauty is nature’s fact. But witness for her land, And witness for her sea, The cricket is her utmost Of elegy to me....