Shiva

Related poetry:

1. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
2. Love The Wild Swan “I hate my verses, every line, every word. Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky. Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch One color, one glinting Flash, of the splendor of things. Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets […]...
3. Wild Swans I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over. And what did I see I had not seen before? Only a question less or a question more: Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying. Tiresome heart, forever living and dying, House without air, I leave you and lock your door. Wild […]...
4. Millenial Hymn to Lord Shiva Earth no longer Hymns the Creator, The seven days of wonder, The Garden is over – All the stories are told, The seven seals broken All that begins Must have its ending, Our striving, desiring, Our living and dying, For Time, the bringer Of abundant days Is Time the destroyer – In the Iron Age […]...
5. The Swan At Edgewater Park Isn’t one of your prissy richpeoples’ swans Wouldn’t be at home on some pristine pond Chooses the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers, condoms in its tidal fringe Prefers to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck into the body of a Great Lake, Swilling whatever it is swans swill, Chardonnay of algae with bouquet of crud, […]...
6. The Smile on the Face of a Kouros This boy, of course, was dead, whatever that Might mean. And nobly dead. I think we should feel He was nobly dead. He fell in battle, perhaps, And this carved stone remembers him Not as he may have looked, but as if to define The naked virtue the stone describes as his. One foot is […]...
7. Easter Week See the land, her Easter keeping, Rises as her Maker rose. Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping, Burst at last from winter snows. Earth with heaven above rejoices; Fields and gardens hail the spring; Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices, While the wild birds build and sing. You, to whom your Maker granted Powers to […]...
8. Quite empty, quite at rest Quite empty, quite at rest, The Robin locks her Nest, and tries her Wings. She does not know a Route But puts her Craft about For rumored Springs She does not ask for Noon She does not ask for Boon, Crumbless and homeless, of but one request The Birds she lost...
9. The Children of Lir Out upon the sand-dunes thrive the coarse long grasses; Herons standing knee-deep in the brackish pool; Overhead the sunset fire and flame amasses And the moon to eastward rises pale and cool. Rose and green around her, silver-gray and pearly, Chequered with the black rooks flying home to bed; For, to wake at daybreak, birds […]...
10. Rest ON me to rest, my bird, my bird: The swaying branches of my heart Are blown by every wind toward The home whereto their wings depart. Build not your nest, my bird, on me; I know no peace but ever sway: O lovely bird, be free, be free, On the wild music of the day. […]...
11. The Song of Fionnuala Silent, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water, Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose, While, murmuring mournfully, Lir’s lonely daughter Tell’s to the night-star her tale of woes. When shall the swan, her death-note singing, Sleep, with wings in darkness furl’d? When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing, Call my spirit from […]...
12. The Deer Lay Down Their Bones I followed the narrow cliffside trail half way up the mountain Above the deep river-canyon. There was a little cataract crossed the path, flinging itself Over tree roots and rocks, shaking the jeweled fern-fronds, bright bubbling water Pure from the mountain, but a bad smell came up. Wondering at it I clam- bered down the […]...
13. Flying Inside Your Own Body Your lungs fill & spread themselves, Wings of pink blood, and your bones Empty themselves and become hollow. When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon And your heart is light too & huge, Beating with pure joy, pure helium. The sun’s white winds blow through you, There’s nothing above you, You see the […]...
14. The Balance Wheel Where I waved at the sky And waited your love through a February sleep, I saw birds swinging in, watched them multiply Into a tree, weaving on a branch, cradling a keep In the arms of April sprung from the south to occupy This slow lap of land, like cogs of some balance wheel. I […]...
15. Twice Shy Her scarf a la Bardot, In suede flats for the walk, She came with me one evening For air and friendly talk. We crossed the quiet river, Took the embankment walk. Traffic holding its breath, Sky a tense diaphragm: Dusk hung like a backcloth That shook where a swan swam, Tremulous as a hawk Hanging […]...
16. Black Swans As I lie at rest on a patch of clover In the Western Park when the day is done. I watch as the wild black swans fly over With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun; And I hear the clang of their leader crying To a lagging mate in the rearward flying, And they […]...
17. Autumn Birds The wild duck startles like a sudden thought, And heron slow as if it might be caught. The flopping crows on weary wings go by And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly. The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by, And darken like a clod the evening sky. The larks like thunder rise and […]...
18. The Awakening River The gulls are mad-in-love with the river, And the river unveils her face and smiles. In her sleep-brooding eyes they mirror their shining wings. She lies on silver pillows: the sun leans over her. He warms and warms her, he kisses and kisses her. There are sparks in her hair and she stirs in laughter. […]...
19. The Phoenix and the Turtle Let the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou, shrieking harbinger, Foul pre-currer of the fiend, Augur of the fever’s end, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, […]...
20. The Caged Skylark As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells- That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age. Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage, Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells, Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in […]...
21. Leda Where the slow river Meets the tide, A red swan lifts red wings And darker beak, And underneath the purple down Of his soft breast Uncurls his coral feet. Through the deep purple Of the dying heat Of sun and mist, The level ray of sun-beam Has caressed The lily with dark breast, And flecked […]...
22. To The House I am heaping the bones of the old mother To build us a hold against the host of the air; Granite the blood-heat of her youth Held molten in hot darkness against the heart Hardened to temper under the feet Of the ocean cavalry that are maned with snow And march from the remotest west. […]...
23. Hurt Hawks I The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder, The wing trails like a banner in defeat, No more to use the sky forever but live with famine And pain a few days: cat nor coyote Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons. He stands under […]...
24. April Rise If ever I saw blessing in the air I see it now in this still early day Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye. Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod Splutters with soapy green, and all the […]...
25. River Roads LET the crows go by hawking their caw and caw. They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere. Let ’em hawk their caw and caw. Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump. He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years And the blue has gone […]...
26. Contemplation Of The Sword Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide. The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel, formerly used to kill men, but here In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms and counter-storms of general destruction; killing of men, Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or […]...
27. On The Garden Wall Oh, once I walked a garden In dreams. ‘Twas yellow grass. And many orange-trees grew there In sand as white as glass. The curving, wide wall-border Was marble, like the snow. I walked that wall a fairy-prince And, pacing quaint and slow, Beside me were my pages, Two giant, friendly birds. Half swan they were, […]...
28. To my dear Sister, Mrs. C. P. on her Nuptial We will not like those men our offerings pay Who crown the cup, then think they crown the day. We make no garlands, nor an altar build, Which help not Joy, but Ostentation yield. Where mirth is justly grounded these wild toyes Are but a troublesome, and empty noise. 2. But these shall be my […]...
29. The Defective Record Cut the bank for the fill. Dump sand Pumped out of the river Into the old swale Killing whatever was There before-including Even the muskrats. Who did it? There’s the guy. Him in the blue shirt and Turquoise skullcap. Level it down For him to build a house On to build a House on to […]...
30. The Hawk ‘Call down the hawk from the air; Let him be hooded or caged Till the yellow eye has grown mild, For larder and spit are bare, The old cook enraged, The scullion gone wild.’ ‘I will not be clapped in a hood, Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist, Now I have learnt to be […]...
31. Postscript And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake […]...
32. Vulture I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling high up in heaven, And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit narrowing, I understood then That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the […]...
33. Spring Birds’ love and birds’ song Flying here and there, Birds’ songand birds’ love And you with gold for hair! Birds’ songand birds’ love Passing with the weather, Men’s song and men’s love, To love once and forever. Men’s love and birds’ love, And women’s love and men’s! And you my wren with a crown of […]...
34. End of Summer An agitation of the air, A perturbation of the light Admonished me the unloved year Would turn on its hinge that night. I stood in the disenchanted field Amid the stubble and the stones Amaded, while a small worm lisped to me The song of my marrow-bones. Blue poured into summer blue, A hawk broke […]...
35. A Gardener-Sage Here in the garden-bed, Hoeing the celery, Wonders the Lord has made Pass ever before me. I see the young birds build, And swallows come and go, And summer grow and gild, And winter die in snow. Many a thing I note, And store it in my mind, For all my ragged coat That scarce […]...
36. Datur Hora Quieti The sun upon the lake is low, The wild birds hush their song, The hills have evening’s deepest glow, Yet Leonard tarries long. Now all whom varied toil and care From home and love divide, In the calm sunset may repair Each to the loved one’s side. The noble dame, on turret high, Who waits […]...
37. Any Night Look, the eucalyptus, the Atlas pine, The yellowing ash, all the trees Are gone, and I was older than All of them. I am older than the moon, Than the stars that fill my plate, Than the unseen planets that huddle Together here at the end of a year No one wanted. A year more […]...
38. Nest Eggs Birds all the summer day Flutter and quarrel Here in the arbour-like Tent of the laurel. Here in the fork The brown nest is seated; For little blue eggs The mother keeps heated. While we stand watching her Staring like gabies, Safe in each egg are the Bird’s little babies. Soon the frail eggs they […]...
39. The Fury Of Beautiful Bones Sing me a thrush, bone. Sing me a nest of cup and pestle. Sing me a sweetbread fr an old grandfather. Sing me a foot and a doorknob, for you are my love. Oh sing, bone bag man, sing. Your head is what I remember that Augusty You were in love with another woman but […]...
40. 419. Bonie Jean: A Ballad THERE was a lass, and she was fair, At kirk or market to be seen; When a’ our fairest maids were met, The fairest maid was bonie Jean. And aye she wrought her mammie’s wark, And aye she sang sae merrilie; The blythest bird upon the bush Had ne’er a lighter heart than she. But […]...