I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.
quote by Wendell Berry
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Shallow Thoughts...
along the shores
where the salty vines have covered our tracks
the coconuts are growing tall
and being so nearly planted
their leaves reach for each other
in a little distance
the heaps of dry leaves and husks
make a mountain
and now covered by the vines
and so concealed
beyond this place is a grass-less space
it is where most of the strangers stay
the mass of people gather
and bask under the sun
the gates here are closed more often
there are no kids
neither are there old people who take
their leisure here
this is my own place
so private and so deserted
i would like to call it another solitude
but the coconut trees without nuts
on this rainy December
signify otherwise
it is lonely, the hut speaks.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Way Through the Woods
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods. . . .
But there is no road through the woods.
poem by Rudyard Kipling
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Be Or Don't Be (A Song)
I be or don’t be
Would be spreading whiff
As a blossom, As a bud
In the orchard of love
I be or don‘t be
Whatever the weather
I always will be there
To keep the orchard fresh
And in colour of desire
Will be watering it ever
As a blossom as a bud
The orchard of love
I be or don’t be
I will unfurl my shirt
And sway in the breeze
Will glow like flower
On the blossom trees
Would spread fragrance
As a blossom as a bud
In the garden of love
I be or don’t be
When I won’t be there
Her eyes with tears
Would be finding me
She would stop in reverie
Where I will meet her
As a blossom, as a bud
In the orchard of love
I be or don’t be
poem by S.D. Tiwari
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Good-bye, and Keep Cold
This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark
And cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard away at the end of the farm
All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,
I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.
(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call
I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)
I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
(We made it secure against being, I hope,
By setting it out on a northerly slope.)
No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;
But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
"How often already you've had to be told,
Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.
Dread fifty above more than fifty below."
I have to be gone for a season or so.
My business awhile is with different trees,
Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,
And such as is done to their wood with an axe--
Maples and birches and tamaracks.
I wish I could promise to lie in the night
And think of an orchard's arboreal plight
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
Its heart sinks lower under the sod.
But something has to be left to God.
poem by Robert Frost
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Oh To Be Out In The Country
A hot day in the city and scarce a puff of breeze
Oh to be out in the country in the cool shade of the trees
In the shadow of the wattles leafing through a favourite book
Listening to the coot and black duck calling in the quiet brook.
Oh to be out in the country on this sunny Summer's day
In the hills above Wonthaggi more than eighty miles away
In the shadow of the gum trees many miles from city street
Stretched and resting on the fog grass sheltering from the mid day heat.
I feel tired of city living city life's a hard old slog
And I am sick of man's pollution sick of breathing smoke and smog
Oh to be out in the country by a creek enjoying a beer
In a World free of pollution many miles away from here.
A hot day in the city near thirty five degrees
Oh to be out in the country in the cool shade of the trees
In the shadow of the gum trees many miles from city street
Stretched and resting on the fog grass sheltering from the mid day heat.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Yesterday I staked off the ground on the hill for an orchard. I want to get 1000 apple trees agrowing.
quote by Ezra Cornell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Shadow
I had a dream one night
In which i walked through a meadow
The sun was blazing an intense heat
My heart was pounding
When I noticed a shadow
Hanging its head in defeat
It copied my motions
And stopped when I stopped
And ran when I started to run
I was runnug as fast as I could
And searching the sky
For a place somewhere above the sun
That's when I felt an ache
Deep within me
As though every pain I've ever felt
Were sudddenly one
The shadow was standing
As still as could be
I tried to stop the tears
When I felt them come
They burned tiny paths
Down my sweaty cheeks
The clouds seemed to laugh
When the rain began to pour
As if taunting me
I watched as the shadow
Raised its arms into the air
Together we cried out, 'Oh Lord,
Help me end this despair! '
I think I made an effort to catch it,
But the shadow crumpled to the ground
Just as the weather turned fair
poem by Erika Wingo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Fête Champêtre
Under the shadow of the trees
We sat together, you and I;
Our hearts were sweetly ill at ease
Under the shadow of the trees.
In the green circle of the grass
We saw the fairies passing by;
The wake, the fairy wake it was
Upon the circle of green grass.
And softly with their fairy chain
They wove a circle round about,
And round our hearts; ah, not in vain
They bound us with their fairy chain!
With shadowy bonds thy bound us fast,
They wove their circle in and out;
Ah, Céleste, when the fairies passed,
With what strong bonds they bound us fast!
poem by Arthur Symons
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Healing
I'm still healing, I'm still dying.
I'm still healing, I'm still nothing.
I'm still healing, I live alone.
I'm still healing, my eyes see shadows.
I'm still healing, I love no one.
I'm still healing, I'm finally dead.
poem by Jill Laughlin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Till We Get The Healing Done
Down those old ancient streets
Down those old ancient roads
Baby there together we must go
Till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Till youre satisfied with your life
Till youre satisfied with your life
Till youre satisfied with your life
And its running right, and its running right
Till you deal with the poison inside
Sometimes youve got to sit down and cry
When you deal with the poison inside
Till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Till you feel the tingle up your spine
Till youre satisfied and youre mine
Till you feel a tingle up your spine
Till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Till you live in the glory of the one
Till you live in the land of the sun
Till you feel like your life has just begun
Till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Till we dwell in the house of the lord
Till you dont have to worry no more
Till you open a brand new world
Till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Till it makes you feel alright
Till youre satisfied with your life
Till you know you live in the light
Till we get the healing done
Oh till we get the healing done
Till you look at the mountains every day
Till you wash all your troubles away
And you live right here in the day
Till we get the healing done
Oh till we get the healing done
Oh till its truth and its beauty and its grace
Till youve finally found your true place
Till you know your original face
Till we get the healing done
Oh child, till we get the healing done
Oh when everythings going right
Till youre satisfied with your life
Till youre living in the light
Till we get the healing done
Oh till we get the healing done
Oh when you feel it, when you feel it in your soul
Baby, and you really know
That you reap just what you sow
When we get the healing done
Oh till we get the healing done
Till you know that its working every time
Till you work it out in your mind
And you know it straight down the line
Till you get the healing done
Oh make no worry till we get the healing done
Oh we gonna go back, back to our favourite place
Oh look at it again
See it all through different eyes
When we get the healing done
Oh when we get the healing done
Oh were living for the grace of the lord
Baby feel so good about it all
Oh give thanks every day
Till we get the healing done
Oh till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Oh baby, baby till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Baby you got to stay
Till we get the healing done
If it takes to the break of day
Till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
Till we get the healing done
You got to stay all night long
Till we get the healing done
song performed by by Van Morrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Baguio city, a memory....
i remember
that coldness of December
we stayed
on top of that hill
below us
all fog
around us trees
foggy trees
the glass window
is hazy
the heat from the fireplace
gives
the warmth that we cannot
give
to each other
my mind played on the
waves of fire
when all the lights are closed
at midnight
i remember
i went out of my room
went outside the house
climbed the fence and
stood there with my arms raised in surrender
i was too lonely
and did not know what to do
where to
i was broken.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
An Explanation of America: A Love of Death
Imagine a child from Virginia or New Hampshire
Alone on the prairie eighty years ago
Or more, one afternoon—the shaggy pelt
Of grasses, for the first time in that child’s life,
Flowing for miles. Imagine the moving shadow
Of a cloud far off across that shadeless ocean,
The obliterating strangeness like a tide
That pulls or empties the bubble of the child’s
Imaginary heart. No hills, no trees.
The child’s heart lightens, tending like a bubble
Towards the currents of the grass and sky,
The pure potential of the clear blank spaces.
Or, imagine the child in a draw that holds a garden
Cupped from the limitless motion of the prairie,
Head resting against a pumpkin, in evening sun.
Ground-cherry bushes grow along the furrows,
The fruit red under its papery, moth-shaped sheath.
Grasshoppers tumble among the vines, as large
As dragons in the crumbs of pale dry earth.
The ground is warm to the child’s cheek, and the wind
Is a humming sound in the grass above the draw,
Rippling the shadows of the red-green blades.
The bubble of the child’s heart melts a little,
Because the quiet of that air and earth
Is like the shadow of a peaceful death—
Limitless and potential; a kind of space
Where one dissolves to become a part of something
Entire ... whether of sun and air, or goodness
And knowledge, it does not matter to the child.
Dissolved among the particles of the garden
Or into the motion of the grass and air,
Imagine the child happy to be a thing.
Imagine, then, that on that same wide prairie
Some people are threshing in the terrible heat
With horses and machines, cutting bands
And shoveling amid the clatter of the threshers,
The chaff in prickly clouds and the naked sun
Burning as if it could set the chaff on fire.
Imagine that the people are Swedes or Germans,
Some of them resting pressed against the strawstacks,
Trying to get the meager shade.
A man,
A tramp, comes laboring across the stubble
Like a mirage against that blank horizon,
Laboring in his torn shoes toward the tall
Mirage-like images of the tilted threshers
Clattering in the heat. Because the Swedes
Or Germans have no beer, or else because
They cannot speak his language properly,
Or for some reason one cannot imagine,
The man climbs up on a thresher and cuts bands
A minute or two, then waves to one of the people,
A young girl or a child, and jumps head-first
Into the sucking mouth of the machine,
Where he is wedged and beat and cut to pieces—
While the people shout and run in the clouds of chaff,
Like lost mirages on the pelt of prairie.
The obliterating strangeness and the spaces
Are as hard to imagine as the love of death ...
Which is the love of an entire strangeness,
The contagious blankness of a quiet plain.
Imagine that a man, who had seen a prairie,
Should write a poem about a Dark or Shadow
That seemed to be both his, and the prairie’s—as if
The shadow proved that he was not a man,
But something that lived in quiet, like the grass.
Imagine that the man who writes that poem,
Stunned by the loneliness of that wide pelt,
Should prove to himself that he was like a shadow
Or like an animal living in the dark.
In the dark proof he finds in his poem, the man
Might come to think of himself as the very prairie,
The sod itself, not lonely, and immune to death.
None of this happens precisely as I try
To imagine that it does, in the empty plains,
And yet it happens in the imagination
Of part of the country: not in any place
More than another, on the map, but rather
Like a place, where you and I have never been
And need to try to imagine—place like a prairie
Where immigrants, in the obliterating strangeness,
Thirst for the wide contagion of the shadow
Or prairie—where you and I, with our other ways,
More like the cities or the hills or trees,
Less like the clear blank spaces with their potential,
Are like strangers in a place we must imagine.
poem by Robert Pinsky
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Disappointed.
AN old man planted and dug and tended,
Toiling in joy from dew to dew;
The sun was kind, and the rain befriended;
Fine grew his orchard and fair to view.
Then he said: 'I will quiet my thrifty fears,
For here is fruit for my failing years.'
But even then the storm-clouds gathered,
Swallowing up the azure sky;
The sweeping winds into white foam lathered
The placid breast of the bay, hard by;
Then the spirits that raged in the darkened air
Swept o'er his orchard and left it bare.
The old man stood in the rain, uncaring,
Viewing the place the storm had swept;
And then with a cry from his soul despairing,
He bowed him down to the earth and wept.
But a voice cried aloud from the driving rain;
'Arise, old man, and plant again!'
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In Heidelberg
In Heidelberg we stayed in a white house
against the ranges
and there were always
sweet yellow corn that Mom had planted
and nice juicy green beans
that crept up the canes
and I planted rows of onions
and pulled orange carrots
from the ground
and washed them at the tap
and bit pieces from them
and the trees
were heavy with peaches
and we had to
chase the baboons away
that came to strip the them,
but those times
has long passed
and I wonder what is left
of that old white house?
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In The Heat Of The Morning
The blazing sunset in your eyes will tantalize
Every man who looks your way
I watched them sink before your gaze
Seniorita sway
Dance with me before their frozen eyes
Im so much in love
Like a little soldier catching butterflies
No man loved like I love you
Wouldnt you like to love me too
In the heat of the morning
In the shadow Ill clip your wings
And Ill tell you I love you
In the heat of the morning
Ill tie a knot in rainbows end, organise the breeze
Light my candle from the sun
Ill give you daylight for a friend
Ill do all of these
Ill prove that it can be done, oh, Im so much in love
Like the ragged boy who races with the wind
No man loved like I love you
Wouldnt you like to love me too
In the heat of the morning
In the shadow Ill clip your wings
And Ill tell you I love you
In the heat of the morning
In the heat of the morning
In the shadow Ill clip your wings
And Ill tell you I love you
In the heat of the morning
Oh yeah, all day, all the way
Ooh
song performed by by David Bowie
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Country Of Marriage
I.
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.
II.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth's empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.
III.
Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.
IV.
How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.
V.
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don't know what its limits are--
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen tine and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.
VI.
What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.
VII.
I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in the ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy--and this poem,
no more mine than any man's who has loved a woman.
poem by Wendell Berry
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Watch My Steps
Dig around it and fertilize it with love,
And like the fig tree planted in the vineyard of love;
But the heat came in because of the wind!
And like the south wind blowing around you.
Dig, big, fig, nig, pig, cig, jig, rig, wig;
For three years i have benn searching for the fruit of your love,
But try to watch my steps to understand my muse;
And like butter given to the women in your town at last.
With hope to climb to the top,
With love to care for you,
With my mind to be at the right place always,
But i will still search for you;
Because you are like a tree planted by the river of waters!
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Come Back Around
Love in, love out,
Find the feeling
Scream in, scream out,
Time for healing
You feel the moments gone too soon,
Youre watching clouds come over you.
Torn in two,
You close your eyes for some place new,
Torn in two
And I feel its going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Im waiting for your healing hand,
One touch could bring me round
I feel were going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Its just the way Im feeling.
Glow in, burn out,
Lost the feeling
Bruise in, you bruise out,
Nurse the bleeding
Torn in two,
Each time we bruise
And I feel its going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Im waiting for your healing hand,
One touch could bring me round
I feel were going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
Two different views,
As words confuse and break
I cant get out,
Theres no way out of here,
I cant get clear.
Love in, love out,
Find the feeling.
And I feel its going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Im waiting for your healing hand,
One touch could bring me round
I feel were going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
song performed by by Feeder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Just The Way Im Feeling
Love in, love out,
Find the feeling
Scream in, scream out,
Time for healing
You feel the moments gone too soon,
Youre watching clouds come over you.
Torn in two,
You close your eyes for some place new,
Torn in two
And I feel its going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Im waiting for your healing hand,
One touch could bring me round
I feel were going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Its just the way Im feeling.
Glow in, burn out,
Lost the feeling
Bruise in, you bruise out,
Nurse the bleeding
Torn in two,
Each time we bruise
And I feel its going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Im waiting for your healing hand,
One touch could bring me round
I feel were going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
Two different views,
As words confuse and break
I cant get out,
Theres no way out of here,
I cant get clear.
Love in, love out,
Find the feeling.
And I feel its going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Im waiting for your healing hand,
One touch could bring me round
I feel were going down,
Ten feet below the ground,
Its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
Yeah yeah, its just the way Im feeling.
song performed by by Feeder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Woodman And The Money Hunter
Throughout our rambles much we find;
The bee trees burst with honey;
Wild birds we tame of every kind,
At once they seem to be resign'd;
I know but one that lags behind,
There's nothing lags but money.
The woods afford us much supply,
The opossum, coon, and coney;
They all are tame and venture nigh,
Regardless of the public eye,
I know but one among them shy,
There's nothing shy but money.
And she lies in the bankrupt shade;
The cunning fox is funny;
When thus the public debts are paid,
Deceitful cash is not afraid,
Where funds are hid for private trade,
There's nothing paid but money.
Then let us roam the woods along,
And drive the coon and coney;
Our lead is good, our powder strong,
To shoot the pigeons as they throng,
But sing no more the idle song,
Nor prowl the chase for money.
poem by George Moses Horton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!