Swifts (2)
At twilight the swifts have no power,
to hold back that pale blue coolness.
It bursts from throats, a clamour
an outpour that can’t grow less.
The swifts have no way, high
up there, overhead, of restraining
their clarion cries: ‘O, triumph,
see, see, how the earth’s receding!’
Like steam from a boiling kettle,
the furious flow rushes by –
‘See, see – no space for the earth
between the ravine and the sky.’
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Related quotes
The Swifts (1)
The swifts have no strength any more to retain,
To check the light-blue evening coolness.
It burst from their breasts, from their throats, under strain
And flows out of hand in its fullness.
There is not a thing that could stop them, up there,
From shrilly, exultedly crying,
Exclaiming: The earth has made off to nowhere,
O look! It has vanished - O triumph!
As cauldrons of water are ended in steam
When quarrelsome bubbles are rising -
Look - there is no room for the earth - from the seam
Of the gorge to the drawn-out horizon!
poem by Boris Pasternak
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Freedom
I shall just lie here and feel the wind blow gentle.
I shall just lie here and listen to the song in the trees.
I shall just lie here
as the bees keep busy,
and shut my eyes lightly
under shimmering blue.
I can sleep easy as the wind licks around me.
I can sleep easy beneath this cherished English sky.
I can sleep easy.
Far up high, swifts dance swiftly,
whilst I drift sleepily
under shimmering blue.
poem by Diana Rosser
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Pot And Kettle
Come close to me, dear Annie, while I bind a lover's knot.
A tale of burning love between a kettle and a pot.
The pot was stalwart iron and the kettle trusty tin,
And though their sides were black with smoke they bubbled love within.
Forget that kettle, Jamie, and that pot of boiling broth,
I know a dismal story of a candle and a moth.
For while your pot is boiling and while your kettle sings
My moth makes love to candle flame and burns away his wings.
Your moth, I envy, Annie, that died by candle flame,
But here are two more lovers, unto no damage came.
There was a cuckoo loved a clock and found her always true.
For every hour they told their hearts, 'Ring! ting! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!'
As the pot boiled for the kettle, as the kettle for the pot,
So boils my love within me till my breast is glowing hot.
As the moth died for the candle, so could I die for you.
And my fond heart beats time with yours and cries, 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo!'
poem by Robert Graves
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The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit? Yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. ... To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve, and cherish, the pale blue dot; the only home we've ever known.
Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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Flying ant day dawns:
The glut is unheralded,
Swifts still sleep aloft.
haiku by Don Pearson (12 July 2011)
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The Wayfarers
Still the white stars burn overhead,
The green earth swings upon her way:
Where are the voices of the dead,
The hearts of Yesterday?
Drawn by what strange, mysterious power,
From what dream world and magic sky
Came they to laugh on earth an hour,
To weep, to toil, to die?
And whither gone? On what wild flight
By planet pale and sceptred star?
What realms of sorrow or delight
Now wander they afar?
Pale Wayfarers, whose noiseless tread
Is near me as I seem to see
The mighty generations dead,
And all that yet shall be!
Are Past and Future, then, a breath
That one vast Present makes its own?
The Angel, Birth, the Shadow, Death,
Each guards a world unknown.
Wayfarers all, we know not whence
We came, nor whitherwards we go.
Deep in our hearts a haunting sense
That somewhere we shall know.
Still the white stars burn overhead,
The green earth swings upon her way:
Where are the voices of the dead,
The hearts of yesterday?
poem by George Essex Evans
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Look Up At The Sky
…look up at the sky – Oh, do look up at the sky…look up at the sky that stretches in all directions and wherever one may turn…look up at the sky all above and that falls beyond the end of the visible earth…look up at the sky that stretches beyond one’s vision and look beyond the sky into limitless space…
…see, time and care and the narrowness of one’s conditioning confine one and bends one’s mind – as one’s back is bent, and one’s neck is loaded down; and one’s eyes are fixed to the spotlight-defined meters as one stands one’s ground…Oh, but just look up at the sky…
…look up at the sky in the day and see its deep blue…look up at the sky and see the clouds and the sun, and the brilliance and the lack of limits and confines…look up at the sky in the morning and see the sun rise, and behold its wonder and its colors…look up at the sky at twilight and look at it at night with the moon and the stars and the infinite space that stretches beyond…
…look up at the sky and behold its wonders and splendor and its power… look up at the sky and the space beyond and behold its brilliance and limitlessness…
Oh, look up at the sky and the space beyond – and behold the limitlessness of the mind…behold there the infinite stretch of your mind, of the mind…behold the skies and space, and behold the power and glory and the unconfined, unconditioned freedom and brilliance of your mind and your being, of the unconfined mind and of unconditioned being…
poem by Raj Arumugam
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The Good Earth
When I was a child and the road was dark and the way was long and alone,
My heart would lift as I turned the bend and saw the lights of home.
Now high above in a silent sky,
In a still and starry space,
A man looks down on the earth below,
And that blue and green and shining glow,
To him is the lights of home.
Its the good earth, yes the good earth.
Its a land of sun and rain and snow,
And mulberry trees and mistletoe,
And burning plains and raging seas,
And sunday morning taking your ease,
Watching your children grow.
Its the good earth, yes the good earth,
Where we fought and loved and killed and died,
And ruined and ravished the countryside,
But now, from a million miles away,
From another world thats cold and gray,
Someone is able to look and say,
Thats the good earth.
So isnt it time we stopped the tears?
Weve lived together for thousands of years,
And whether Im wrong, and whether youre right,
Whether youre black, and whether Im white,
One day well stand on the edge of the world,
And someone will ask us the land of our birth,
And well look into his eyes and quietly say:
Its the good earth, yes the good earth.
Why cant we be good on the good earth?
song performed by by Monkees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Color of the Moon
The color of the moon
so pale and so blue
makes me wanna cry
when I look at the moon
In black or white
dark or light
the moon cries
with all its might
With the moon cries
life dies
and the earth
breathes a heavy sigh
The color of the moon
so pale and so blue
makes me wanna cry
when I see the color of the moon
poem by Jasmine Thompson
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Man always cries alone
The woman may turn cold
The child may grow old
But man always cries alone
The world may change dark
The rain may flow high
But man always cries alone
The wolf may shed none
The moon may step down
But man always cries alone
The word may start fade
The people may quickly forget
But man always cries alone
The wound may ache wide
The blood may never dry
But man always cries alone
The will may lose sight
The threat may spread fright
But man always cries alone
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Jet
Sometimes I wish I were still out
on the back porch, drinking jet fuel
with the boys, getting louder and louder
as the empty cans drop out of our paws
like booster rockets falling back to Earth
and we soar up into the summer stars.
Summer. The big sky river rushes overhead,
bearing asteroids and mist, blind fish
and old space suits with skeletons inside.
On Earth, men celebrate their hairiness,
and it is good, a way of letting life
out of the box, uncapping the bottle
to let the effervescence gush
through the narrow, usually constricted neck.
And now the crickets plug in their appliances
in unison, and then the fireflies flash
dots and dashes in the grass, like punctuation
for the labyrinthine, untrue tales of sex
someone is telling in the dark, though
no one really hears. We gaze into the night
as if remembering the bright unbroken planet
we once came from,
to which we will never
be permitted to return.
We are amazed how hurt we are.
We would give anything for what we have.
poem by Tony Hoagland
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At The Summit
Where bold Sierras cut the sky
Mount Whitney, of the high most high,
Halts the pale clouds that wander by.
We crept and climbed with eager feet,
Until the world, fulfilled, complete,
Plunged like despair before his seat.
So high the peak was we had won
Earth's air wore thin, its woof undone,
And blue space darkened round the sun.
Yet, as we trembled there and quailed,
Lo, higher yet an eagle scaled
Smooth steeps of air, and sunward sailed.
poem by Harriet Monroe
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A doe
I write her eyes are that of a doe.
I write her swifts are that of a doe.
I write she blushes like a doe.
Shall I love a doe replacing her?
06.11.2006
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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A Sudden Downpour
Rain beats down on the window pane
As the flood gates of Heaven suddenly open
It is pouring out in torrential flow
Like a Reservoir, all at once, broken
It has come down as a welcome respite
To fan away the humid sweltering heat
It falls in drops and flows in rivulets
Washing the dust of summer drought
With a sudden burst from the weight laden clouds
It lashes down in steam and fury
Plummeting to form ripples in puddles
And filling pools and ponds in hurry
In slanting sheets, it almost pounds
Flooding roads and making puddle
Gushing through pipes and rushing down drains
Water floods, causing men to waddle
Rain has its abode in heavens so high
And hides behind clouds of mournful gloom
In silver strings, it spans the Earth
And cleanses the plants in resplendent gleam
Sudden is the wind, coming to shoo away the clouds
And the sky is once more cerulean blue
As the music stops and the humdrum stills
The water seeps, giving no evident clue.
After an angry couple's furious fight,
As the house goes back to an uncanny calm,
The rain has vanished, leaving little trace
Cooling the Earth and causing no harm
poem by Valsa George
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Brown And Blue, Revised....
it is not between blue
or brown
it is of this earth
within the
coolness of blue
it is when the brown
shades of this
skin
are spread
when the blue shades of your eyes rest
upon the floor
of my belly
that my navel beats
like a tadpole in that pond
as brown and scarlet
take once more the interlinking of my earthly arms
to the blueness of your skies
it is when color
seek each other's hold
it is when when they mix
and blend
that tones and scents become
as perfect as both
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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My Home Remains Sky
I will not return to earth
Once on the earth and the earth turned me down, only briefly with
I went back to the sky, I'm in heaven where my original
In the sky more beautiful in the sky over calm
Actually I had stayed at home on earth
Even now I miss her
But on earth I could scarcely recognize the permanence
So I'm just one or two times to the earth
I am the son of heaven who loves the sky
High and difficult to reach, or do not think anyone
After the sky I'm difficult and not easy to come back to earth
Only the rain was the tears that tell of the earth
Echoed devastated what is on earth
And I will continue in the sky
Before there was earth is really for me
Earth friendly and beautiful for me
So that's what eternity will tell their own
And we both lost in eternity swallow
Silence swallowed, swallowed by the beauty
Swallowed by time, into the night and day
Swallowed by love and affection both of us forever
poem by Irvan Hermawan Saichu
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Primal Death
Space
Time
Space
Travel
Raining
Ai ming
Space
Time
Space
Expanding
Un iting
Increasing
Space
Time
Space
Sweeping
Restraining
Stretching
Space
Time
Space
Wrestling
Throwing
Throwi ng up
Space
Time
Space
Falling
Sinkin g
Overturning
Space
Time
Space
Whi rling
Space
Time
Space
Disturbing
Space
Time
Space
Whirring
Space
Ti me Space
Erring at
Nothing
poem by August Stramm
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Housewife's Choice - Kettle To Popocatépetl
Day day follows, Time despoiling,
tea-breaks bravely boredom foiling.
Bubbles boiling in the kettle
test their mettle ‘gainst the metal.
Atoms, constantly turmoiling,
pressure steam which soars uncoiling
till mist vapour cools to settle.
Tea leaves seethe as soft stream rises
soothing stress, green taste surprises,
tension melts though sugar, milk
added betray all Chinese silk,
treason seems to swallow. Wise is
she whose grace competes with Isis.
Feeling fair, in finer fettle
harrassed housewife from harsh toiling
desists, dame dainty, nothing soiling,
blushing Nature often nettles,
lips, fingertips, paints pink as petal.
She'd seize Sherlock, Conan Doyling,
J. K. Rowling, or, gargoyling,
romance - Popocatépetl -
or turn to T.V., mind resettles.
Thus each livelong day, self-oiling,
turns on kitchen kettle boiling.
first version Kettle to Popocatépetl 3rd August 2006
(3 March 2012)
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Fragmentary Blue
Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)--
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
poem by Robert Frost
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No Power On Earth
The British Empire has a flag that flies throughout the World
And no power on earth can pull it down
It stands for peace and liberty where e’er our flag’s unfurled
But no power on earth can pull it down
We still can sing our good old song “Britannia Rules the Waves’
It’s just as true today that Britons never shall be slaves
The Union Jack still flies on high in spite of finnish knaves
‘Cos no power on earth can pull it down.
No power on earth can pull it down
That’s no foolish idle boast or brag
England, Ireland and gallant little Wales
Are united round our dear old flag
Scotland sends their Highlanders and proud of them we are
As soldiers they have gained world famed renown
The Scots are finely built - he’s the man that wears the kilt
And no power on earth can pull it down.
The man is sure to rise in life that sits down on a tack
But no power on earth can pull him down
The undervest I’m wearing is half way up me back
And no power on earth can pull it down
To all these rabid profiteers a lesson we must teach
The price of food is out of every humble person’s reach
Our chickens they are laying eggs at four pence halfpenny each
And - er - no power on earth can make you buy them.
No power on earth can pull it down
Winston Chruchill sold us all a pup
He tries with might and main, but when it starts to rain
He hasn’t got the power to push it up
We still have women on the land that do the work of men
They don’t dress like the girls do in the town
Every country Mary Ann is wearing trousers like a man
And -the second house begins at nine o’ clock.
poem by Billy Bennett
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