Replenishing The Mind
The hills, some ploughed brown, come undulating down, framed by verdant green hedges,
forming the edges, where flocks of crows squawking, are already stalking the tractor.
It’s seen, moving along the tracks in-between the fields neatly sown with wheat to be grown.
After stopping to heap, some food for the sheep that range o’er the fells,
and fresh fertile dells,
its occupant gazes stock-still, in this place so tranquil.
A sheepdog circles around, then on command goes to ground,
as the farmer shuts the gate, on the space they both vacate.
It’s their time to return for tea, or a glass of cool shandy and relax,
and so unwind, thus replenishing the mind.
The countryside then lies at rest, and there on the crest of a ridge, owls glide,
now that it’s eventide.
These creatures in flight, are a wonderful sight as the moon sends its beams,
on such fabulous scenes.
And with sunrise the next day, another impressive display.
Moist dew o’er the grass, is a start unsurpassed.
Yet the hills stay the same, and no one can blame the new wanderer’s sheer bliss,
at a view such as this.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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Joy Has Begun
On these undulating hills where sheep roam free,
and every rabbit builds his own colony.
Yellow cowslips, pink clover and purple vetch,
add colour to the green fields as they stretch
as far as the eye can see. Here’s such a view
to fill the heart with joy that’s long overdue.
The fresh, sweet, clear air that swirls and twirls around,
only in the quiet countryside is found.
And placid cows that will wander munching grass,
take such little notice of us as we pass.
Rooks cawing loudly throughout the hours of day,
seem to send a warning. ‘Don’t you dare to stay’.
This ground so lush with all its fine thriving plants.
Animals, birds and insects, how they all enhance.
Beautiful treasury set out here to find,
available for each being of mankind.
The pleasure should be welcomed by everyone.
On these undulating hills, joy has begun.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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The Gippsland Hills
The hills of Gippsland were so green but that was in September
And songbirds piping happy songs as well I might remember
But now the Gippsland hills are gray since sun changed the grass colour
And though the sun shines hot today this countryside looks duller.
The Gippsland hills were green in Spring and grass growing winds were blowing
And all along the sunlit hills the wildering flowers were showing
And bell magpie piped his joyful notes and butcherbird was singing
And through those hills those happy hills the bushlark's voice went ringing.
The Gippsland hills the sunburnt hills grown lonelier and quieter
And like the shades of old man's hair they've turned a gray type whiter
The nearby creek in trickle flow, the birds have lost their voices
And not one of Nature's minstrels now on Gippsland hills rejoices.
The Gippsland hills the sunburnt hills have lost their Spring like colour
And though the sun shines hot today the Gippsland hills look duller
But Spring bring green to Gippsland hills Spring rains and soft winds blowing
And birds will sing on Gippsland hills and Gippsland creeks fast flowing.
poem by Francis Duggan
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In The South Western Grampians
In the South Western Grampians of Victoria the Summer hills are brown
And from Casterton to Hamilton the roadway winds up and down
The creeks are barely flowing the roadside drains are dry
And the sun is brightly shining in the clear afternoon sky.
In the South Western Grampians the weather mostly fine
And many days of warm weather and beautiful sun shine
An undulating Countryside and hardly any green
With so few groves and woodlands and few trees to be seen.
Through the South Western Grampians one may travel far and wide
But one won't see many houses in that brown old Countryside
A farming population and few people one see
In the South Western Grampians far Inland from the sea.
On the hills of the South Western Grampians there once were many trees
Where the Indigenous tribes in the Dreamtime lived and had their Coroborees
But now open to the weather those old hills look brown and bare
And the only sound the buzzing of the bush flies in the warm Summer air.
poem by Francis Duggan
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In some fields of grass under the hills (sestina)
This afternoon the peaks throw a big shade
with the black cliffs shining up on the hills,
while we lay together in the long grass,
I look in your eyes that are amber-green
while under my head there is a small stone
and you smile at me like the prettiest lady.
I had once known another charming lady;
that part of my life is now left in shade,
bad churchmen were casting stone upon stone,
while I had to flee from them to the hills
to pastures were everything is green
to find the Lord in divine fields of grass.
Under your head there is a crown of grass
and your mother is a gracious, kind lady,
around us everything is lovely green
while we are still resting in the cool shade,
we are softly chatting about life’s hills,
about walls of very hard granite stone.
Your eyes are much brighter than emerald stone
while all of your words are softer than grass,
reaching higher and beyond all the hills,
the high mountain which is dangerous lady,
while from our pain nothing gives any shade,
nowhere is a place of rest that is green.
Your summer dress is lovely, is bright green,
suddenly all our ails have turned to stone
I follow you further; see your small shade,
I am seen as one that woos any lady,
we walk past some flowers growing in grass,
climbing up higher into the foothills.
Bright streams are splashing down some of the hills,
with water transparent, sometimes cold and green,
love and lust burns like in a youthful lady
while I at that moment feel cold as stone,
we notice a deer feeding on lone grass
while our garments lie under a tree’s shade.
Far into the hills you want love till dusk’s shade,
where you peep like some green moss from the grass,
are tossing me with a stone like no lady.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Under A Merciless Sun
Under a sun that burns merciless hot,
the wild wind and unrestrained weather
the farmer kneels humble before God
ploughs his fields, takes seed in both his hands
see the twirling wind from a distance,
then prays again sincerely to the Lord,
before he plants the seeds, ask for blessings
when his tractor pulls red dust from the field.
Big drops pour down for days without an end,
time and again the farmer thanks his God,
with a fresh smell coming from the wet earth
overnight all of the wild grass is green,
it’s dripping wet as far as he can see;
the farmer lives connected to God.
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Corn Song
HEAP HIGH the farmer’s wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!
Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine;
We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.
Through vales of grass and meads of flowers
Our ploughs their furrows made,
While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.
We dropped the seed o’er hill and plain
Beneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.
All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer’s noon
Its soft and yellow hair.
And now, with autumn’s moonlit eves,
Its harvest-time has come,
We pluck away the frosted leaves,
And bear the treasure home.
There, richer than the fabled gift
Apollo showered of old,
Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,
And knead its meal of gold.
Let vapid idlers loll in silk
Around their costly board;
Give us the bowl of samp and milk,
By homespun beauty poured!
Where’er the wide old kitchen hearth
Sends up its smoky curls,
Who will not thank the kindly earth
And bless our farmer girls?
Then shame on all the proud and vain,
Whose folly laughs to scorn
The blessing of our hardy grain,
Our wealth of golden corn!
Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard’s fruit,
The wheat-field to the fly:
But let the good old crop adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for His golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Beyond The Distant Hills
The sun is shining for me,
beyond the distant hills.
Where my love is waiting,
for my return.
The water is sweet to drink,
beyond the distant hills,
where a warm fire is waiting,
for my return.
The grass bends in the breeze,
beyond the distant hills.
Where my love’s heart yearns
for my return.
A candle lights a window,
beyond the distant hills.
Where someone keeps a watchful eye,
for my return.
Beyond the distant hills,
where no clouds gather,
and no storms darken the sky.
Beyond the distant hills,
bright eyes wait for my return.
Beyond the distant hills,
my dreams will come true,
and I promised myself one day I will get there.
25 April 1988
poem by David Harris
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Sun And Rain And Seed
The distance calls.
Hedges and dry stone walls
On hillsides, flocks of sheep.
Rough cliffs high, valleys deep.
One stretched out patchwork quilt,
Time formed, from rocks and silt.
Our planet’s richness shown,
Under the sky’s ozone.
The distance calls.
Even through heavy squalls,
The wind, the trees reshape,
Mists falling like a cape.
Weathered timber barns,
Mountains, vales and tarns.
All grace this pleasant earth,
Prized beauty of such worth.
The distance calls.
Swift rivers, waterfalls
All senses become sharp.
The salmon, trout and carp,
Swim silently and glide,
Not easily espied.
These lands are fertile still,
With stream, with brook, with rill.
The distance calls.
Hear cows in cattle stalls.
Across the loose blown hay,
Their bellows drift away,
Fields grassed, look rich and green,
The air is fresh and clean.
And nature’s cleansed anew.
Space for every hue,
For what more does one need,
Just sun and rain and seed.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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Emerald Isle
The Emerald Isle
Sailing into Cork I saw green hills, the sea was jade,
I understood why Ireland was called the emerald island.
On the sheer slopes sheep grazed; chancers I thought
the slightest slip and they will fall into verdant waters.
Why not graze on the plateau be happy with modest
fodder if not as succulent as grass too unsafe to get at?
Sheep do fall sometimes they are rescued by a passing
voracious fishing vessels, and end up as Irish stew.
Cork was pretty port it had a no hasty feel back then,
it became a busy place ignoring the hazardous slopes,
but holy is economic progress, lush living for everyone.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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The Rusting Ring
faded in the milieu of time, for
the yesteryears come no mercy than to rush
beyond the past, seeing than of what is today
as it watches the gallon surf the high tide of
the ocean, laughing and crushing the wave
that hurdle every cliff of no return
midnight calls the bell, even the darkness smile
for peace, amaze the gorgeous face of a new
fingers wrap with soft linen cloth
of promise, to stay forever, till shadow cover's
the wooden curtain 10 ft below the grown
hey! cute the hour is certain to come but the
body lies in the wooden ground, view to rush
and nothing left than a moist of dirt and dust
mixed in the soil of nothingness
be the best of soil that fertile the ground
and stay for a life time to grow...
poem by Antonio Liao
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In Continuing Motions (from, Lullabies)
I've found my heart in the eventide
With dosage of its freshness and quiet stills
Where the airy vapors of drifting glide
Over mountain clippings and nightfall hills
With a morning song to fulfill me dreams
To last of bliss of the evening sky
In the waves with hopes of the beams
Those through the gentleness moments now fly
A morning that comes in songs quite new
Like a lyric filling silence fresh dream
That is born from the futures you walk
Is heard in its virgin to reverie few
In continuing motions and vary stream
That through every transition shall talk
poem by Peter S. Quinn
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The Ride
Lately an equipage I overtook,
And helped to lift it o'er a narrow brook.
No horse it had except one boy, who drew
His sister out in it the fields to view.
O happy town-bred girl, in fine chaise going
For the first time to see the green grass growing.
This was the end and purport of the ride
I learned, as walking slowly by their side
I heard their conversation. Often she-
'Brother, is this the country that I see?'
The bricks were smoking, and the ground was broke,
There were no signs of verdure when she spoke.
He, as the well-informed delight in chiding
The ignorant, these questions still deriding,
To his good judgment modestly she yields;
Till, brick-kilns past, they reached the open fields.
Then, as with rapturous wonder round she gazes
On the green grass, the buttercups, and daisies,
'This is the country sure enough,' she cries;
'Is't not a charming place?' The boy replies,
'We'll go no further.' 'No,' says she, 'no need;
'No finer place than this can be indeed.'
I left them gathering flowers, the happiest pair
That ever London sent to breathe the fine fresh air.
poem by Charles Lamb
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sligo dream of Lorca
I dream of lorca
as the hills are lit by dawn.
The Sligo landscape into view,
the farmers wife with porridge
the breakfast makes.
The farmers early breakfasting
for sheep hills to be tended,
the cows awaken in the dawn,
the son in Boston breaks the
mother distant heart,
the field yields slow.
The outline of the trees,
seen at night as shadow,
into life will come at day,
as Lorca dies beneath the blows
as Christ three times he falls.
As he falls the frosted dawn,
the yearning pining of the sligo
hill comes into view beneath
the slow sun start.
I dream of lorca as he falls beneath
the blow of ignorance, beneath
the meadow copse and field of Spain.
Though vines cry and grapes bleed.
And green is the land,
where to school by the gate he would have passed
to learning,
and the farmer eats the toast and egg,
the day is cast,
and into shape the dream emerges
from the falling down,
the falling down of Lorca,
in another place
brings in the light of day.
poem by Bernard Kennedy
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Sestina
I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,
to the short day and to the whitening hills,
when the colour is all lost from the grass,
though my desire will not lose its green,
so rooted is it in this hardest stone,
that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.
And likewise this heaven-born woman
stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,
and is unmoved, or moved like a stone,
by the sweet season that warms all the hills,
and makes them alter from pure white to green,
so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.
When her head wears a crown of grass
she draws the mind from any other woman,
because she blends her gold hair with the green
so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,
he who fastens me in these low hills,
more certainly than lime fastens stone.
Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone.
The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass,
since I have travelled, through the plains and hills,
to find my release from such a woman,
yet from her light had never a shadow
thrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.
I have seen her walk all dressed in green,
so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,
that love I bear for her very shadow,
so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,
as much in love as ever yet was woman,
closed around by all the highest hills.
The rivers will flow upwards to the hills
before this wood, that is so soft and green,
takes fire, as might ever lovely woman,
for me, who would choose to sleep on stone,
all my life, and go eating grass,
only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.
Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow,
with her sweet green, the lovely woman
hides it, as a man hides stone in grass.
poem by Dante Alighieri
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Evening Prayer
Wind stirs in expectation; it
softly strokes my face.
The March sun reassures me,
warms pale flesh
through layers of thick sweater
and winter coat.
Under indigo hills
new grass flows,
yellow and green,
as past distant ranges,
to the sky-bright, rounded sea
he flees and sends
a gift of clouds,
aflame
in glory.
Peace to the grass of the fields!
Peace
to dark hills and drifting clouds,
and to the sacrificial sun
peace!
poem by Steven Federle
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The Destroyer
ACROSS the quiet pastures of my soul
The invading army marched in splendid might
My few poor forces fled beyond control,
Scattered, defeated, hidden in the night.
My fields were green, their hedges white with May,
With gold of buttercups made bright and fair,
The careless conquerors did not even stay
To gather one of all the blossoms there.
Only when they had passed, the fields were brown,
The grass and blossoms trampled in the mud:
The flowering hedges withered and torn down,
And no one richer by a single bud.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Destroyer
ACROSS the quiet pastures of my soul
The invading army marched in splendid might
My few poor forces fled beyond control,
Scattered, defeated, hidden in the night.
My fields were green, their hedges white with May,
With gold of buttercups made bright and fair,
The careless conquerors did not even stay
To gather one of all the blossoms there.
Only when they had passed, the fields were brown,
The grass and blossoms trampled in the mud:
The flowering hedges withered and torn down,
And no one richer by a single bud.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Bliss
Cascading waterfall,
Sound of rainfall
On the windshield.
Terraced fields
Majestic deodars,
A little afar,
So high
Reaching for the sky.
Clouds so low,
Grass covered with snow.
Cool whispering breeze,
Hot cups of tea
On the wayside stall.
Tightly wrapped shawl,
Gurgling river,
Emerald water,
Verdant hills,
Dancing leaves,
Hill folks’ rosy cheeks
Climbing with ease.
Moving at an even pace,
Serene and calm face.
Waving with a smile
Without guile.
Inner peace
Silence speaks.
As we drive,
I realise,
Heaven and bliss
Still exist.
poem by Mamta Agarwal
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The Other Half
Over the hills, lies a new beginning
Over the hills
Over the hills, there is a way I know it
Over the hills
You can't bring all the gloom
Your heart is frayed and so empty
You glorify the future
Living in a different world than me
The journey ends in death
You are giving up so easily
You are the other half of me
Over the hills [4x]
We are drifting apart
Chilled to the marrow, cause you don't want to go
Cause we've got a different wish at heart
The amulet guides us to the other side
When I go down it's you who'll bleed
I'm not scared to die, as long as I'm with you
You are the other half of me
Over the hills, lies a new beginning
Over the hills
Over the hills, there's a way I know it
Over the hills
song performed by by Within Temptation
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love Of Courtesy
Thwarting those returning from stoppages,
The people of the Earth rely on thrusts.
There are black skies and blue lands,
Bitter tasks, fulsome tasks, and wonderful hills.
Return from the stoppers and carry on your task,
Do not be vanquished, heated and alone.
Sanity is freedom forming us into the religion we know
And love the best. Courtesy is to the countryside.
poem by Naveed Akram
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