Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock
1
I can support it no longer.
Laughing ruefully at myself
For all I claim to have suffered
I get up. Damned nightmarer!
It is New Hampshire out here,
It is nearly the dawn.
The song of the whippoorwill stops
And the dimension of depth seizes everything.
2
The whistles of a peabody bird go overhead
Like a needle pushed five times through the air,
They enter the leaves, and come out little changed.
The air is so still
That as they go off through the trees
The love songs of birds do not get any fainter.
3
The last memory I have
Is of a flower that cannot be touched,
Through the bloom of which, all day,
Fly crazed, missing bees.
4
As I climb sweat gets up my nostrils,
For an instant I think I am at the sea,
One summer off Cap Ferrat we watched a black seagull
Straining for the dawn, we stood in the surf,
Grasshoppers splash up where I step,
The mountain laurel crashes at my thighs.
5
There is something joyous in the elegies
Of birds. They seem
Caught up in a formal delight,
Though the mourning dove whistles of despair.
But at last in the thousand elegies
The dead rise in our hearts,
On the brink of our happiness we stop
Like someone on a drunk starting to weep.
6
I kneel at a pool,
I look through my face
At the bacteria I think
I see crawling through the moss.
My face sees me,
The water stirs, the face,
Looking preoccupied,
Gets knocked from its bones.
7
I weighed eleven pounds
At birth, having stayed on
Two extra weeks in the womb.
Tempted by room and fresh air
I came out big as a policeman
Blue-faced, with narrow red eyes.
It was eight days before the doctor
Would scare my mother with me.
Turning and craning in the vines
I can make out through the leaves
The old, shimmering nothingness, the sky.
8
Green, scaly moosewoods ascend,
Tenants of the shaken paradise,
At every wind last night's rain
Comes splattering from the leaves,
It drops in flurries and lies there,
The footsteps of some running start.
9
From a rock
A waterfall,
A single trickle like a strand of wire,
Breaks into beads halfway down.
I know
The birds fly off
But the hug of the earth wraps
With moss their graves and the giant boulders.
10
In the forest I discover a flower.
The invisible life of the thing
Goes up in flames that are invisible,
Like cellophane burning in the sunlight.
It burns up. Its drift is to be nothing.
In its covertness it has a way
Of uttering itself in place of itself,
Its blossoms claim to float in the Empyrean,
A wrathful presence on the blur of the ground.
The appeal to heaven breaks off.
The petals begin to fall, in self-forgiveness.
It is a flower. On this mountainside it is dying.
poem by Galway Kinnell
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Related quotes
A Death In The Morning...!
A single solitary sun ray
Dashing through the morning dew
Touched the side of the little yellow flower
Trying to wake up spredding yellow petals
A top the green grassy hill...
The birds washing their faces
Whistling little tunes
Glanced at the flower
With a delight in their eyes...
Like the blade of a fencing sword
Racing through the wind
The sharp edge of the grass cutters cutter
Caught the little flower
Chopping it into thousand yellow specks...
Among the green slivers
That showered back on to the grass
Little golden yellow specks
Smiled sadly a last smile
Shattered dew drops
Lazily settled down
Kissing the yellow dust
Trying to feel the flower
Trying to kiss its face...!
poem by Rowving Smith
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A Year and a Day
Slow days have passed that make a year,
Slow hours that make a day,
Since I could take my first dear love
And kiss him the old way;
Yet the green leaves touch me on the cheek,
Dear Christ, this month of May.
I lie among the tall green grass
That bends above my head
And covers up my wasted face
And folds me in its bed
Tenderly and lovingly
Like grass above the dead.
Dim phantoms of an unknown ill
Float through my tired brain;
The unformed visions of my life
Pass by in ghostly train;
Some pause to touch me on the cheek,
Some scatter tears like rain.
A shadow falls along the grass
And lingers at my feet;
A new face lies between my hands --
Dear Christ, if I could weep
Tears to shut out the summer leaves
When this new face I greet.
Still it is but the memory
Of something I have seen
In the dreamy summer weather
When the green leaves came between:
The shadow of my dear love’s face --
So far and strange it seems.
The river ever running down
Between its grassy bed,
The voices of a thousand birds
That clang above my head,
Shall bring to me a sadder dream
When this sad dream is dead.
A silence falls upon my heart
And hushes all its pain.
I stretch my hands in the long grass
And fall to sleep again,
There to lie empty of all love
Like beaten corn of grain.
poem by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal
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Leaves Compared with Flowers
A tree's leaves may be ever so good,
So may its bar, so may its wood;
But unless you put the right thing to its root
It never will show much flower or fruit.
But I may be one who does not care
Ever to have tree bloom or bear.
Leaves for smooth and bark for rough,
Leaves and bark may be tree enough.
Some giant trees have bloom so small
They might as well have none at all.
Late in life I have come on fern.
Now lichens are due to have their turn.
I bade men tell me which in brief,
Which is fairer, flower or leaf.
They did not have the wit to say,
Leaves by night and flowers by day.
Leaves and bar, leaves and bark,
To lean against and hear in the dark.
Petals I may have once pursued.
Leaves are all my darker mood.
poem by Robert Frost
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Listen to The Song of Invisible Bird!
Listen to The Song of that invisible bird,
The Song of great singer several souls heard,
Sings sitting on tree of life, hidden under every leaf,
Its song go unheard by those pretend deaf,
Ever tuned to that great music,
Everytime it sings same song,
But with different lyrics and different words,
Autumn may come followed by spring,
Leaves may fall to make way to new,
Each leaf has that song, the bird flies under cover of green leaf,
When old yellow one fall,
Green leaves should learn from the fall of the old!
One can wait flowers to bloom,
Or can reap all fruits mature,
or remove immature buds or raw fruits,
The tree of life spread to several worlds,
One parallel to other,
Makes one world happy by another,
some may cross and intersect,
only to give or take life!
Come an sit near a flower,
Look at frog waiting for insects to come,
The invisible bird sings its song,
May it be heart of the flower,
It is flower for you,
source of nectar to insects,
place where frog gets its food!
It is cage for that bird ready to fly,
enters as nectar into insect,
and it enters frog as insects,
and moves along food chain,
It may be invisible to these eyes,
Yet it has its flight can be seen,
Look at your heart, the same bird sing,
Who knows when and where is its next flight?
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar
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The Flower of Leaves
The Flower of Leaves, does not speak, nor sing!
She breathes intensly and plays on sweet strings
The Flower of Leaves, in spring, does not bloom,
She hangs in the heat and weeps low in gloom
The Flower of Leaves, shrouds mis'ry and pain,
Yet exudes in song warm swelling disdain
The Flower of Leaves, shades but one pale green,
Yet blossoms 'neath moonlight in silv'ry gleam
She relieves, and like Great Nature, serene,
In stormless gardens passes through unseen
Sublime as rainfall, sincere as the sea,
O Heaven, such life that blooms before me!
Who only knows that which my heart believes,
In such mystique of The Flower of Leaves!
poem by Iam notThou
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I Charge You
I charge you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove,
That ye blow o'er the brows of my Love, breathing low that I sicken for love.
I charge you, O dews of the Dawn, O tears of the star of the morn,
That ye fall at the feet of my love with the sound of one weeping forlorn.
I charge you, O birds of the Air, O birds flying home to your nest,
That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled from my breast.
I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair,
That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels consumed by despair.
O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee,
A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be.
Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish, the flames of love's fire,
Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it, and breaks its desire.
I rise like one in a dream when I see the red sun flaring low,
That drags me back shuddering from sleep each morning to life with its woe.
I go like one in a dream, unbidden my feet know the way
To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May.
The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry to its core,
The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds him no more.
The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where I weep,
My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne'er soothed into sleep.
The moon returns, and the spring, birds warble, trees burst into leaf,
But Love once gone, goes for ever, and all that endures is the grief.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Autumn Stroll
In the early afternoon of the autumn day,
the trees are shining with leaves in green and gold,
the sun is shining with its golden aura all over the sky,
The ground is covered with the treasure of colorful leaves.
Holding hands we stroll in the golden meadows,
the shadows we form follow our romantic hearts together,
the wind stirs up and showers the leaves over you,
your hair and face looks pretty decorated with nature's jewelry.
The flower bouquet I brought to offer you,
as the token of my love and appreciation for you,
I felt spellbound when you smelled the flowers,
Your smile and happiness made my heart flutter with joy.
While strolling with our hands in hands,
kicking and stomping the leaves all around,
our conversations seem so romantic and full of love,
that even the birds seemed eager to hear as they hovered over us.
poem by Jay P Narain
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From the Forests
Where in a green, moist, myrtle dell
The torrent voice rings strong
And clear, above a star-bright well,
I write this woodland song.
The melodies of many leaves
Float in a fragrant zone;
And here are flowers by deep-mossed eaves
That day has never known.
I'll weave a garland out of these,
The darlings of the birds,
And send it over singing seas
With certain sunny words -
With certain words alive with light
Of welcome for a thing
Of promise, born beneath the white,
Soft afternoon of Spring.
The faithful few have waited long
A life like this to see;
And they will understand the song
That flows to-day from me.
May every page within this book
Be as a radiant hour;
Or like a bank of mountain brook,
All flower and leaf and flower.
May all the strength and all the grace
Of Letters make it beam
As beams a lawn whose lovely face
Is as a glorious dream.
And may that strange divinity
That men call Genius write
Some deathless thing in days to be,
To fill those days with light.
Here where the free, frank waters run,
I pray this book may grow
A sacred candour like the sun
Above the morning snow.
May noble thoughts in faultless words -
In clean white diction - make
It shine as shines the home of birds
And moss and leaf and lake.
This fair fresh life with joy I hail,
And this belief express,
Its days will be a brilliant tale
Of effort and success.
Here ends my song; I have a dream
Of beauty like the grace
Which lies upon the land of stream
In yonder mountain place.
poem by Henry Kendall
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I Saw In Louisiana A Live Oak Growing
I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;
Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark
green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone
there, without its friend, its lover near--for I knew I could
not;
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and
twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away--and I have placed it in sight in my room;
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them;)
Yet it remains to me a curious token--it makes me think of manly
love; 10
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana,
solitary, in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,
I know very well I could not.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Easing pain......a Gift
as the leaf fall to the ground, and the trunk stand stood
to face the forcing wind, the fish swims, amidst the
turmoil of current in the deepest sea
neither the birds, lift to fly to a thundering storm, nor
the rain whistles the lightning to stop to blow, feel the
whisper of the blooming flower, as the petal waited the
bees and butterfly to set in the top
life is nothing without thorn in every rose, and the pain
that gain gives the experience to learn that only in
sharing; life is worth to exist, beyond any happiness, or
joy amongst creature blessed
look up the glacier in the Alps, the beauty wonder the
eyes that see; as the sudden change of landscaping
molded the ice to hold, for in every rock of ice that fall,
only the great high mountain can stop to play
take every minute of the time to close the passing night,
all have something to touch in our lives, its not yet over
my friend the dawning clouds waited the night to come
and as the ray of the easing pain waits us to believe that
you have all the time to go, until life comes no more
let me wait you, till I’ll go and ease me the burden of
each moment to stay with you..... my Lord
poem by Antonio Liao
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Spring
Wake up again, sad heart, wake up again !
(I heard the birds this morning singing sweet.)
Wake up again ! The sky was crystal clear,
And washed quite clean with rain ;
And tar below my heart stirred with the year,
Stirred with the year and sighed. O pallid feet
Move now at last, O heart that sleeps with pain
Rise up and hear
The voices in the valleys, run to meet
The songs and shadows. O wake up again !
Put out green leaves, dead tree, put out green leaves t
(Last night the moon was soft and kissed the air.)
Put out green leaves ! The moon was in the skies,
All night she wakes and weaves.
The dew was on the grass like fairies' eyes,
Like fairies' eyes. O trees so black and bare,
Remember all the fruits, the full gold sheaves;
For nothing dies,
The songs that are, are silences that were,
Summer was Winter. O put but green leaves!
Break through the earth, pale flower, break through the earth !
(All day the lark has sung a madrigal.)
Break through the earth that lies not lightly yet
And waits thy patient birth,
Waits for the jonquil and the violet,
The violet. Full soon the heavy pall
Will be a bed, and in the noon of mirth
Some rivulet
Will bubble in my wilderness, some call
Will touch my silence. O break through the earth.
poem by Lord Alfred Douglas
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In The Gardens Of Shushan
BE pitiful ! Her lips have touched this cool
Clear stream that sets the long green leaves astir.
The very doves that dream beside the pool
Sang their soft notes to her.
For her these doors that claim the amorous south,
Bound in red bronze and stayed with cedar-wood.
And here the bees sought honey from her mouth,
So like a flower she stood.
For her the globed pomegranates grew, and all
Sweet savoury fruits rose perfect from their flower.
Here has her soul known silence and the fall
Of each enchanted hour.
Under her feet all beauty was laid low,
In her deep eyes all beauty was made clear.
When the king called her through the evening glow,
'O Vashti, I am here !'
Still the sweet wells return to me her face,
Still her lost name on every wind is blown.
The shadows and the silence of this place
Are hers alone.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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In Autumn
The leaves are many under my feet,
And drift one way.
Their scent of death is weary and sweet.
A flight of them is in the grey
Where sky and forest meet.
The low winds moan for sad sweet years;
The birds sing all for pain,
Of a common thing, to weary ears,--
Only a summer's fate of rain,
And a woman's fate of tears.
I walk to love and life alone
Over these mournful places,
Across the summer overthrown,
The dead joys of these silent faces,
To claim my own.
I know his heart has beat to bright
Sweet loves gone by;
I know the leaves that die to-night
Once budded to the sky;
And I shall die from his delight.
O leaves, so quietly ending now,
You heard the cuckoos sing.
And I will grow upon my bough
If only for a spring,
And fall when the rain is on my brow.
O tell me, tell me ere you die,
Is it worth the pain?
You bloomed so fair, you waved so high;
Now that the sad days wane,
Are you repenting where you lie?
I lie amongst you, and I kiss
Your fragrance mouldering.
O dead delights, is it such bliss,
That tuneful Spring?
Is love so sweet, that comes to this?
Kiss me again as I kiss you;
Kiss me again;
For all your tuneful nights of dew,
In this your time of rain,
For all your kisses when Spring was new.
You will not, broken hearts; let be.
I pass across your death
To a golden summer you shall not see,
And in your dying breath
There is no benison for me.
There is an autumn yet to wane,
There are leaves yet to fall,
Which, when I kiss, may kiss again,
And, pitied, pity me all for all,
And love me in mist and rain.
poem by Alice Meynell
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A Fresh Flower Blue
It's a fresh flower blue.
I wrap it in a sheet.
I love its scent, it's hues.
It sips the mist, the dew
and leaves an odor, treat
It's a fresh flower blue.
Its pets, the bees and crew
they meet, they greet, they eat.
I love its scent, its hues.
From dawn to dusk they woo
and bask in rain or heat.
It's a fresh flower blue.
There's a flower for you
There's one for me. A treat!
I love its scent, its hues.
The day I say adieu
I send you one so sweet.
It's a fresh flower blue
I love its scent, its hue.
poem by Agatha Lai
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New Season
Up from the hills and down through the valley,
A stream whispers unendingly a fading melody,
As it continues on its aimless journey.
The blazing heat scorching innocent vegetation,
Green leaves gently fading to brown.
The grass shriveled up;
Wilted, forgotten and began to die.
Up high in the treetops birds yet sing their songs,
In ritual of prayers to their gods.
Their songs heard even beyond the blue skies.
Suddenly everything changes,
From elsewhere came the darkening clouds;
Stopping over.................,
The shadow obscuring the sun.
Then the rumble of the rolling thunder
overpowers the birds gentle songs,
The mighty thunder scares the birds.
Trees fall silent as the clouds darkens thick;
It sends down a single drop;
Then another and yet another one.
They patter on the leaves then onto the ground.
In no time the mighty delude overpowers the streams
as it floods to the banks swallowing dirty from the bush.
It cleans the forest as it prepares for the new season
to rein.
As the downpour ceases;
Like birds even trees shake drops of rain to the ground.
The birds tease the summer as it runs away from the
coming season, They bid farewell to it.
The branches swing as they rejoice
to welcome king Autumn.
Vegetation sinking beneath the earth,
Holding firm; it begins to grow in full bloom.
With flowers all over
Giving thanks to the mighty AUTUMN.
poem by Moffat Mbuzi
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Sonnet: Dawn
Dawn- the daily morning’s phenomenon!
A beauty most poets revel at times;
Creeping stealthily as the sun comes on,
Harkened by bird-songs that teach us our rhymes.
The darkened leaves of the plants and the trees,
Become lightened and a cool breeze blows by,
Seeking fresh nectar come the humming bees,
As soon the night and sleep will have to die!
What freshness fills up the air and the sphere!
As sunlight suddenly lights the whole world;
And Birds begin to fly with joy here/there;
The mist and the dew add beauty untold.
Dawn, Thou art so beautiful every day!
Nature’s ‘Good Morning! ’ to us in a way.
poem by John Celes
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To My Daughter
in your eyes
i see my face
and i remember the
flower of my
youth
now the petals
are gone
but then
i see myself bloom
again
in your garden
how i wish to
bury all my unfinished dreams
in the sockets of your eyes
how i dream
to be inside you forever
but no
as you blink today
i see in your heart another face
the one that you love
the one that makes
your heart full
that emptiness now
that i can no longer fill
you bloom
as a flower yourself
then someone
shall pick you
and i shall be this stem
without leaves
surrendering
to the sun
poem by Antonio Liao
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Tree Is My Animal
Tree is My Animal 7/09
Tree is my animal
And I burst forth from the soil
Past root, worm and grub
Unfurled now my leaves seek mother sun
Nourished and illuminated
I stand neath Methuselahs
Father old and true
Aged moss (ancient moss)
Comforts and warms me
Vines find shelter and comfort along my bones
Mother sun still sings
And centuries have past
But as a new nest appears in my arms
Oh I know I have much to go
And I am now Methuselah
And stand next to my father old and true
And watch as my young sapling grows neath me
My love is alone
I am alone
I stretch to touch her leaves and tickle her branches
My poems I send on the wings of birds, butterflies and bees
I feel the scent of her in the perfumed pollen born on wisps of wind
Wherever you are my Love
I will find you
Though seeds may scatter
And leaves grow few
Though centuries may pass
Here I stand
Now
Tendrils touch
At long last
A Moorish lattice of leaf and bark
Filigree
A canopy of lovers to shade
Lovers from the unwanted gaze of mother sun
Our songs sung by birds at play in our tender union
Our union complete
Til centuries wither our bones
Then to earth
A loamy death to share
This union and
Alone no more
poem by Guillermo Veloso
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A little fall of rain
My morning starts
With teardrops in my eyes
Like a little fall of rain
In my heart I feel the pain
And the tearless earth
Is longing for, a little fall of rain?
That is what they needed.
I watched the world go by in silence
Humming in old familiar string
As I listened to the music of wind
A mournful cry that’s what I perceive
One by one you fall on the ground
Why do I feel sad?
From a little fall of rain
Why the leaves are looking glowing?
Trees and flowers are suddenly bloom
Then the rivers never stop flowing
In every moment, you pass by
They all so glad and welcome you
A little fall of rain that comes from heaven
You’re always a wonder for them
The sun hides on a cloudy sky.
Even the rainbow never used to smile at
The birds were then stopped singing
Neither the clouds have to stop dancing
A little fall of rain
Looked what you have done?
My tears were a fall on the ground
poem by Cheryl Aldea
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One summer when the wind was strong
This is the place, now we are here again
I remember that summer when the wind was strong
And everything around us was dry,
The acacia trees towered and showered us with
Round leaves falling and falling and falling
Some birds were there and they flew away
Some cars were there and they speeded away
It was getting dark and it was a dry summer
We stayed there for a while when the leaves fell
Then we went under the trees not seeking shelter
But to catch those leaves falling and falling and falling
We are trying to feel again what falling was
We are here on this summer, we see the leaves
Falling and falling again to the dry wind,
We try to recall about us, but there is simply
Nothing about us anymore, but just the same
The leaves fall and fall and fall, we see them reenacting
There is that meaning; there it is in the falling
But we have outgrown it, we look for more, we hope
We can find some more, something beyond us.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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