I know
A busy woodlouse wends his way
across the tiles of black and gray.
A vast expanse beneath the sky
I wonder where he goes and why.
A tiny creature harming none
he journeys on his way alone in danger
from the birds that fly.
I wonder where he goes and why.
Wood lice have no defence at all
except to curl up into a ball.
He hurries on determinedly.
I wonder where he goes and why.
Now he will travel on no more
he has become the breakfast for
a hungry blackbird passing by.
I know where he’s gone and why.
Revised sep 07
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Related quotes
The Beauti Of Sorrow
Beauti of sorrow
vast as the sea
eve of the morrow
inner expanse of me
conceptually multiplied
virtually personified
politically religified
perceptually cubified
Beatui of sorrow
vast as the sea
eve of the morrow
inner expanse of me
life is a beauty
living our prize
to share them our duty*
effects all our lives*
Beatui of sorrow
vast as the sea
eve of the morrow
inner expanse of me
running reel of thoughts
projection of the mind
independent performing plots
and a function to define
Beatui of sorrow
vast as the sea
eve of the morrow
inner expanse of me
many a different beauties
shine in a single sorrow
many a different evenings
raise a plethora of tomorrows
Beatui of sorrow
vast as the sea
eve of the morrow
inner expanse of me
contemplation of all thats left
the final mystery announced
a souls a speck of a black hole's death
so evil, and good renounce
Beatui of sorrow
vast as the sea
eve of the morrow
inner expanse of me
sorrow isn't knowing now
knowing hurts so much
hurt is hope that holds you down
ego is a common crutch
Beatui of sorrow
vast as the sea
eve of the morrow
inner expanse of me
*Changed Line From:
[to share it our duty-original-2.26.10]
[the purpose of our lives-original-2.26.10]
poem by Tim caffery
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Danger
There is danger atop our heads;
There is danger around us all;
There is danger beneath our feet;
There is danger to man and beast!
There is danger in the skies;
There is danger in the seas;
There is danger ev’n on land;
There is danger to man and beast!
There is danger from earth’s bowels;
There is danger in forests;
There is danger in hills, vales;
There is danger to man and beast!
There is danger from our brethren;
There is danger from kith, kin;
There is danger from strangers;
There is danger to man and beast!
There is danger within us;
There is danger from space;
There is danger to our soul;
Nevertheless, God protects us.
poem by John Celes
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Big and tiny creatures
Big and tiny creatures, are so unique each one,
But they're so amazing each one, out in the noon day sun;
For example, look at the spider, and the web she doth make,
So clever and wonderful, and the time she doth take.
Big and tiny creatures, I am amazed each one I see,
Look at the pigmy possum, trying to hide in a tree;
It's color goes in with the background scene,
But he will cover his steps to hide where he's been.
Big and tiny creatures, do you like the tall giraffe?
To think his neck is so tall, his length is longer than a raft;
Then there's the whale, out in the huge sea,
Moaning and groaning to his mate, amazing do you agree?
Big and tiny creatures, like the tiny crab, or the large hippo,
What about the large elephant, and the tiny ant on the go;
Each one has a job to do, yet both care for their young,
They travel far, travel wide, busy in the hot sun.
Big and tiny creatures, colors some so pretty,
Such as the butterfly, and the flamingo, agree;
Then there is the snakes, and the parrots too,
We should thank God for each one, where thanks is due.
poem by Margaret Haig
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For July A Rare Sunny Day
For July a rare sunny day
The sun peep through the clouds of gray
And the nest building magpie does sing
Five weeks from the first day of Spring.
Tiny frogs sing in the watery drain
Swollen by recent heavy rain
And the song of the blackbird I hear
Familiar, melodious and clear.
Late Winter a nice time of year
One knows that the Spring it is near
The birds know it is time to breed
And the call of Nature they do heed.
Mild sunshine with a gentle breeze
And magpies piping on the gum trees
And the magpie larks calling pee wee
In the sunlit park by the sea.
The sun shining in the gray sky
Such a pleasant day for July
The birds sense the coming of Spring
Nature is such an amazing thing.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Blackbird's Song
The blackbird's song it takes me far away
To northern Land and to a distant day
His kin birds sang all day until sundown
In leafy groves just out of Millstreet Town.
A blackbird piping on a blackwood tree
Awake the nostalgic memories in me
Again I walk the lush green fields in Spring
And hear the wild birds on the hedgerows sing.
Bluebells bloom by the hedge by the bohreen
And cock pheasant often heard though seldom seen
In the knee high rushes clap his wings and crow
By their calls and songs the birds you get to know.
The distance from the home fields may be long
But whenever the migrant hear the blackbird's song
He or she will see the lushness brought by rain
And walk through fields where wild flowers bloom again.
To it the blackbird's song has a nostalgic ring
It takes the migrant to a distant Spring
And though far distant the Homeland near 'twould seem
And the dipper's song is echoing in the stream.
I thought this thing nostalgia I'd outgrown
But the blackbird's song it carries me back home
And I walk the high fields where I walked before
Up to the hill through the wood at Claramore
poem by Francis Duggan
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Bird
It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -
and there, night came in.
When I returned from so many journeys,
I stayed suspended and green
between sun and geography -
I saw how wings worked,
how perfumes are transmitted
by feathery telegraph,
and from above I saw the path,
the springs and the roof tiles,
the fishermen at their trades,
the trousers of the foam;
I saw it all from my green sky.
I had no more alphabet
than the swallows in their courses,
the tiny, shining water
of the small bird on fire
which dances out of the pollen.
poem by Pablo Neruda
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The Little Black Bird: A Poem For The Other Woman
the little black bird
goes home in a cave
just below her belly
between
her legs
it sings about love
that she always kills
for nothing
before midnight the
blackbird flies
seeking the warmth
of other blackbirds
it is cold and
dying
in her keeping
now she sings alone
like a blackbird
cursing
the trees and the flowers
she wants to disown the
blackbird
in exchange for the
earthworm
she likes it that way
wriggling
without any feet at all
pointed and
penetrating
the curse continues
it can never be hers
and the blackbird
keeps coming back
mocking her like
an old man
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Rainy Day In Early June
The gray sky clouded over the rain is drizzling down
And the golf course is deserted by the river near the town
An early June day in early Winter in the Southern Hemisphere
The sun in the rain clouds hidden it is that time of year
From once you hear him singing his voice with you remain
The magpie he is piping in defiance of the rain
The gray and brown red wattlebird with a hoarseness in his cry
Is calling on a flowering gum that drips of rain nearby
To the vast expanse of dark water that crawls slowly to the sea
And in the calm dampness of the drizzling rain come the song of the pee wee
On this rainy day in early Winter it seems a long way from the Spring
When most of Nature's wildborn birds will build their nests and chirp and sing.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Triangles
Three triangles of birds crossed
Over the enormous ocean which extended
In winter like a green beast.
Everything just lay there, the silence,
The unfolding gray, the heavy light
Of space, some land now and then.
Over everything there was passing
A flight
And another flight
Of dark birds, winter bodies
Trembling triangles
Whose wings,
Frantically flapping, hardly
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days
From one place to another
Along the coast of Chile.
I am here while from one sky to another
The trembling of the migratory birds
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter
Like an everlasting well
Dug by an immovable spiral.
Now they have disappeared
Black feathers of the sea
Iron birds
From steep slopes and rock piles
Now at noon
I am in front of emptiness. It’s a winter
Space stretched out
And the sea has put
Over its blue face
A bitter mask.
poem by Pablo Neruda
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Mountain View
after the night of love
i sit on the bamboo stair
facing the wide expanse of
mountains before me
beyond the horizon of fog
and smoke from the tiny
houses five hills away
and down the plains the
winding river taking the
usual routes of least resistance
i have seen wild carabaos grazing
white horses running with the
winds and the black birds
flying high seeking their prey
of chicks unprotected by hens.
i am amazed by this macrocosm.
How can some be so greedy amidst
these bounty? Can his hands hold
all the mountains? Can his mouth
drink all the rivers? Can he catch
all the black birds and put them
inside his cage? I know he can't but
i know he will. And that is the reason
why we are here hiding in the bellies
of these big mountains, siding with the
shades of the trees, taking inspiration
from all the stars, the moon and the
boundless sea.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Curl
You curl, you know how to curl,
Yes you know a curl in your hair
And you curl yourself like a
Hair, in your bed,
It is so cold and no one
Sleeps here
No one comes
There is no hello
As guest and no
Hi to pretend
You are coming
Well, you curl, you know how to curl,
Like your hair,
This time, curl forever,
Nothing straight till the end,
Eternal curl,
Still
Touch it
It bounces and rebounces,
touch it again,
and be silent
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
poem by Wallace Stevens
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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The road not taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
poem by Robert Frost (1916)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Wall Of A Boat
The wall is a word of much finance,
It must be led into a belief of dance.
The expanse of a sea is of a wall or fence,
Such tragedy dispels magic of defence.
A well-chosen leader heaves his boredom
In the sea of tranquillity, a wood or aluminium
Has made on it a boat or ship, the very vessel
I have ruled as a captain so accessible.
poem by Naveed Akram
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The Crooked Ways Of The Tiny Birds
feelings are sometimes like the tiny birds
of summer feeding on a few grains
on the wide yards of the garden where the grasses
spread far
some feels being smothered by the indifference of other
tiny birds
separated by the distance of the long lines of
parallel electric poles
imagine the image of tiny birds sitting in there
looking for pecking
one notices the vastness of the sky
the unfinished climb of the hill
the vanishing paths of trails long untrue
feelings like tiny birds fly away
but there is no reason to be afraid on the
facts of nonreciprocating birds
ah, the world is wide and too interesting
to be ignored
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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A Spider (for children of all ages)
Little creature, creep and crawl,
Clinging to my bedroom wall!
My mother would have been dismayed,
My sister would have been afraid,
But here I lie in my cosy bed
And do not want a spider dead.
You're making progress, slow but sure,
Heading for the bedroom door,
But suddenly I see you fall
Curled up in a tiny, tiny ball!
Trust me, I will let you be,
I know you'll do no harm to me!
poem by John Thorkild Ellison
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0004 M i n d
and mind might ask,
why then are brain cells gray? Is it
because the world is just
so wonderful, that they, stunned
and amazed, cannot decide
which colour to praise first?
(Mix all the colours of the paints,
and the result is gray.)
or is it because they feel themselves
so dull in comparison
with the miracle which is creation,
the miracle they (miracles themselves) , faithful, serve?
(Mix all the colours of the spectrum,
and the result is white.)
or is it, because they know
their work lies between ultimates
such as (do they themselves
call them this?) black,
and white? do they know
their work is equity –
to balance all things, so that gray is not gray
as we use gray for worldly metaphor; but
the gray of lakes at peace;
of silver that lives in itself,
needing no sun but its own innerness;
mercury that is moved but longs
to be united in a perfect sphere;
gray of clouds that know
the blessings that they hold;
and, the shining gray of mind -
for which gray hair is living metaphor,
the wisdom which life holds in store for you -
as how many poets, this moment round the world,
are joining new electric paths of thought between
these tiny, great gray worm-like cells which hide, compact,
their vast and inner space which spins out eager words
of metaphor, for that so nameless,
boundless, dazzling spectrum,
the radiant space of self?
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Fifteen
You curl, you know how to curl,
Yes you know a curl in your hair
And you curl yourself like a
Hair, in your bed,
It is so cold and no one
Sleeps here
No one comes
There is no hello
As guest and no
Hi to pretend
You are coming
Well, you curl, you know how to curl,
Like your hair,
This time, curl forever,
Nothing straight till the end,
Eternal curl,
Still
Touch it
It bounces and re-bounces,
touch it again,
and be silent
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Blackbird Metaphor
the Beatles had it
as the struggle for freedom of the blacks
that blackbird singing in the dark
wanting to be free
the Americans
had that blackbird swirling in Vietnam
that chopper that saved lives
that war that caused them humiliation
in the world's opinion
that lie of Nixon
Steven Wallace had eight ways of seeing
that blackbird
Noah sent that blackbird
that did not come back since it was happy
picking on the rotten flesh
of the remains of the dead
the ninth way
of seeing
disobedience
One writes again about the blackbird
that lives singing the songs of neurosis
in his mind
at winter time
The poet commits suicide
His colleagues bury him
with eulogies and ' what ifs'
One sleeps with a blackbird
The other sings with a blackbird
Someone flew away with a blackbird
and did not come back
since then
So many stories
So many poems are written
Now i have to write about this blackbird too
But there shall be no disturbance
No unhappy ending
I swear to you.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Night Journeys
did you travel by plane
train bus or car?
enjoy motion waves
of moonlit land night travels
so much better than stasis
commercial aircraft
night journeys can be
such emotional fun
choice to sleep or feel
let glee excitement run
at journeys end sweet blessings wait
bundles of blessings do not be late
travel with ease avoid excessive freight
Godspeed in your travels fast lightweight
poem by Terence George Craddock
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