The Widening Spell of the Leaves
--The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
--for my brother
Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck
In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it.
But the city was hours away, beyond the hills
Shaped like the bodies of sleeping women.
Often I had to slow down for herds of goats
Or cattle milling on those narrow roads, & for
The narrower, lost, stone streets of villages
I passed through. The pains in my stomach had grown
Gradually sharper & more frequent as the day
Wore on, & now a fever had set up house.
In the villages there wasn't much point in asking
Anyone for help. In those places, where tanks
Were bivouacked in shade on their way back
From some routine exercise along
The Danube, even food was scarce that year.
And the languages shifted for no clear reason
From two hard quarries of Slavic into German,
Then to a shred of Latin spliced with oohs
And hisses. Even when I tried the simplest phrases,
The peasants passing over those uneven stones
Paused just long enough to look up once,
Uncomprehendingly. Then they turned
Quickly away, vanishing quietly into that
Moment, like bark chips whirled downriver.
It was autumn. Beyond each village the wind
Threw gusts of yellowing leaves across the road.
The goats I passed were thin, gray; their hind legs,
Caked with dried shit, seesawed along--
Not even mild contempt in their expressionless,
Pale eyes, & their brays like the scraping of metal.
Except for one village that had a kind
Of museum where I stopped to rest, & saw
A dead Scythian soldier under glass,
Turning to dust while holding a small sword
At attention forever, there wasn't much to look at.
Wind, leaves, goats, the higher passes
Locked in stone, the peasants with their fate
Embroidering a stillness into them,
And a spell over all things in that landscape,
Like . . .
That was the trouble; it couldn't be
Compared to anything else, not even the sleep
Of some asylum at a wood's edge with the sound
Of a pond's spillway beside it. But as each cramp
Grew worse & lasted longer than the one before,
It was hard to keep myself aloof from the threadbare
World walking on that road. After all,
Even as they moved, the peasants, the herds of goats
And cattle, the spiralling leaves, at least were part
Of that spell, that stillness.
After a while,
The villages grew even poorer, then thinned out,
Then vanished entirely. An hour later,
There were no longer even the goats, only wind,
Then more & more leaves blown over the road, sometimes
Covering it completely for a second.
And yet, except for a random oak or some brush
Writhing out of the ravine I drove beside,
The trees had thinned into rock, into large,
Tough blonde rosettes of fading pasture grass.
Then that gave out in a bare plateau. . . . And then,
Easing the Dacia down a winding grade
In second gear, rounding a long, funneled curve--
In a complete stillness of yellow leaves filling
A wide field--like something thoughtlessly,
Mistakenly erased, the road simply ended.
I stopped the car. There was no wind now.
I expected that, & though I was sick & lost,
I wasn't afraid. I should have been afraid.
To this day I don't know why I wasn't.
I could hear time cease, the field quietly widen.
I could feel the spreading stillness of the place
Moving like something I'd witnessed as a child,
Like the ancient, armored leisure of some reptile
Gliding, gray-yellow, into the slightly tepid,
Unidentical gray-brown stillness of the water--
Something blank & unresponsive in its tough,
Pimpled skin--seen only a moment, then unseen
As it submerged to rest on mud, or glided just
Beneath the lustreless, calm yellow leaves
That clustered along a log, or floated there
In broken ringlets, held by a gray froth
On the opaque, unbroken surface of the pond,
Which reflected nothing, no one.
And then I remembered.
When I was a child, our neighbors would disappear.
And there wasn't a pond of crocodiles at all.
And they hadn't moved. They couldn't move. They
Lived in the small, fenced-off backwater
Of a canal. I'd never seen them alive. They
Were in still photographs taken on the Ivory Coast.
I saw them only once in a studio when
I was a child in a city I once loved.
I was afraid until our neighbor, a photographer,
Explained it all to me, explained how far
Away they were, how harmless; how they were praised
In rituals as "powers." But they had no "powers,"
He said. The next week he vanished. I thought
Someone had cast a spell & that the crocodiles
Swam out of the pictures on the wall & grew
Silently & multiplied & then turned into
Shadows resting on the banks of lakes & streams
Or took the shapes of fallen logs in campgrounds
In the mountains. They ate our neighbor, Mr. Hirata.
They ate his whole family. That is what I believed,
Then. . .that someone had cast a spell. I did not
Know childhood was a spell, or that then there
Had been another spell, too quiet to hear,
Entering my city, entering the dust we ate. . . .
No one knew it then. No one could see it,
Though it spread through lawnless miles of housing tracts,
And the new, bare, treeless streets; it slipped
Into the vacant rows of warehouses & picked
The padlocked doors of working-class bars
And union halls & shuttered, empty diners.
And how it clung! (forever, if one had noticed)
To the brothel with the pastel tassels on the shade
Of an unlit table lamp. Farther in, it feasted
On the decaying light of failing shopping centers;
It spilled into the older, tree-lined neighborhoods,
Into warm houses, sealing itself into books
Of bedtime stories read each night by fathers--
The books lying open to the flat, neglected
Light of dawn; & it settled like dust on windowsills
Downtown, filling the smug cafés, schools,
Banks, offices, taverns, gymnasiums, hotels,
Newsstands, courtrooms, opium parlors, Basque
Restaurants, Armenian steam baths,
French bakeries, & two of the florists' shops--
Their plate glass windows smashed forever.
Finally it tried to infiltrate the exact
Center of my city, a small square bordered
With palm trees, olives, cypresses, a square
Where no one gathered, not even thieves or lovers.
It was a place which no longer had any purpose,
But held itself aloof, I thought, the way
A deaf aunt might, from opinions, styles, gossip.
I liked it there. It was completely lifeless,
Sad & clear in what seemed always a perfect,
Windless noon. I saw it first as a child,
Looking down at it from that as yet
Unvandalized, makeshift studio.
I remember leaning my right cheek against
A striped beach ball so that Mr. Hirata--
Who was Japanese, who would be sent the next week
To a place called Manzanar, a detention camp
Hidden in stunted pines almost above
The Sierra timberline--could take my picture.
I remember the way he lovingly relished
Each camera angle, the unwobbling tripod,
The way he checked each aperture against
The light meter, in love with all things
That were not accidental, & I remember
The care he took when focusing; how
He tried two different lens filters before
He found the one appropriate for that
Sensual, late, slow blush of afternoon
Falling through the one broad bay window.
I remember holding still & looking down
Into the square because he asked me to;
Because my mother & father had asked me please
To obey & be patient & allow the man--
Whose business was failing anyway by then--
To work as long as he wished to without any
Irritations or annoyances before
He would have to spend these years, my father said,
Far away, in snow, & without his cameras.
But Mr. Hirata did not work. He played.
His toys gleamed there. That much was clear to me . . . .
That was the day I decided I would never work.
It felt like a conversion. Play was sacred.
My father waited behind us on a sofa made
From car seats. One spring kept nosing through.
I remember the camera opening into the light . . . .
And I remember the dark after, the studio closed,
The cameras stolen, slivers of glass from the smashed
Bay window littering the unsanded floors,
And the square below it bathed in sunlight . . . . All this
Before Mr. Hirata died, months later,
From complications following pneumonia.
His death, a letter from a camp official said,
Was purely accidental. I didn't believe it.
Diseases were wise. Diseases, like the polio
My sister had endured, floating paralyzed
And strapped into her wheelchair all through
That war, seemed too precise. Like photographs . . .
Except disease left nothing. Disease was like
And equation that drank up light & never ended,
Not even in summer. Before my fever broke,
And the pains lessened, I could actually see
Myself, in the exact center of that square.
How still it had become in my absence, & how
Immaculate, windless, sunlit. I could see
The outline of every leaf on the nearest tree,
See it more clearly than ever, more clearly than
I had seen anything before in my whole life:
Against the modest, dark gray, solemn trunk,
The leaves were becoming only what they had to be--
Calm, yellow, things in themselves & nothing
More--& frankly they were nothing in themselves,
Nothing except their little reassurance
Of persisting for a few more days, or returning
The year after, & the year after that, & every
Year following--estranged from us by now--& clear,
So clear not one in a thousand trembled; hushed
And always coming back--steadfast, orderly,
Taciturn, oblivious--until the end of Time.
poem by Larry Levis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Elegy For Whatever Had A Pattern In It
Now that the Summer of Love has become the moss of tunnels
And the shadowy mouths of tunnels & all the tunnels lead into the city,
I'm going to put the one largely forgotten, swaying figure of Ediesto Huerta
Right in front of you so you can watch him swamp fruit
Out of an orchard in the heat of an August afternoon, I'm going to let you
Keep your eyes on him as he lifts & swings fifty-pound boxes of late
Elberta peaches up to me where I'm standing on a flatbed trailer & breathing in
Tractor exhaust so thick it bends the air, bends things seen through it
So that they seem to swim through the air.
It is a lousy job, & no one has to do it, & we do it.
We do it so that I can show you even what isn't there,
What's hidden. And signed by Time itself. And set spinning,
And is only a spider, after all, with its net waiting for what falls,
For what flies into it, & ages, & turns gray in a matter of minutes. The web
Is nothing's blueprint, bleached by the sun & whitened by it, it's what's left
After we've vanished, after we become what falls apart when anyone
Touches it, eyelash & collarbone dissolving into air, & time touching
The boxes we are wrapped in like gifts & splintering them
Into wood again, at the edge of a wood.
2
Black Widow is a name no one ever tinkered with or tried to change.
If you turn her on her back you can see the blood red hourglass figure
She carries on her belly,
Small as the design of a pirate I saw once on a tab of blotter acid
Before I took half of it, & a friend took the other, & then the two of us
Walked down to the empty post office beside the lake to look,
For some reason, at the wanted posters. We liked a little drama
In the ordinary then. Now a spider's enough.
And this one, in the legend she inhabits, is famous, & the male dies.
She eats its head after the eggs are fertilized.
It's the hourglass on her belly I remember, & the way the figure of it,
Figure eight of Time & Infinity, looked like something designed,
Etched or embossed upon the slick undershell, & the way there was,
The first time I saw it, a stillness in the pattern that was not
The stillness of the leaves or the stillness of the sky over the leaves.
After the male dies she goes off & the eggs
Live in the fraying sail
Of an abandoned web strung up in the corner of a picking box or beneath
Some slowly yellowing grape leaf among hundreds of other
Leaves, in autumn, the eggs smaller than the o in this typescript
Or a handwritten apostrophe in ink.
What do they represent but emptiness, some gold camp settlement
In the Sierras swept clean by smallpox, & wind?
Canal school with its three rooms, its bell & the rope you rang it with
And no one there in the empty sunlight, ring & after ring & echo.
It magnifies & I can't explain it.
Piedra, Conejo, Parlier. Stars & towns, blown fire & wind.
Deneb & Altair, invisible kindling, nothing above nothing.
It magnifies & I can't explain it.
3
Expressionless spinster, carrying Time's signature preserved & signed
In blood & hidden beneath you, you move two steps
To the right & hold still, then one step to the left,
And hold still again, motionless as the web you wait in.
Motionless as the story you wait in & inhabit but did not spin
And did not repeat. You wait in the beehive hairdo of the girl
Sitting across from me in class, wait in your eggs,
4
Wait in the hair the girl teases & sprays once more at recess.
Lipstick, heels, tight sweater, leather anklet.
The story has no point but stillness itself, absence in a school desk,
The hacked and scratched names visible in the varnished wood,
No one there, the bell with its ring & after ring & echo.
In class, I remember, she would look back at me with a gaze deeper
Than calm, blanker than a pond's scummed & motionless surface,
Beneath which there was nothing, nothing taking the shape of someone
Who had already drowned but could not die, & so sat in class
Because she had to, because that was the law.
Mrs. Avery went on & on at the blackboard so we could know
Who Magellan & Vizcaino had been, or sometimes she would make
The boy who spoke only Spanish read from a book,
Watch him as he used his forefinger to point at each syllable
He would read, read & mispronounce, & stumble over, & go on.
§
And this isn't much of a story either, but it's one I know:
One afternoon in August, two black widow spiders bit Ediesto Huerta.
He killed them both & went on working,
Went on swinging the boxes up to me. In a few minutes the sweat
Bathed his face until it glistened, & still he went on working;
And when I asked him to stop he would not & instead
Seemed to begin to dance slowly in the rhythms of the work,
Swing & heft & turning back for another box, then
Swing, heft, & turning back again. And within a half hour or so,
Without him resting once but merely swinging box after box
Of peaches up to me in the heat, the fever broke.
5
In the middle of turning away again, he stopped dancing,
He stopped working. He seemed to be listening to something, & then
He passed out & fell flat on his back. It looked as if he had gone to sleep
For a moment. I let the idling tractor sputter & die, & by the time
I reached him, he had awakened, &, in the next moment, his face
Began twitching, his arms & legs danced to something without music
And then stiffened, his jaws clenched & his eyes fluttered open
And turned a pure white. I made a stick from a peach limb & tore
The leaves & shoots off it & stuck it between his teeth
As I heard one was supposed to, &, in this way, almost
Killed him by suffocation, & so took the stick out & threw it away.
And later lifted him by the one arm he extended to me & pulled him up onto
The bed of the trailer. He dangled his legs off the rear of it.
We sat there, saying nothing.
It was so quiet we could hear the birds around us in the trees.
And then he turned to me, &, addressing me in a name as old as childhood,
Said, 'Hey Cowboy, you wanna cigarette?'
§
In the story, no one can remember whether it was car theft or burglary,
But in fact, Ediesto Huerta was tried & convicted of something, & so, afterward,
Became motionless & silent in the web spun around him by misfortune.
In the penitentiary the lights stay on forever,
Cell after cell after cell, they call their names out, caught in time.
Ring, & after ring, & echo.
In the story, the girl always dies of spider bites,
When in fact she disappeared by breaking into the jagged pieces of glass
Littering the roadsides & glinting in the empty light that shines there. 6
All we are is representation, what we appear to be & are, & are not,
And representation is all we remember,
Something hesitating & looking back & caught for a moment.
God in the design on a spider's belly, standing for time & infinity,
Looks back, looks back just once, then never again.
We go without a trace, I am thinking. We go & there's no one there,
No one to meet us on the long drive lined with orange trees,
Cypresses, the bleaching fronds of palm trees,
And though the town is still there when I return to it, when I'm gone
The track is empty beside the station, & the station is boarded up,
Boarded over, the town is overgrown with leaves, with weeds
Tall as windowsills, window glass out & dark inside the shops.
The classrooms & school are gone & the bell, & the rope
To ring it with, & the boy reading form the book, forefinger
On a syllable he can't pronounce & stumbles over again & again.
§
All we are is representation, what we are & are not,
Clear & then going dark again, all we are
Is the design or insignia that misrepresents what we are, & stays
Behind, & looks back at us without expression, empty road in sunlight.
I once drove in a '48 Jimmy truck with three tons of fruit
On it & the flooring beneath the clutch so worn away I could see
The road go past beneath me, the oil flecked light & shadow
Picking up speed. Angel & Johnny Dominguez, Ediesto Huerta,
Jaime Vaca & Coronado Solares, Querido Flacco
7
And the one called Dead Rat & the one called Camelias;
We go without a trace, I am thinking.
§
Today you were lying in bed, drinking tea, reading the newspaper,
A look of concentration on your face, of absorption in some
Story or other.
It looked so peaceful, you reading, the bed, the sunlight over everything.
There is a blueprint of something never finished, something I'll never
Find my way out of, some web where the light rocks, back & forth,
Holding me in a time that's gone, bee at the windowsill & the cold
Coming back as it has to, tapping at the glass.
The figure in the hourglass & the body swinging in the rhythm of its work.
The body reclining in bed, forgetting what it is, & who.
While the night goes on with its work, the stars & the shapes they make,
Cold vein in the leaf & in the wind,
What are we but what we offer up?
Gifts we give, things for oblivion to look at, & puzzle over, & set aside.
Oblivion resting his cheek against a child's striped rubber ball
In the photograph I have of him, head on the table & resting his cheek
Against the cool surface of the ball, the one that is finished spinning, the one
He won't give back.
Oblivion who has my face in the photograph, my cheek resting
Against a child's striped ball.
Oblivion with his blown fires, & empty towns...
Oblivion who would be nothing without us, I am thinking,
8
As if we're put on the earth to forget the ending, & wander.
And walk alone. And walk in the midst of great crowds,
And never come back.
poem by Larry Levis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
As It Begins With A Brush Stroke On A Snare Drum
The plaza was so still in that moment two years ago that
everything was clear,
As if it had been preserved beneath a kind of lacquered
stillness, &, for a while,
I did not even notice the pigeons lifting above the sad tiles
of churches,
Or how they must have sounded like applause that is not
meant for anyone;
I must not have noticed that blind woman on the corner who
begged coins
For a living, who had one eye swelled shut entirely while
the other, a thin film
Of glaucoma over it that had taken on the lustreless sheen
of a nickel,
Was held wide open to witness spittle on the curb. And soon
the band
In their sun-bleached military uniforms were tuning up beneath
the blossom of rust
Covering the gazebo, its eaves festooned with the off-white
spiderwebs of unlit Christmas lights.
And that girl, Socorro, her smile surfacing voluptuously as
an unspoken thought
Again, was selling gardenias—their petals already beginning
to appear
Faintly discolored around the edges—from a basket she carried
on her head
In an unwobbling stillness; Martin was selling chicklets but
no one bought
Chicklets anymore; no one bought the little squawking birds
or the cheap stone
Animals turned out on a lathe in Veracruz, either; no one
wanted his shoes shined.
By then the band was playing show tunes from My Fair Lady
& South Pacific & was
Interrupted only once because of a routine demonstration by
the Communists, who,
Mostly, were demonstrating because it was Sunday & because
that is what they did,
On Sundays. After a while I started walking vaguely away
beside some fading stonework,
Which in fact is not called Our Lady of Perfect Solitude nor
even Our Sister
Of Perpetual Solitude, but simply Santo Domingo. I do not
know why I walked near it then,
& passed without entering.
*
Still, in the painting the children kept skating, & the others
are probably
Walking home from school at this moment in their yellow
raincoats, with
The stale smells left on wax paper locked in their lunch pails.
That woman
Keeps brushing her hair, & so somewhere it is still 1970 &
the riot police
Are spilling Out of their buses. On the marsh above the
Sound there were egrets,
There were black swans nesting in the rushes; the canal was
warm, & salty.
There was a cabin filling with so much moonlight I almost
believed I could
Dissolve in it if I sat very still, & I sat very still. I watched
my son
Skating at the edge of a pond in his sleep. It was summer
by the time
I finally saw the painting in Brussels & counted each one of
the children as if
To make sure they were still there, & then gradually
lost count, & in the dream
Of the plowman on the hill there must have been the face
of an English poet
Looking as lined as a maple leaf pressed between the pages
of a book. Beneath it
The Danube is gliding, & I am just holding his book now,
not even needing to read it
Anymore as I cross into the frontier—green wheat, alfalfa, a
feeling of distance
In it all like sleep or rain reclaiming some lost, rural Missouri
slum town until
It no longer exists—& now the Hungarian checkpoint, where
guards with stars
The shade of American lipstick on their caps will enter &
seem proud of the unchipped,
Deep blue enamel on their machine guns. Most of them are
just poor teen-agers
From the surrounding villages & farms . . . & innocent, &
The only glamour that is left
On the Orient Express
Is a soiled, torn doily on an armrest.
Rhyme then, rhyme & dream, but in the other painting,
which is not a painting,
They are trudging home from school in the rain which is like
a kind of sleep
When one of them thinks the mind is not the mind in the
unbewitched, meticulous,
First shaping of numbers on a blackboard; it is only the
shadow of a skater over
A white pond. There is a sea beyond it, roughened by
whitecaps, & the mind
Moves first one way, then another, then both ways at once,
& then one long
Glide past the pines that look black from this far away, but
aren't black.
The boy's friend is saying he 'hates school, but only sort
of.' But the child's
Not listening, he is thinking that something he painted was
something he dreamt,
And then some of the dream got mixed in with the paint,
& then with recess,
The afternoon, this long walk in the rain, & now he will
never get it sorted
Out . . . In the story, the boy, falling, must have thought his
father had wings
Unlike his own, & real. That is why the myth is so clear,
& so cruel,
And why we survive it. Yellow rain gear. Black woods. Gray
sky. Home
Is where you can forget some things, the boy is thinking,
because he is
Tired from having to walk for so long & because he has left
his galoshes
At school & his shoes are wet as he unthinkingly turns his
back to me now,
Goes up the worn, slick steps of a front porch, & the door
closes. And,
Because I am not allowed to see it, there is a glass of milk
on the table,
The stairs behind it are dark, & from a narrow upstairs
window there is
A glimpse of the sea, & later, in his dream, there is sometimes
a father,
And then it is more like a story about a father, & then it is
the hush of ice
Over a pond's surface. In spring, when it begins to thaw,
there is a little
Noise underneath it like steel sighing, if steel could sigh as
it seems to,
Sometimes—when you are walking home alone on a trestle
above a river & there
Is a broken pattern of geese above it, a vee decomposing, a
sky mottled with blue
And some clouds. It is like a father dissolving, & setting you
free, & what
Has the father ever achieved that will outlast his own
vanishing? And so
The boy spits over the raillng & watches the silvery web
of it falling
And thinning until it is gossamer, a filament untying itself
forever & saying
Exactly what forever always meant to say—that this long pull
of spring tide in the river
Needs nothing, nothing except its one momentary witness,
a boy pausing
Above it all on a bridge.
*
In Oaxaca, after the bomb went off, there were nevertheless
a few seconds . . .
A pure stillness in which I could hear the fountain in the
plaza, distant traffic,
The sudden silence of birds. Then everyone was rushing
through the streets
Toward a place where sound had been, a place that wasn't
there. It is funny,
But the sound of a bomb, a few seconds after it has gone
off, is no longer even
Surprising. In a little while it seems only right, & sad. I sat
in the balcony of a restaurant
Overlooking it all, & read a poem by Alberto Blanco in the
magazine edited by Paz,
And waited for the place to open, & in the next hour watched
the plaza
Gradually fill with the usual crowds . . . those who love, or
those who think they love,
Novelty; & change.
poem by Larry Levis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Could Have Told You
THAT YELLOW
SOLO LEAF floating on a very clear pond,
was it last summer?
will it really matter when someone is finally gone?
will the wind remember?
will the deep water of the pond be always true to its clarity and peace?
that yellow leaf that sank on the very clear pond on one peaceful day
will someone still remember?
i think, i will,
if i, too, shall live
longer than
you.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Foolish Fir-Tree
A tale that the poet Rückert told
To German children, in days of old;
Disguised in a random, rollicking rhyme
Like a merry mummer of ancient time,
And sent, in its English dress, to please
The little folk of the Christmas trees.
A little fir grew in the midst of the wood
Contented and happy, as young trees should.
His body was straight and his boughs were clean;
And summer and winter the bountiful sheen
Of his needles bedecked him, from top to root,
In a beautiful, all-the-year, evergreen suit.
But a trouble came into his heart one day,
When he saw that the other trees were gay
In the wonderful raiment that summer weaves
Of manifold shapes and kinds of leaves:
He looked at his needles so stiff and small,
And thought that his dress was the poorest of all.
Then jealousy clouded the little tree's mind,
And he said to himself, "It was not very kind
"To give such an ugly old dress to a tree!
"If the fays of the forest would only ask me,
"I'd tell them how I should like to be dressed,—
"In a garment of gold, to bedazzle the rest!"
So he fell asleep, but his dreams were bad.
When he woke in the morning, his heart was glad;
For every leaf that his boughs could hold
Was made of the brightest beaten gold.
I tell you, children, the tree was proud;
He was something above the common crowd;
And he tinkled his leaves, as if he would say
To a pedlar who happened to pass that way,
"Just look at me! don't you think I am fine?
"And wouldn't you like such a dress as mine?"
"Oh, yes!" said the man, "and I really guess
I must fill my pack with your beautiful dress."
So he picked the golden leaves with care,
And left the little tree shivering there.
"Oh, why did I wish for golden leaves?"
The fir-tree said, "I forgot that thieves
"Would be sure to rob me in passing by.
"If the fairies would give me another try,
"I'd wish for something that cost much less,
"And be satisfied with glass for my dress!"
Then he fell asleep; and, just as before,
The fairies granted his wish once more.
When the night was gone, and the sun rose clear,
The tree was a crystal chandelier;
And it seemed, as he stood in the morning light,
That his branches were covered with jewels bright.
"Aha!" said the tree. "This is something great!"
And he held himself up, very proud and straight;
But a rude young wind through the forest dashed,
In a reckless temper, and quickly smashed
The delicate leaves. With a clashing sound
They broke into pieces and fell on the ground,
Like a silvery, shimmering shower of hail,
And the tree stood naked and bare to the gale.
Then his heart was sad; and he cried, "Alas
"For my beautiful leaves of shining glass!
"Perhaps I have made another mistake
"In choosing a dress so easy to break.
"If the fairies only would hear me again
"I'd ask them for something both pretty and plain:
"It wouldn't cost much to grant my request,—
"In leaves of green lettuce I'd like to be dressed!"
By this time the fairies were laughing, I know;
But they gave him his wish in a second; and so
With leaves of green lettuce, all tender and sweet,
The tree was arrayed, from his head to his feet.
"I knew it!" he cried, "I was sure I could find
"The sort of a suit that would be to my mind.
"There's none of the trees has a prettier dress,
"And none as attractive as I am, I guess."
But a goat, who was taking an afternoon walk,
By chance overheard the fir-tree's talk.
So he came up close for a nearer view;—
"My salad!" he bleated, "I think so too!
"You're the most attractive kind of a tree,
"And I want your leaves for my five-o'clock tea."
So he ate them all without saying grace,
And walked away with a grin on his face;
While the little tree stood in the twilight dim,
With never a leaf on a single limb.
Then he sighed and groaned; but his voice was weak—
He was so ashamed that he could not speak.
He knew at last that he had been a fool,
To think of breaking the forest rule,
And choosing a dress himself to please,
Because he envied the other trees.
But it couldn't be helped, it was now too late,
He must make up his mind to a leafless fate!
So he let himself sink in a slumber deep,
But he moaned and he tossed in his troubled sleep,
Till the morning touched him with joyful beam,
And he woke to find it was all a dream.
For there in his evergreen dress he stood,
A pointed fir in the midst of the wood!
His branches were sweet with the balsam smell,
His needles were green when the white snow fell.
And always contented and happy was he,—
The very best kind of a Christmas tree.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In Early Summer Lodging in a Temple to Enjoy the Moonlight
In early summer, with two or three more
That were seeking fame in the city of Ch'ang-an,
Whose low employ gave them less business
Than ever they had since first they left their homes
With these I wandered deep into the shrine of Tao,
For the joy we sought was promised in this place.
When we reached the gate, we sent our coaches back;
We entered the yard with only cap and stick.
Still and clear, the first weeks of May,
When trees are green and bushes soft and wet;
When the wind has stolen the shadows of new leaves
And birds linger on the last boughs that bloom.
Towards evening when the sky grew clearer yet
And the South-east was still clothed in red,
To the western cloister we carried our jar of wine;
While we waited for the moon, our cups moved slow.
Soon, how soon her golden ghost was born,
Swiftly, as though she had waited for us to come.
The beams of her light shone in every place,
On towers and halls dancing to and fro.
Till day broke we sat in her clear light
Laughing and singing, and yet never grew tired.
In Ch'ang-an, the place of profit and fame,
Such moods as this, how many men know?
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 08
Many things perplex me and leave me troubled,
Many things are locked away in the white book of stars
Never to be opened by me.
The starr’d leaves are silently turned,
And the mooned leaves;
And as they are turned, fall the shadows of life and death.
Perplexed and troubled,
I light a small light in a small room,
The lighted walls come closer to me,
The familiar pictures are clear.
I sit in my favourite chair and turn in my mind
The tiny pages of my own life, whereon so little is written,
And hear at the eastern window the pressure of a long wind, coming
From I know not where.
How many times have I sat here,
How many times will I sit here again,
Thinking these same things over and over in solitude
As a child says over and over
The first word he has learned to say.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Where have all the trees gone Dad?
Dad! When I was in school the teacher showed me a picture of a tree
I've never seen one of those before, tall and handsome and brown and green you see
Do you remember seeing a tree when you were young? My teacher says there were many
She says that they grew all over the world but now days there aren't any
What did they look like? Did they blow in the wind?
Did the leaves fall in the autumn or was it in spring?
How high did they grow? Did they sway to and fro?
Did they look pretty covered in winters first fall of snow?
Dad, teacher says they'll grow no more, she says the climate has changed forever
She says we're all poorer now and explained to us how we'll have to suffer together
I heard that there was a tree that grew as tall as a skyscraper
But they cut it down and mulched it up to make us all new paper
It would be nice to see trees growing proud and strong
Reaching up to the sky with their branches so long
But that's just a dream I know I'll never see
It's just a vision in a picture never to be reality for me
My teacher said there used to be birds that lived amongst the bows
They flew around from branch to branch but we don't have those either now
What are nuts and berries and fruit the trees all used to bear?
My teacher says they were things we could eat at the end of every year
Well do you remember seeing a tree when you were young then Dad?
The like of which I have just explained and a pleasure I've never had
What do you mean they died out long ago, long before you were born
Now I'll never know why we cut them all down and my heart will always be torn.
poem by Glenn Ford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Edge
I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me…
But there was time…
And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain,
staring into the abyss…
I do not know how long…
I could not count the hours, they ran so fast
Like little bare-foot urchins - shaking my hands away…
But I remember
Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein…
And a wind came out of the grass,
Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.
As the night grew
The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth
Fell in ashen folds about the hills,
Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them…
There must have been a spent moon,
For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver…
That too I remember…
And the tenderly rocking mountain
Silence
And beating stars…
Dawn
Lay like a waxen hand upon the world,
And folded hills
Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold,
Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily,
Flecked with sun,
Fine as a golden pollen -
It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow.
I smelled the raw sweet essences of things,
And heard spiders in the leaves
And ticking of little feet,
As tiny creatures came out of their doors
To see God pouring light into his star…
… It seemed life held
No future and no past but this…
And I too got up stiffly from the earth,
And held my heart up like a cup…
poem by Lola Ridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
St. John's, Cambridge
I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade
Thy western window, Chapel of St. John!
And hear its leaves repeat their benison
On him, whose hand thy stones memorial laid;
Then I remember one of whom was said
In the world's darkest hour, "Behold thy son!"
And see him living still, and wandering on
And waiting for the advent long delayed.
Not only tongues of the apostles teach
Lessons of love and light, but these expanding
And sheltering boughs with all their leaves implore,
And say in language clear as human speech,
"The peace of God, that passeth understanding,
Be and abide with you forevermore!"
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A lane in England
In autumn I walked in England
in a lane full of trees
where leaves lay auburn
on a road wet from rain.
Barren, stripped oak trees
were between other green ones
and it was as if I was going
right through a tunnel
with here and there trees
of which the leaves were more yellow.
In the distance the road bended to the right
where a bush fence
cut neatly square
and telephone poles
ran along the edge of the road
and the green moss banks
were covered with auburn leaves
at places
and on the other side
of the road
a shrub stretched out green and long
like a sausage
that was lying next to the road
and I would love
to have a lane like that
next to my driveway.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A pond above, a pool below,
A pond above, a pool below,
And between, water flows
Down moss green cement
Then white about rounded stones.
You stroll by me,
Your hand hooked upon my shoulder,
My hand warm in your back pocket.
Sun and shade dapple your hair,
Our legs, they make us one.
You pause upon the dam
And look across the still pond.
Two leaves float on the smooth surface,
Autumn yellow, separate and still,
Serene amongst reflected clouds and sky.
A breeze nudges them against the concrete race
And over and down the green dropp they glide.
You cross the path and watch
As briefly they touch
As they toboggan upon the flow.
Then separate and reaching the pool below,
Again they float quiet, apart and slow.
That day now seems so long ago.
Today I searched your name
And got a scattering of hits,
References to children's summer soccer
And on a company's marketing site, your picture.
Your hair's gray, your skin's no longer clear.
Oh, that that moment on the dam together
Had not left us drifting apart.
poem by William L Roberts
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Window
All night long, by a distant bell,
The passing hours were notched
On the dark, while her breathing rose and fell,
And the spark of life I watched
In her face was glowing or fading, -- who could tell? --
And the open window of the room,
With a flare of yellow light,
Was peering out into the gloom,
Like an eye that searched the night.
Oh, what do you see in the dark, little window, and why do you fear?
"I see that the garden is crowded with creeping forms of fear:
Little white ghosts in the locust-tree, that wave in the night-wind's breath,
And low in the leafy laurels the larking shadow of death."
Sweet, clear notes of a waking bird
Told of the passing away
Of the dark, -- and my darling may have heard;
For she smiled in her sleep, while the ray
Of the rising dawn spoke joy without a word,
Till the splendor born in the east outburned
The yellow lamplight, pale and thin,
And the open window slowly turned
To the eye of the morning, looking in.
Oh, what do you see in the room, little window, that makes you so bright?
"I see that a child is asleep on her pillow, soft and white,
With the rose of life on her tips, and the breath of life in her breast,
And the arms of God around her as she quietly takes her rest."
poem by Henry Van Dyke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Scenic Route
For Lucy, who called them "ghost houses."
Someone was always leaving
and never coming back.
The wooden houses wait like old wives
along this road; they are everywhere,
abandoned, leaning, turning gray.
Someone always traded
the lonely beauty
of hemlock and stony lakeshore
for survival, packed up his life
and drove off to the city.
In the yards the apple trees
keep hanging on, but the fruit
grows smaller year by year.
When we come this way again
the trees will have gone wild,
the houses collapsed, not even worth
the human act of breaking in.
Fields will have taken over.
What we will recognize
is the wind, the same fierce wind,
which has no history.
poem by Lisel Mueller
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Double Image
1.
I am thirty this November.
You are still small, in your fourth year.
We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain.
falling flat and washed. And I remember
mostly the three autumns you did not live here.
They said I'd never get you back again.
I tell you what you'll never really know:
all the medical hypothesis
that explained my brain will never be as true as these
struck leaves letting go.
I, who chose two times
to kill myself, had said your nickname
the mewling mouths when you first came;
until a fever rattled
in your throat and I moved like a pantomine
above your head. Ugly angels spoke to me. The blame,
I heard them say, was mine. They tattled
like green witches in my head, letting doom
leak like a broken faucet;
as if doom had flooded my belly and filled your bassinet,
an old debt I must assume.
Death was simpler than I'd thought.
The day life made you well and whole
I let the witches take away my guilty soul.
I pretended I was dead
until the white men pumped the poison out,
putting me armless and washed through the rigamarole
of talking boxes and the electric bed.
I laughed to see the private iron in that hotel.
Today the yellow leaves
go queer. You ask me where they go I say today believed
in itself, or else it fell.
Today, my small child, Joyce,
love your self's self where it lives.
There is no special God to refer to; or if there is,
why did I let you grow
in another place. You did not know my voice
when I came back to call. All the superlatives
of tomorrow's white tree and mistletoe
will not help you know the holidays you had to miss.
The time I did not love
myself, I visited your shoveled walks; you held my glove.
There was new snow after this.
2.
They sent me letters with news
of you and I made moccasins that I would never use.
When I grew well enough to tolerate
myself, I lived with my mother, the witches said.
But I didn't leave. I had my portrait
done instead.
Part way back from Bedlam
I came to my mother's house in Gloucester,
Massachusetts. And this is how I came
to catch at her; and this is how I lost her.
I cannot forgive your suicide, my mother said.
And she never could. She had my portrait
done instead.
I lived like an angry guest,
like a partly mended thing, an outgrown child.
I remember my mother did her best.
She took me to Boston and had my hair restyled.
Your smile is like your mother's, the artist said.
I didn't seem to care. I had my portrait
done instead.
There was a church where I grew up
with its white cupboards where they locked us up,
row by row, like puritans or shipmates
singing together. My father passed the plate.
Too late to be forgiven now, the witches said.
I wasn't exactly forgiven. They had my portrait
done instead.
3.
All that summer sprinklers arched
over the seaside grass.
We talked of drought
while the salt-parched
field grew sweet again. To help time pass
I tried to mow the lawn
and in the morning I had my portrait done,
holding my smile in place, till it grew formal.
Once I mailed you a picture of a rabbit
and a postcard of Motif number one,
as if it were normal
to be a mother and be gone.
They hung my portrait in the chill
north light, matching
me to keep me well.
Only my mother grew ill.
She turned from me, as if death were catching,
as if death transferred,
as if my dying had eaten inside of her.
That August you were two, by I timed my days with doubt.
On the first of September she looked at me
and said I gave her cancer.
They carved her sweet hills out
and still I couldn't answer.
4.
That winter she came
part way back
from her sterile suite
of doctors, the seasick
cruise of the X-ray,
the cells' arithmetic
gone wild. Surgery incomplete,
the fat arm, the prognosis poor, I heard
them say.
During the sea blizzards
she had here
own portrait painted.
A cave of mirror
placed on the south wall;
matching smile, matching contour.
And you resembled me; unacquainted
with my face, you wore it. But you were mine
after all.
I wintered in Boston,
childless bride,
nothing sweet to spare
with witches at my side.
I missed your babyhood,
tried a second suicide,
tried the sealed hotel a second year.
On April Fool you fooled me. We laughed and this
was good.
5.
I checked out for the last time
on the first of May;
graduate of the mental cases,
with my analysts's okay,
my complete book of rhymes,
my typewriter and my suitcases.
All that summer I learned life
back into my own
seven rooms, visited the swan boats,
the market, answered the phone,
served cocktails as a wife
should, made love among my petticoats
and August tan. And you came each
weekend. But I lie.
You seldom came. I just pretended
you, small piglet, butterfly
girl with jelly bean cheeks,
disobedient three, my splendid
stranger. And I had to learn
why I would rather
die than love, how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.
That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear or a tent,
like a great cave laughing or a red fur fox.
We drove past the hatchery,
the hut that sells bait,
past Pigeon Cove, past the Yacht Club, past Squall's
Hill, to the house that waits
still, on the top of the sea,
and two portraits hung on the opposite walls.
6.
In north light, my smile is held in place,
the shadow marks my bone.
What could I have been dreaming as I sat there,
all of me waiting in the eyes, the zone
of the smile, the young face,
the foxes' snare.
In south light, her smile is held in place,
her cheeks wilting like a dry
orchid; my mocking mirror, my overthrown
love, my first image. She eyes me from that face
that stony head of death
I had outgrown.
The artist caught us at the turning;
we smiled in our canvas home
before we chose our foreknown separate ways.
The dry redfur fox coat was made for burning.
I rot on the wall, my own
Dorian Gray.
And this was the cave of the mirror,
that double woman who stares
at herself, as if she were petrified
in time - two ladies sitting in umber chairs.
You kissed your grandmother
and she cried.
7.
I could not get you back
except for weekends. You came
each time, clutching the picture of a rabbit
that I had sent you. For the last time I unpack
your things. We touch from habit.
The first visit you asked my name.
Now you will stay for good. I will forget
how we bumped away from each other like marionettes
on strings. It wasn't the same
as love, letting weekends contain
us. You scrape your knee. You learn my name,
wobbling up the sidewalk, calling and crying.
You can call me mother and I remember my mother again,
somewhere in greater Boston, dying.
I remember we named you Joyce
so we could call you Joy.
You came like an awkward guest
that first time, all wrapped and moist
and strange at my heavy breast.
I needed you. I didn't want a boy,
only a girl, a small milky mouse
of a girl, already loved, already loud in the house
of herself. We named you Joy.
I, who was never quite sure
about being a girl, needed another
life, another image to remind me.
And this was my worst guilt; you could not cure
or soothe it. I made you to find me.
poem by Anne Sexton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Tree
In an English forest on Nottingham’s Sherwood National Park
stood a large wide oak tree probably as old as the Ark.
Oddly enough I had never seen this old proud tree before,
it sort of pulled me to it, as though it wanted me to explore.
I slowly walked around the trunk and looked closely at the tree
admiring its form, its wrinkled bark, every inch fascinated me.
My fingertips touched its bark and felt its rugged texture and shape,
it seemed so alive, and I was overwhelmed for heavens sake.
The sturdy trunk appeared to be expanding and growing ever wide,
then I thought I heard a child’s voice coming from deep inside.
Against the deeply wrinkled bark I placed my hands and ear,
just in case by some strange chance a voice I really did hear.
It seems as though I heard nothing so I gradually stepped away,
as I did the tree trunk looked as if to shrink, shudder and sway.
I rubbed my eyes in disbelief; I couldn’t believe what I’d seen
I reached out and touched it to make sure it wasn’t a dream.
Several times I stepped back and forth from this unusual tree,
seeing it expand and contract was becoming too much for me.
On my last step backwards I definitely heard a child’s voice say,
“Help me, help me, I’m trapped in here, please don’t go away.”
Without thinking I answered, “What are you doing inside the tree?
How long have you been in there and can’t you get free? ”
Sadly she said, “I don’t know how long I’ve been in here,
but I can’t get out will you please help me to get clear.”
The little girl started crying and pleaded with me to stay,
“Please don’t go, please help me, please try to find a way? ”
“Try to stay calm, ” I said, “I’ll examine the tree once more,
you found your way in, so there must be a kind of door.”
As I closely examined the tree I asked the child her name,
“Martha, I’m six years old and my mother’s name’s the same.”
To stop her fretting more I asked what colour shoes she had on.
“I have no shoes upon my feet somehow they have gone.”
“I’m sorry Martha I cannot find a way in I’ve looked and I’ve tried
I just don’t know how you managed to get yourself inside? ”
Sobbing she said, “I don’t know either, but it seems like a very long time.
Could you possibly look inside the tree? You could if you climb.”
“Alright Martha, I’ll climb up to that branch sticking out to my right.
I’m sorry there is no way into the trunk; and soon it will be night.
Let’s go over this again and try to remember how you got inside.”
“All I can remember was lying in the tall grass, trying to hide.”
“Were you playing the game of hide and seek with your friends? ”
“No, my father told me to hide and later my mother he would send.
It’s slowly coming back to me now I had also been hit on my head
I remember I went very dizzy and then everything else went red.
I woke up with a headache and found myself inside this tree,
I never saw my mummy she must have forgotten me.”
“Now then Martha did this happen recently, or was it some time ago
was it yesterday, a couple of days since, or a fortnight or so? ”
“No, I think it must have been longer because of the way you’re dressed
I’ve never seen anyone with clothes like yours; you do so look a mess.”
“How can you see me Martha, is it through a nut-hole in the tree? ”
“No, I can see you through the bark, as you are meant to be.”
“Is it dark inside the tree trunk, or can you see any light? ”
“Well, It’s not wet, it doesn’t smell, but it is as dark as night,
but high above there is some sort of lamp shining really bright.”
“Alright Martha, if you can get to it, a way out is in sight.”
“Hello, hello, you standing outside the tree, can you hear me?
Thank you. I’ve entered the light and my daddy I can see.
I didn’t realise he was so close I could have climbed up here before
and how I got inside the tree will be a mystery for evermore.”
poem by Orlando Belo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Heart of Gold (-for my mother)
I was not the person I appeared to be-
In your eyes, I was different.
Although you never told me-
In your spoken words, I was like all of the others-
So many times you had hurt me deeply,
Through your spoken words and through your eyes,
I could never do right-
The slap of your hand across my face
When I was none but a child of six, even before the words came out-
Told me I was a bad girl- I wept and you just walked past me.
Roses grew in my father’s garden, plentifully and beautifully, in the summertime,
Our home was a palace- my father was the king and you were the queen.
When flowers blossomed in the springtime and
Leaves changed colors in the autumn- snow would fall in the wintertime-
No matter the season, you were the one with the friendly smile and the life of the party-
We were the perfect family though I could almost say- though secretly- I hated you.
I was only fourteen years old when I broke down and they put me away-
I used to think that if you did love me, I never would have known.
The bird that could not fly and the child that did not grow up-
The young woman, who heard voices nobody else heard, saw sights no one else saw-
Everybody was a threat except for those who lived inside the world I had fabricated.
I was not the person I appeared to be- the act you forced me to put on-
To be like everybody else, I could never be.
I wept myself the night father told me how you cried every night I was locked inside
The world of my delusions and locked inside that place where
People like me were put away- and a month before you passed away,
I remember reading the words inscribed across the yellow lined paper-
That you had always loved me and I was the most important person in your life.
Through those written words, I could see the pain written across your face and
For the first time, the love you felt for me shone through your soulful brown eyes-
It was the ticking of the wall clock that made me understand, was
Keeping time and telling me that in just a short time you would be gone, and
To be departed from this world forever.
I am alone now and your ashes have been scattered at sea,
As had been your final wish and desire-
A woman who had lived a life of suffering and
Who was not there for me because she could not be, only because
She had been locked inside a world of her own despair,
A survivor of a life filled with tragedy and pain, but
Having grown, I can understand and hear the beating of a golden heart, and
Tears cried out of love for a child who had lost her sanity at an age so young-
I would remember more than
Flowers blossoming, leaves changing colors and snow falling,
Year after year, and the agony of growing up in a family I believed at the time
Did not care or understand-, but I would remember those precious words inscribed
Across yellow lined paper- then I would pick a flower and tuck it behind my ear,
Continue my journey through this life and always keep in mind as I listen,
In my fondest memory- the ocean’s waves lapping against the shore where
Your ashes were scattered twenty years past and
The beating of your golden heart…
Claudia Krizay
poem by Claudia Krizay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Penultimate Day
Pale winter sky, green landscape and the far mountain
is dark blue…the air is so clear I can see white cottages
on the slopes where they have goats and make cheese.
There is stillness, but I hear cars rushing by on the main
road and if I stand on my toes I can see the Gaza Strip,
not in details as it is shrouded in the mist of conflicts.
The distance between here and there is too short today
bullets hit ground and I must hide behind a stone wall.
I see cartridges from shot guns, hunters have been here
and meaty birds fly fast and fearfully from tree to tree.
The dale to the east that looks like a voluptuous woman
on her back, I drove up there once but couldn’t find her.
This year is coming to an end, a year of wars, it is sad to
think in our world hostilities are a norm.
poem by Oskar Hansen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Creation of the Moon
The man cut his throat and left his head there.
The others went to get it.
When they got there they put the head in a sack.
Farther on the head fell out onto the ground.
They put the head back in the sack.
Farther on the head fell out again.
Around the first sack they put a second one that
was thicker.
But the head fell out just the same.
It should be explained that they were taking the head
to show to the others.
They did not put the head back in the sack.
They left it in the middle of the road.
They went away.
They crossed the river.
But the head followed them.
They climbed up a tree full of fruit
to see whether it would go past.
The head stopped at the foot of the tree
and asked them for some fruit.
So the men shook the tree.
The head went to get the fruit.
Then it asked for some more.
So the men shook the tree
so that the fruit fell into the water.
The head said it couldn't get the fruit from there.
So the men threw the fruit a long way
to make the head go a long way to get it so they could go.
While the head was getting the fruit
the men got down from the tree and went on.
The head came back and looked at the tree
and didn't see anybody
so went on rolling down the road.
The men had stopped to wait
to see whether the head would follow them.
They saw the head come rolling.
They ran.
They got to their hut they told the others that the head
was rolling after them and to shut the door.
All the huts were closed tight.
When it got there the head commanded them to open the doors.
The owners would not open them because they were afraid.
So the head started to think what it would turn into.
If it turned into water they would drink it.
If it turned into earth they would walk on it.
If it turned into a house they would live in it.
If it turned into a steer they would kill it and eat it.
If it turned into a cow they would milk it.
If it turned into a bean they would cook it.
If it turned into the sun
When men were cold it would heat them.
If it turned into rain the grass would grow and the
animals would crop it.
So it thought, and it said, "I will turn into the moon."
It called, "Open the doors, I want to get my things."
They would not open them.
The head cried. It called out, "At least give me
my two balls of twine."
They threw out the two balls of twine through a hole.
It took them and threw them into the sky.
It asked them to throw it a little stick too
to roll the thread around so it could climb up.
Then it said, "I can climb, I am going to the sky."
It started to climb.
The men opened the doors right away.
The head went on climbing.
The men shouted, "You going to the sky, head?"
It didn't answer.
As soon as it got to the Sun
it turned into the Moon.
Toward evening the Moon was white, it was beautiful.
And the men were surprised
to see that the head had turned into the Moon.
Winter's Spell
WINTER'S SPELL
Ended, hence, the glorious time of the sun’s lifespan,
The trees were fully clothed, in leaves
Resilient, they had sung merrily
But now, all had gone…
With deserts of sadness …..
What can a ball of cheese do?
Up from the sky…
If it cannot fill the tummy of a poor man...
The Moon covers the Earth down
Looking down at the rows of naked trees
With only a memory of leaves
Nipped by the frost, they want to be freed…
Ended up in the desolate stretches of snow
Eyes begged to see a scrap of light
But what it touched was a bare white Earth
His pale hands overworked
With no snow dogs they grieved...
And his legs were totally numb
With not even a sledge to slide through…
He was the only piece of life…
In the land of the white
With just a star to guide him north
Who put a spell on his fortune?
Who gave him this curse?
He shoved himself through the ice
Bewildered of his unpleasant fate
And at last his eyes found it for him
And far across, from the spells boundary
Stood a welcoming light for him
He ran with all his might
The home emerged larger
Running for food and shelter
He ran and looked through the windows
Marvellously lit decorated
Sat there in an armchair, a woman, old
With shelves of homemade thoughts to dust through
He knocked to get in
Opened it was by the women,
Bewitchingly beautiful, she was
The smile made melt down the things around
And he got in, leaving behind the spell
To live with her forever and ever and ever
That was the end of his fate
And from the windows he looked,
To see the moon smile…
26/09/08
© Copyright Aiswarya T Anish, Kerala, India
poem by Aiswarya T. Anish
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Voice, The
Safe in the magic of my woods
I lay, and watched the dying light.
Faint in the pale high solitudes,
And washed with rain and veiled by night,
Silver and blue and green were showing.
And the dark woods grew darker still;
And birds were hushed; and peace was growing;
And quietness crept up the hill;
And no wind was blowing
And I knew
That this was the hour of knowing,
And the night and the woods and you
Were one together, and I should find
Soon in the silence the hidden key
Of all that had hurt and puzzled me --
Why you were you, and the night was kind,
And the woods were part of the heart of me.
And there I waited breathlessly,
Alone; and slowly the holy three,
The three that I loved, together grew
One, in the hour of knowing,
Night, and the woods, and you ----
And suddenly
There was an uproar in my woods,
The noise of a fool in mock distress,
Crashing and laughing and blindly going,
Of ignorant feet and a swishing dress,
And a Voice profaning the solitudes.
The spell was broken, the key denied me
And at length your flat clear voice beside me
Mouthed cheerful clear flat platitudes.
You came and quacked beside me in the wood.
You said, "The view from here is very good!"
You said, "It's nice to be alone a bit!"
And, "How the days are drawing out!" you said.
You said, "The sunset's pretty, isn't it?"
* * * * *
By God! I wish -- I wish that you were dead!
poem by Rupert Brooke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!