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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Name this bird
Name this bird
If you are.
If you wish
Go there.
Geography
I do not like.
History
This bird
is not feathery.
See the word
Search the bird.
The bird I saw
Above the rulrs
Above the law.
If you wish
Go and tell
But please
Do not say
The bird is in sleep
And not here to clip.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Flute-Priest Song For Rain
Whistle under the water,
Make the water bubble to the tones of the flute.
I call the bluebirds song into the water:
Wee-kee! Wee-kee-kee!
Dawn is coming,
The morning star shines upon us.
Bluebird singing to the West clouds,
Bring the humming rain.
Water-rattles shake,
Flute whistles,
Star in Heaven shines.
I blow the oriole's song,
The yellow song of the North.
I call rain clouds with my rattles:
Wee-kee-kee, oriole.
Pattering rain.
To the South I blow my whistle,
To the red parrot of the South I call.
Send red lightning,
Under your wings
The forked lightning.
Thunder-rattles whirl
To the sky waters.
Fill the springs.
The water is moving.
Wait -
Whistle to the East
With a magpie voice.
Wee-kee! Wee-kee-kee!
Call the storm-clouds
That they come rushing.
Call the loud rain.
Why does it not come?
Who is bad?
Whose heart is evil?
Who has done wickedness?
I weep,
I rend my garments,
I grieve for the sin which is in this place.
My flute sobs with the voice of all birds in the water.
Even to the six directions I weep and despair.
Come, O winds, from the sides of the sky,
Open your bird-beaks that rain may fall down.
Drench our fields, our houses,
Fill the land
With tumult of rain.
poem by Amy Lowell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
June Picture
June Picture
In the enchanted dell, where grass is forever green,
I saw a carpet of summer birds, yellow as real butter
before it was made low fat to suit a slimming fad.
They took off, dispersed flew slowly on silent wings;
amongst thorny bushes that are seven hued green,
waiting for a lumbering troll to pass.
Last time I saw a yellow summer bird, it was sallow,
late September it had lived too long, sat on the sill
rain fell and it as soaked; opened the window to let
it in, could sit by the fire till spring. Too late, in my
hand it turned into fluff, blew dust off my hand and
I saw each particle disperse and fly on silent wings.
Butterfly (summer bird.)
poem by Oskar Hansen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Interlude
Mid this hot green glowing gloom
A word falls with a raindrop's boom...
Like baskets of ripe fruit in air
The bird-songs seem, suspended where
Those goldfinches--the ripe warm lights
Peck slyly at them--take quick flights.
My feet are feathered like a bird
Among the shadows scarcely heard;
I bring you branches green with dew
And fruits that you may crown anew
Your whirring waspish-gilded hair
Amid this cornucopia--
Until your warm lips bear the stains
And bird-blood leap within your veins.
poem by Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In the sun
A dog is a dog
And a bird is a bird.
I m flying like bird
and guard my house
like dog.
Dog and bird friends
And in the open field
both want to study
geography.
Geography differs
from person to person
from history to history
from time to time.
And in future
geography melt
like fog in the sun.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Flute Lads!
I flute the up and down of sun,
I flute the pallid moon,
I flute the rivers deep and wide
And down the merry tide.
I leave the rose so red
And pluck the lily white;
I flute upon my bed
And play into the night.
If I could flute forever
And play a merry tune,
Then I would know no sorrow
In April, May, and June.
So up and down the golden sun
And up the pallid moon,
Flute my lovely lads, flute,
In April, May, and June.
poem by Samuel Hardman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Green Bird, Golden Bird.
A tired green bird flew a very long journey,
Came to a stop in a beautiful valley.
There were many birds of all colours singing and playing,
Among them he saw a beautiful golden bird,
Her feathers shining in the bright sunshine,
And her voice echoed melodiously.
Within a short time the green and golden birds were close friends,
They knew each other deeply by heart,
Passing the days, flying from valley to valley,
And resting from tree to tree.
Then one sad day, golden bird must return,
She too had flown from across the vast ocean,
Even though it broke the green bird's heart,
But he was willing to let go, and before she left, .. he asked;
Golden bird, have I full-filled my promises to you?
That I would never hurt you,
That I would protect you with my life,
That I would share my provisions with you,
That I would make you happy and smiling always!
Is there any single word to describe all these?
Golden bird,
I will pray for your lasting happiness,
I will never forget your overflowing kindness,
You have nested permanently in my heart…and lastly,
I dream for us to be able to fly together again,
in unimaginable beautiful green heaven!
poem by Desert Life
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Poem Of Syntax
A poet and his bird, his dog, his cat and his tree
A poet and the bird in the tree
A poet and his dog in the tree
A poet and his dog in the tree and the wind and the cloud
The bird in the tree, the dog in the tree, the cat in the tree,
The bird in the tree, the dog on the tree, the cat under the tree,
The bird on the tree, the bird in a tree, a bird in a tree, a bird in the tree,
And the wind and the cloud and the poet and his dog and his cat and the tree
The dog chases the cat the cat chases the bird
And they all arrive in that tree
Where the poet is sitting under that tree
The poet takes the dog and the cat was envious
And the bird looks at them in silence
The silence looks at the poet in the eye
Of the cat and the bird flies away
The poet and the dog is the poem of friendship
The cat and the dog is the poem of the endless natural quarrels
And the bird that flies away against the cat and the dog and the poet and the tree
And flies against the wind that the bird is now fighting
And the clouds that seem so blue and blue
The bird that actually flies away
Is actually me
I was not the poet with the dog
I am not the tree I am not the wind I am not the cloud I am not the poet there who had a dog as friend and I was not the quarrelsome thing from the blue and out of the blue
I am the bird with wings and I always fly away to places
Against the wind to places where I can be as always be the bird with wings in silence
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Rock In The Sea
Think of our blindness where the water burned!
Are we so certain that those wings, returned
And turning, we had half discerned
Before our dazzled eyes had surely seen
The bird aloft there, did not mean?—
Our hearts so seized upon the sign!
Think how we sailed up-wind, the brine
Tasting of daphne, the enormous wave
Thundering in the water cave—
Thunder in stone. And how we beached the skiff
And climbed the coral of that iron cliff
And found what only in our hearts we’d heard—
The silver screaming of that one, white bird:
The fabulous wings, the crimson beak
That opened, red as blood, to shriek
And clamor in that world of stone,
No voice to answer but its own.
What certainty, hidden in our hearts before,
Found in the bird its metaphor?
poem by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Music
The neighbour sits in his window and plays the flute.
From my bed I can hear him,
And the round notes flutter and tap about the room,
And hit against each other,
Blurring to unexpected chords.
It is very beautiful,
With the little flute-notes all about me,
In the darkness.
In the daytime,
The neighbour eats bread and onions with one hand
And copies music with the other.
He is fat and has a bald head,
So I do not look at him,
But run quickly past his window.
There is always the sky to look at,
Or the water in the well!
But when night comes and he plays his flute,
I think of him as a young man,
With gold seals hanging from his watch,
And a blue coat with silver buttons.
As I lie in my bed
The flute-notes push against my ears and lips,
And I go to sleep, dreaming.
poem by Amy Lowell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Little Bird Song
Theres a little bird
Somebody sent down to earth
To live along the wind
Blowing on the wind
And she sleeps on the wind
This little bird, somebody sent
Light and fragile
And feathered sky blue
Thin and graceful
The sun shining through
She flies so high up in the sky
Way out of reach of human eyes
Light and fragile
And feathered sky blue
Thin and graceful
The sun shining through
She flies so high up in the sky
Way out of reach of human eyes
Light and fragile
And feathered sky blue
Thin and graceful
The sun shining through
And the only time that she touches ground
Is when that little bird, little bird
Is when that little bird, little bird
Is when that little bird, little bird
Is when that little bird dies
song performed by by Jewel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Swallows in the summertime
Swallows in the summertime
The swallows have returned again,
Reminding me of those halcyon days of my youth,
Many years have passed since those blissful days,
I would spend many happy evenings watch them dart around.
The swallows always return each summer,
Spreading their joyful wings over England's green and pleasant land,
Every summer I wonder how many more times will I see the return,
Although it's summer again, I ‘am approaching the winter of my life.
When the swallows return again next year again,
I wonder if I will still be here to see them again,
Flying on the wing under the clear blue skies of summer,
If I ‘am, I will sit by the babbling brook and watch their dance once more.
If I see the swallows return once more,
I will remember those summer days of long ago,
When I was a lad and the countryside seemed to go on forever,
And in my mind I will be young again.
By Christopher Tye
poem by Christopher Tye
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
This Little Bird
John d loudermilk
Theres a little bird that somebody sends
Down to the earth to live on the wind.
Born on the wind and he sleeps on the wind
This little bird that somebody sends.
Hes light and fragile and feathered sky blue,
So thin and graceful the sun shines through.
This little bird who lives on the wind,
This little bird that somebody sends.
He flies so high up in the sky
Out of reach of human eye.
And the only time that he touches the ground
Is when that little bird
Is when that little bird
Is when that little bird dies.
song performed by by Roy Orbison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Tall shadow
Tall shadow of grass, cover in sweet pollen of flower's springs.
Hide from a wall of green woods and streams.
It Is the flavour the skin, reddened by the sun.
Left bare, like chaste grapefruits.
The breeze penetrates through the cracks of the trees.
Immaculate of resin,
bowing at the sky
Our body languid, flirt of laziness
We belong to the earth and wind.
Which I offered the sacrifice
of shades and revive mind.
Twittering at the wind, under the bird wings
Columns of light tan,
shaded by thick tree's skin
Re-emerged from the mellow sea
Flowing walks....
poem by Luca Menin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
What if a hummingbird could emerge from a cocoon?
What if a hummingbird could emerge from a cocoon
fully formed
and clingling
to a vanilla plant
its wet body slowly opening
in the heat of the flower garden?
And has anyone noticed
that birds as they depart
their flapping sounds
almost like a paper bag being opened?
The hummingbird clearly, though,
sounds like a hum
whose tiny wings
pressed together at 25 beats per second
is blessed by being the only bird to be able to fly backwards
and one that could be
the smallest fan in the world
The humidity of the weather
evaporates the head notes of her perfume
leaving the heart note to open next
she considers all this
including the world's smallest fan
and believes that if it hovered around her neckline
close to her
the strange bird would have wings
cooling to her
and misty to the bird
as it paddled the air
and was covered so slightly
in the scent of Japanese Eau de Parfum
not to mention
vanilla
poem by Eli Spivakovsky
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Jay
I was pegging out your lime-green dress;
you were hoping the last of the sun
might sip the last few beads of drip-dry water
from its lime-green hem.
I had a blister-stigmata the size of an eye
in the palm of my hand
from twisting the point of a screw
into the meat of the house. Those days. Those times.
The bird was crossing the gravel path
in the style of a rowing boat crossing dry land.
Struck with terror when I held it tight
in the gardening-gloves of humankind, we saw for ourselves
the mouse-fur face and black moustache,
the squab of breastmeat under its throat,
the buff-brown coat and blue lapels,
the painted inside of its mouth,
the raw, umbilical flute of its tongue
sucking hard at the sky for the taste of air.
Setting it free, it managed no more than a butterfly stroke
to the shade of the unnamed tree, where we let it be.
They say now that the basis of life
in the form of essential carbon deposits
could have fallen to earth as a meteorite, or comet,
and that lightning strikes from banks of static
delivered the spark that set life spinning. It's a beginning.
But the three-letter bird was death, death thrown in from above,
death as a crash-brained, bone-smashed, cross-feathered bullet,
so we could neither kill it nor love it.
poem by Simon Armitage
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Monroe Louisiana
On the green, green farm
In green, green Monroe Louisiana
So green, green
Wet-luscious green and alive
So green after the rain
So bright green and clean
Just passing through
On my way to tomorrow
But so green today and yesterday
It was on that stranger's green, green farm
And I didn't stay long
And I didn't expect someone
To fire that shotgun right next to me
The barrel pointed out the front door
Into that green, green world beyond.
There were hot springs
On the green, green farm
In green, green Monroe Louisiana
Back in 1973.
poem by M.L. Squier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Summer Pool
THERE is a singing in the summer air,
The blue and brown moths flutter o’er the grass,
The stubble bird is creaking in the wheat,
And perch’d upon the honeysuckle-hedge
Pipes the green linnet. Oh, the golden world!
The stir of life on every blade of grass,
The motion and the joy on every bough,
The glad feast everywhere, for things that love
The sunshine, and for things that love the shade!
Aimlessly wandering with weary feet,
Watching the wool white clouds that wander by,
I come upon a lonely place of shade,—
A still green Pool, where with soft sound and stir
The shadows of o’erhanging branches sleep,
Save where they leave one dreamy space of blue,
O’er whose soft stillness ever and anon
The feathery cirrus blows. Here unaware
I pause, and leaning on my staff I add
A shadow to the shadows; and behold!
Dim dreams steal down upon me, with a hum
Of little wings, a murmuring of boughs,
The dusky stir and motion dwelling here,
Within this small green world. O’ershadow’d
By dusky greenery, tho’ all around
The sunshine throbs on fields of wheat and bean,
Downward I gaze into the dreamy blue,
And pass into a waking sleep, wherein
The green boughs rustle, feathery wreaths of cloud
Pass softly, piloted by golden airs:
The air is still,—no birds sing any more,—
And helpless as a tiny flying thing,
I am alone in all the world with God.
The wind dies—not a leaf stirs—on the Pool
The fly scarce moves; earth seems to hold her breath
Until her heart stops, listening silently
For the far footsteps of the coming rain!
While thus I pause, it seems that I have gain’d
New eyes to see; my brain grows sensitive
To trivial things that, at another hour,
Had pass’d unheeded. Suddenly the air
Shivers, the shadows in whose midst I stand
Tremble and blacken—the blue eye o’ the Pool
Is clos’d and clouded; with a sudden gleam
Oiling its wings, a swallow darteth past,
And weedling flowers beneath my feet thrust up
Their leaves, to feel the fragrant shower. Oh, hark!
The thirsty leaves are troubled into sighs,
And up above me, on the glistening boughs,
Patters the summer rain!
Into a nook,
Screen’d by thick foliage of oak and beech,
I creep for shelter; and the summer shower
Murmurs around me. Oh, the drowsy sounds!
The pattering rain, the numerous sigh of leaves,
The deep, warm breathing of the scented air,
Sink sweet into my soul—until at last,
Comes the soft ceasing of the gentle fall,
And lo! the eye of blue within the Pool
Opens again, while with a silvern gleam
Dew diamonds twinkle moistly on the leaves,
Or, shaken downward by the summer wind,
Fall melting on the Pool in rings of light!
poem by William Cosmo Monkhouse
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Green Thicket
All in a green thicket I heard a bird sing,
And blithe though his song was it made the tears spring,
To hear a bird sing as he swung on his spray,
All in a green thicket at break of the day.
All in a green thicket his song it did pour
That told of the Springs that shall come nevermore,
That sang of sweet blossoms, now faded and dry,
All in a green thicket in Aprils gone by.
All in a green thicket that morning in Spring,
I smelt the sharp scent of each young growing thing,
I smelt the sweet herbage all drowned with the dew,
And the time that's gone from me was with me anew.
All in a green thicket at break of the day
It was like the dear voice of a friend far away,
It was like the kind touch of a hand that I know,
And the smile and the tears of dead Aprils ago,
All in a green thicket one morning in Spring,
For to smell the young woodland and hear the bird sing,
Oh, long did I loiter and dream by the way,
All in a green thicket at break of the day.
poem by Cicely Fox Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
May Song
BIRDS in the green of my garden
Blackbirds and throstle and wren,
Wet your dear wings in the tears that are Spring's
And so to your singing again!
Birds in my blossoming orchard,
Chaffinch and goldfinch and lark,
Preen your bright wings, little happy live things;
The May trees grow white in the park!
Birds in the leafy wet woodlands,
Cuckoo and nightingale brown,
Sing to the sound of the rain on green ground--
The rain on green leaves dripping down!
Fresh with the rain of the May-time,
Rich with the promise of June,
Deep in her heart, where the little leaves part,
Love, like a bird, sings in tune!
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!