The Chestnut Tree (For Anne Frank)
On a winter morning
you climbed the ladder to the attic with Peter.
He chopped wood for about a quarter of an hour
and you watched him silently.
Then you looked out
from the open window
and marvelled at the stunning views of the city,
the roofs, the streets and the canals of Amsterdam.
An azure sky curved down
kissing a pale blue horizon
and white seagulls with outstretched wings
were gliding on the wind.
Standing bare in the inner garden
Shiny silver drops perched on the branches
Of the lonely chestnut tree
near the house at Keizersgracht 188.
And you found comfort and solace
in all this simple beauty of nature.
As long as such beauty exists in the world,
You said, and you may live to see it,
‘this sunshine, the cloudless sky,
while this lasts’, you ‘cannot be unhappy’
you wrote in your Diary on February 23,1944.
By now, for almost two years,
you and your family lived in hiding
at the house behind the Prinsengracht.
I was still free in my native land then
and attended the public school.
poem by Paul Hartal
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Late autumn
The yellow veldt, the skeleton chestnut trees
specs of orange-red aloes in the kopje
are near to the old white house
and in the late afternoon shades draw long lines
while I walk up to the house on the red-brown dirt road
and most of the flowers in the garden are stripped bare
but a few irises are flowering yellow,
purple and cream brown
and the sky is dull blue and the early evening cold
is already on the wind that is rustling everything
and after years I open the garden gate
are coming back to my childhood home
stripped from illusions,
and I am bare from the childhood innocence
but full of hope
and looking through a mature man’s eyes.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Winter's Pale Roses
Winter's pale roses
Always long for cold
On windows frosty poses
Until the ice can't hold
They give sliver threads
Of shining glow beauty
Hue of gray and reds
As morning comes to be
Like summer beauty doses
That fragrance much gives
Are those frosty roses
That inside my window lives
I'm feeling so much of joy
By having them around
When warmth they'll destroy
They'll in my heart be found
For all of beauty wakes
Within our soul and being
And all it sometimes takes
Is inner perception freeing
With love you have to shine
Like silver golden strings
And you will be doing fine
If beauty to you it brings
poem by Peter S. Quinn
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Margaret
I KNOW a garden where white lilies grow,
Under the grey sweet-laden apple boughs;
It is a garden where the roses blow,
And honeysuckle covers half the house.
O happy garden, do you keep the vows
Breathed in your quiet ear beneath the rose,
Or do you tell the tale to each soft wind that blows?
Across your grassy paths she used to stray,
She moved among you like a living flower,
Her beauty drank your beauty every day,
Your beauty decked her beauty every hour.
You gave her rose and lily for a dower,
With all sweet flowers and fruits your bosom bore--
She took them all--and now she comes not any more.
O garden, if you breathe such secret things
To the south wind who loves you, tell him this:
To spread the scented softness of his wings,
And seek that other garden where she is,
And bid him bear no blossom and no kiss;
Only, dear garden, tell the wind to say
How grey the world is grown since Margaret went away!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Stunning Beauty
Stunning beauty, stunning beauty,
You're my lil cutie.
Stunning beauty, stunning beauty
I love how you make me go mutey.
Stunning beauty, stunning beauty,
You're like crystal shiny and bold yet you don't let anyone control.
I think of you when I'm cold,
You stole somethin of mine,
But I see your just making it shine,
and beat to your voice,
I guess it your choice,
So will you please hear my voice? & don't forget nobody will ever replace you my lil cutie. So what will it be stunning beauty? '
-Eric Danladi Garner Jr.
poem by Eric Garner
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Everything Is Beautiful
Smile more often bro'
Laugh more all the time
'Cause laughter is the tonic
That brightens frowning faces
In the morning AND don't look down
Walk with long beautiful strides
Beauty is everything boy have you
Seen how beautiful the frog is
As she performs one stunning frog
Manuvre after another in the swimming
Pool to leave the males drooling
Beauty exists in everything
Everything exists in beauty and you
Don't have to see with the cunning of
The frog to appreciate this beautiful
Stunning world of yours to know that
You too are beautiful
poem by Ngaka Motaung
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Blue
yo listen up here's a story
about a little guy that lives in a blue world
and all day and all night and everything he sees
is just blue like him inside and outside
blue his house with a blue little window
and a blue corvette
and everything is blue for him and hisself
and everybody around
cos he ain't got nobody to listen to
i'm blue da ba dee da ba die...
i have a blue house with a blue window.
blue is the colour of all that i wear.
blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
i have a girlfriend and she is so blue.
blue are the people here that walk around,
blue like my corvette, it's standing outside.
blue are the words i say and what i think.
blue are the feelings that live inside me.
i'm blue da ba dee da ba die...
song performed by by Eiffel 65
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Early Morning
Flowers grow wild, full of drops of dew
when the sun comes loving over the hillocks
the silver white twilight stays as it lingers
when the sun is orange presents is most lovely colours
and there is beauty just where I look,
the work of the hands of the God of the universe.
When the sun peeks in brightly through the window
dots fall splashing over the floor,
outside the heaven is blue, the veldt is open
as if in this summer you can walk for miles
and there is beauty just where I look,
the work of the hands of the God of the universe.
Outside its suddenly bright shiny day
when you wait with a cup of coffee,
your curls catch my eye, glitter very fine
when you laugh happy, your face full of sunshine
and there is beauty just where I look,
the work of the hands of the God of the universe.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Our House
IT should be yours, if I could build
The quaint old dwelling I desire,
With books and pictures bravely filled
And chairs beside an open fire,
White-panelled rooms with candles lit-
I lie awake to think of it!
A dial for the sunny hours,
A garden of old-fashioned flowers-
Say marigolds and lavender
And mignonette and fever-few,
And Judas-tree and maidenhair
And candytuft and thyme and rue-
All these for you to wander in.
A Chinese carp (called Mandarin)
Waving a sluggish silver fin
Deep in the moat: so tame he comes
To lip your fingers offering crumbs.
Tall chimneys, like long listening ears,
White shutters, ivy green and thick,
And walls of ruddy Tudor brick
Grown mellow with the passing years.
And windows with small leaded panes,
Broad window-seats for when it rains;
A big blue bowl of pot pourri
And-yes, a Spanish chestnut tree
To coin the autumn's minted gold.
A summer house for drinking tea-
All these (just think!) for you and me.
A staircase of the old black wood
Cut in the days of Robin Hood,
And banisters worn smooth as glass
Down which your hand will lightly pass;
A piano with pale yellow keys
For wistful twilight melodies,
And dusty bottles in a bin-
All these for you to revel in!
But when? Ah well, until that time
We'll habit in this house of rhyme.
poem by Christopher Morley
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A Beautiful Day In October
The flies are buzzing in the sunshine and the little dark brown honeybees
Are busily gathering nectar from the flowers of the blossoming trees
On a beautiful day in October of around 27 degrees
And Nature she is at her calmest with only a very faint breeze
Under the house eaves lined with lots of feathers the house sparrows have their nest of hay
Non singers devoted to chirping they seem to chirp all through the day
Such beauty to inspire poets and artists the beauty that Nature create
The willy wagtail with tail wagging is perched on the back garden gate
A tiny black and white long tailed flycatcher always on the look out for flies
One who mobs the much bigger magpie undaunted it does seem by size,
A beautiful day in October butterflies flitting in the sunlight
And fuchsias and roses in full bloom such things that make a pretty sight
And Nature she is at her calmest with only a very slight breeze
And all around the sunlit garden the buzzings of flies and of bees.
poem by Francis Duggan
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When I Want To See Beauty
When I want to see beauty I need not travel far
Not even for a short drive in a car
Outside my window on flowering callistemon tree
A natural thing of beauty there to see.
The new holland honeyeater in his dark and gold
A bird of beauty lovely to behold
He chirrups loud amongst the leafy bowers
And take his fill of nectar from the flowers.
When I want beauty all I have to do
Is walk near my home down shady avenue
Where white backed magpie on the tall gum sing
In Nature beauty is a natural thing.
For beauty money I don't have to pay
Or purchase flight ticket to far away
At night I see it in the starry sky
A thing of beauty is a thing of joy.
And the finest of beauty you don't pay to see
Like a red rosella on a sunlit tree
In Nature's garden living wild and free
And you won't see any prettier than he.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Beauty, Beautious, Beautiful
Beauty is not a superficial form
Each has their own in essential nature
And in the actions they perform
Until the dissolution of their life
To leave beauty’s impressions in our hearts
Yesterdays beauty never leaves or departs.
Beauty is all around
Each and every place it may be found
As you look with open eyes
Upon the forms that nature makes
Then man seeks to imitate
Yearning to match that beauty all around.
Beauty if you cannot find
Beauty must be in mind
Beauty is in purity
Beauty of simplicity
Beauty runs right through and through
Beauty in me, and them, and you.
Beauty, beauteous, beautiful
Beauty in heaven
Beauty in fire
Beauty in earth
And finally beauty in a simple verse.
poem by David Taylor
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Thumbnails and finger ends
A book of learned scholarship,
open in my hands, at the first page…
and then I saw, to the right of it,
my thumb nail…and marvelled –
at its perfection, at its beauty,
and at my own ignorance –
which strangely, was all part
of that same beauteous perfection…
the thumbnail: curved, as a hollowed claw,
the curve I knew would give it added strength;
sitting as secure as any child of love,
within the folded mystery of skin and flesh;
three-coloured: pale rising moon
emerging from its secret nail-bed
as some goddess might appear;
then the subtle shades of rosy pink,
hinting at blood serving readily
the nail’s demands;
finally, the top (long, shaped, as best to gouge
potato’s eyes, and other kitchen tasks…) :
I looked at it, and marvelled:
the whole creation, conspiring to present
this perfect thing…
Fifty years and more ago, I wrote,
in those years when I despaired
of making sense of so-called ‘adult’ world,
sitting at the desk, to find myself
before setting off to earn my daily bread,
I wrote – in lines that never quite linked up
their visioned moments into complete poems,
on white and yearning pages like a life unwrit:
‘we know not our own finger ends…’
The wrinkled thumb and finger – they have lasted;
the holy mystery - praise God - remains.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Willow tree by the lake
Willow tree by the lake standing tall since the day one
Home for birds and squirrels, place of fun
Breeze will come and play with her branches
Whistle at them before they move on
Any time, at mid day, at night or at the crack of dawn
Humming bird feeder and bird house hanging all over the tree
They swing back and forth and hang free
All summer it is a fun house as the birds come and go
Rabbits will hop around on the ground below.
Ducks will sit idle or sleep under her shade
Squirrels will carry food up the trunk, not afraid
During winter when nature sleeps no life around
Willow tree will shelter the birds, the squirrels
and even the worms under it's ground.
Many yrs ago I planted the tree, saw it grow day by day
Sat under it, wrote poems, it made me happy and gay
I know one day my time will be up and I will be gone
But my willow tree will still be here, singing with the wind at each dawn.
poem by Syed Karim
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Madonna of the Evening Flowers
All day long I have been working,
Now I am tired
I call: "Where are you?"
But there is only the oak-tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you? I go about searching.
Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.
You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me all these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet, Te Deums of the Canterbury bells.
poem by Amy Lowell
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Return To Nature
Suppose I am one who has a big ego I did have big plans once I do recall
But egos are a thing that inspire in us the need for success and are part of human nature after all
And now that my ego is a bit deflated and others I don't feel need to impress
Something perhaps that came with the realization that my life never has been a success.
Still I am one who finds solace in Nature and Nature the only God of which I know
I've always marvelled at her strength and beauty and still my admiration for her only grow
I had a church God when I was years younger but I gave my unseen church God away
And I returned again to Mother Nature and in her bosom I will rest one day.
The free born birds that sing in Nature's garden each species is distinctive by their song
And the fox that hunts for rabbits in the paddocks these creatures all to Nature's World belong
And the wedge tailed eagle soaring in the calm sky a very large and fearless bird of prey
Too is a part of Mother Nature's World and in Nature's bosom this bird's bones too will lay.
The swallows fly to warm climes in Winter and return home to greet the warmth of Spring
And chase insects o'er the valley where they first saw daylight and as they fly one hear them chirp and sing
How they can find their way to a far Country in late Fall and in the Spring find their way home again
Is something for which scientists can offer theories yet somehow seems beyond them to explain.
The World is quieter in Mother Nature's World for man made noise to Nature doesn't belong
On sunlit tree beside the rippling waters the thrush in Spring is singing all day long
And Nature she presides o'er all her Seasons and she has seen so many Seasons come and go
Her flowers of Spring and Summer and her brown leaves of Autumn and her hills of Winter wear white hats of snow.
I do not worship false Gods any longer and I returned to Nature years ago
And though Mother Nature has so much to teach us so little about her I seem to know
Yet I feel happy to walk in her garden and along the bank of her quiet water way
'Twas an act of Nature brought me to this World and I'll return to her bosom one day.
poem by Francis Duggan
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A Story of a Life, Mine
Wishing for more
knowing I will always fall short
I don't live an unhappy life
just a lonely one
dreams of one day by my side
there she'll be my wife
unfortunately that's all it will be
'a Dream'
I don't live an unhappy life
just a lonely one
I allow my imagination to run wild
to have the simple things in life
a family who care too much
a trusted friend to keep me out
or get me into trouble
to have that girl look at me
the way I look at her
a simple life
I don't have an unhappy life
just a lonely one
like a fairy tale but mine's the opposite
the end of a story book
the only difference is
it's not they lived
just I lived happily lonely after
I'll possibly always be alone
but that's alright I'm not worried
I like me even if nobody else does
and that's all that matters in the end
poem by Kelvin Owusu
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The Wrong House
I went into a house, and it wasn't a house,
It has big steps and a great big hall;
But it hasn't got a garden,
A garden,
A garden,
It isn't like a house at all.
I went into a house, and it wasn't a house,
It has a big garden and great high wall;
But it hasn't got a may-tree,
A may-tree,
A may-tree,
It isn't like a house at all.
I went into a house, and it wasn't a house -
Slow white petals from the may-tree fall;
But it hasn't got a blackbird,
A blackbird,
A blackbird,
It isn't like a house at all.
I went into a house, and I thought it was a house,
I could hear from the may-tree the blackbird call…
But nobody listened to it,
Nobody
Liked it,
Nobody wanted it at all.
poem by Alan Alexander Milne
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Fairyland
Do you remember that careless band,
Riding o'er meadow and wet sea-sand,
One autumn day, in a mist of sunshine,
Joyously seeking for fairyland?
The wind in the tree-tops was scarcely heard,
The streamlet repeated its one silver word,
And far away, o'er the depths of wood-land,
Floated the bell of the parson-bird.
Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips,
Where ferns were dipping their finger-tips,
From mossy branches a faint perfume
Breathed o'er honeyed Clematis lips.
At last we climbed to the ridge on high
Ah, crystal vision! Dreamland nigh!
Far, far below us, the wide Pacific
Slumbered in azure from sky to sky.
And cloud and shadow, across the deep
Wavered, or paused in enchanted sleep,
And eastward, the purple-misted islets
Fretted the wave with terrace and steep.
We looked on the tranquil, glassy bay,
On headlands sheeted in dazzling spray,
And the whitening ribs of a wreck forlorn
That for twenty years had wasted away.
All was so calm, and pure and fair,
It seemed the hour of worship there,
Silent, as where the great North-Minster
Rises for ever, a visible prayer.
Then we turned from the murmurous forest-land,
And rode over shingle and silver sand,
For so fair was the earth in the golden autumn,
That we sought no farther for Fairyland.
poem by Anne Glenny Wilson
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part I: To Manon: XVIII
HE LAMENTS THAT HIS LOVE IS DEAD
My love is dead, dead and in spite of me,--
Dead while I lived,--while yet my blood was rife
With hope and pleasure and the pride of life.
For my love ended unexpectedly
During the Winter, stricken like a tree
By a night's cold, and frozen to the blood,
Whose leaves fell off and never were renewed
By any promise of the years to be.
And, when the Spring came, and the birds, to mate
Among its branches, lo! they found it bare,
Though all around was Summer in the wood.
Yet they took heart awhile, incredulous
That such a tree should be for ever dead.
``'Tis early yet,'' they cried. ``The Spring is late.
It shall still be as in the days that were.''
But Summer came and went while the tree stood
Bare in the sun like a deserted house.
--Then the birds suddenly despaired and fled.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The House On Centerville Road
We stopped beside the highway
And gazed at the old house
I told my wife, “That’s where I lived”
When I was just a little sprout
It looked smaller than it once did
Back so many years ago
Even then it was old and creaky
But, as a kid, I didn’t know
Weathered boards were loose and falling
Saplings grew up through the porch
The old tin roof was rusted orange
And the yard looked like a forest
Here dwells my oldest memories
From so many years ago
When our young family lived here
In the house on Centerville road
Those walls once rang with laughter
And the energy of two young lads
Riding stick horses all around the place
Trying to “herd” our collie, Pat
But, Pat knew more than we did
When she’d hear Mama shout
She’d turn us back from the road
And herd two boys toward the house
Dad got a job and we moved to town
Well before I started school
So, my memories are short and sketchy
But, I’ve found there are quite a few
My wife retrieved her camera
And as I turned the key to go
Snapped a picture from her window
Of the house on Centerville road
10/07/07
poem by C.R. Clark
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