A June Day

Nick Wroblewski, "The Grace of Wild Things"

A June Day

I heard a red-winged black-bird singing
Down where the river sleeps in the reeds;
That was morning, and at noontime
A humming-bird flashed on the jewel-weeds;
Clouds blew up, and in the evening
A yellow sunset struck through the rain,
Then blue night, and the day was ended
That never will come again.

Sara Teasdale

I have to get this one in before June ends. One of the most beautiful sounds in the world surely has to be the sound of Red-Winged Blackbirds singing out their ownership of the reeds. I rarely hear this sound anymore, so the sadness of passing beauty feels very strong to me in this poem.


 

Like Barley Bending

Photographer Unknown

  

    Like Barley Bending

    Like barley bending

In low fields by the sea

Singing in hard wind

Ceaselessly;

Like barley bending

And rising again,

So would I, unbroken,

Rise from pain;

So would I softly,

Day long, night long,

Change my sorrow

Into song. 

Sara Teasdale

This is the time of tall grass. In every ditch, every field, every vacant lot, these graceful swaying forms catch the breeze. They are one of my favorite things about summer. And this poem, this poem - this is as close to perfection as poetry gets. All I can say is Amen. So be it.  

 

The Red and the Green

Charles Courtney Curran, "The Edge of the Woods"

The Red and the Green

Here, where summer slips

Its sovereigns through my fingers

I put on my body and go forth

To seek my blood.

I walk the hollow subway

Of the ear; its tunnel

Clean of blare

Echoes the lost red syllable.

Free from cramp and chap of winter

Skin is minstrel, sings

Tall tales and shady

Of the Kings of Nemi Wood.

I walk an ancient path

Wearing my warmth and singing

The notes of a Druid song

In the ear of Jack-in-the-Green.

But the quest turns round, the goal,

My human red centre

Goes whey in the wind,

Mislaid in the curd and why of memory.

Confused, I gather rosemary

And stitch the leaves

To green hearts on my sleeve;

My new green arteries

Fly streamers from the maypole of my arms,

From head to toe

My blood sings green,

From every heart a green amnesia rings.

Anne Wilkinson

I'm stuck on green. Green thoughts everywhere. And so, another green poem. Well, red too, but green beats red. Puzzling over what "to seek my blood", "the lost red syllable", and "my human red centre" might mean, it seems to me that the speaker is someone who believes she has to go inward to find herself or to find meaning. And yet, as she goes out, she finds even her own skin responding, calling out, singing to or with nature, in an ancient and spiritual way (Kings of Nemi Wood, Druid song, Jack-in-the-Green - mythological references that evoke a sense of connection with the natural world) that throws her inward quest off kilter. I relate to this. It's a life-long experience of getting stuck inside my own head, in my "human red centre", which turns out to be nothing but a whirlpool, and finding that nature draws me out of myself and into a larger place, a place with a sense of seasons and patterns within patterns, ever-widening and flourishing and - green! Green for me is the colour of life and healing. My blood definitely sings green. And I love that phrase, "my new green arteries", there is most definitely a connection between ourselves and nature that needs to be kept open, and yes, it's spiritual for me too, it's that fresh awareness of being part of creation, of having a place in all the bigness and beauty, and the heart's-ease of knowing meaning and purpose beyond myself.

   

The Garden

Carl Larsson  - “Apple Blossom.”

from The Garden

What wond’rous life in this I lead! 

Ripe apples drop about my head; 

The luscious clusters of the vine 

Upon my mouth do crush their wine; 

The nectarine and curious peach 

Into my hands themselves do reach; 

Stumbling on melons as I pass, 

Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass. 

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, 

Withdraws into its happiness; 

The mind, that ocean where each kind 

Does straight its own resemblance find, 

Yet it creates, transcending these, 

Far other worlds, and other seas; 

Annihilating all that’s made 

To a green thought in a green shade. 

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot, 

Or at some fruit tree’s mossy root, 

Casting the body’s vest aside, 

My soul into the boughs does glide; 

There like a bird it sits and sings, 

Then whets, and combs its silver wings; 

And, till prepar’d for longer flight, 

Waves in its plumes the various light. 

Andrew Marvell

We have a long history, this poem and I. I first read it when I was 12 or 13, and that line "Annhilating all that's made/To a green thought in a green shade." has come with me a long way. (A green thought. What is a green thought? I know what I think it is.) This is only part of a longer poem, but I love this particular part where Marvell does a gloat over summer's generosity - the abundance of fruit and flowers - so much that they almost fall into his mouth or put themselves into his hands. How he trips over them, and is ensnared by flowers - I love that one especially. It's entirely true, too. This time of year is so full of vegetable interest (!) that I can't get anywhere when I go for a walk. I see a flower over here, another over there, and I have to stop and take a picture. The salmonberries are out too, and you could hold your hand under a branch and have them fall into it, they are that ripe. So Marvell isn't even exaggerating much. And the part where he talks about shedding his body and gliding into a tree - it's completely ridiculous and wonderful. This is a man so overwhelmed by nature's extravagance that he goes bonkers. In a good way. I mean, please, ensnare me with flowers.

I wanted a painting of someone sitting under a tree in an orchard, but as with so many other poems, I couldn't get the perfect match. But I love Carl Larsson, and this painting has wonderful colours and subject matter, and it evokes similar feeling (for me) as the poem does.






 

Advice for a Frog

Karl Mårtens

Advice for a Frog

(Concerning a Crane)

Watch out, Old Croaker.

Here comes Stick Walker,

here comes Pond Poker,

here comes Death.

Take a breath, Slick Skin.

Muck down, sink in.

Don't Make bubbles.

Good luck, Grin Chin -

here comes Trouble.

Alice Schertle

Name calling. Poetry can be that too.

 

The Beauty

Chief Dan George, photographer unknown

The beauty of the trees,

the softness of the air,

the fragrance of the grass,

speaks to me.

The summit of the mountain,

the thunder of the sky,

speaks to me.

The faintness of the stars,

the trail of the sun,

the strength of fire,

and the life that never goes away,

they speak to me.

And my heart soars.

 Chief Dan George

 When you speak from the heart, there is no need to elaborate. As much as I enjoy wordplay, there is nothing better than heart-truth. It has weight, and it holds. 




 

The Caterpillar

Abbott Handerson Thayer,"Lunar Moth"

The Caterpillar

He crawleth here. He crepyth there
  On lyttel cat-like feet.
He weareth coats of gorgeous fur
   And lyveth but to eat.

He gnaweth lettuce into shreddes
   And, burrowing with his nose,
He tattereth half the garden beddes
   And fretteth e'en the rose.

And yet his metaphysics lend
   The creature some renowne.
In him, a super-natural end
   Is Nature's natural crowne.

For, out of his own mouth at last
   He spinneth his cocoon
Wherein he swingeth, slumber-fast,
   Beneath the summer moon;

To dream, in silken hammock curled
   Of strange translunar things;
And wake, into a finer world,
   An Emperor, with wings.

Alfred Noyes

"Lyttel cat-like feet" - that just makes me smile. And "to dream...of strange translunar things" - what a perfect way to describe the familiar yet utterly mysterious quality a caterpillar has. I like everything about this poem, including the Old English it's written in, but especially the way it takes up a small, overlooked, common creature and shows the wonder of its existence. This is what makes poetry precious. It returns us to a state of wonder and mystery. Who doesn't remember being a child and noticing something for the first time? Remember being fascinated by the path raindrops made down the window, or watching a water strider run along the pond surface - these things that we lose the wonder of after we have seen them several times, that we grow accustomed to as we grow older? This must be the magic that is talked about in books, the magic that adults miss, that they are too busy for, which makes them unable to find the way back to Narnia. I do think that, at least for me, poetry is a door back to wonder. And if that's so, how wonderful! This scrapbook is my Wardrobe. I hope you find it so as well.





 

But Sometimes Rising

Samantha French

But Sometimes Rising

when I close my eyes

a deep ocean swells to drown

the dry shapes of day

but sometimes rising

in the waters of my mind

flesh faces waver

into clarity -

tantalizing cameos

like quicksilver fish

that gleam and vanish

as the current twists and shifts,

or mermaids groping

from the wrong side of

time's translucent element

for what might have been

Fred Cogswell

"When I close my eyes"... Isn't it true? Isn't there a submerged world in our heads? A place of mystery and beauty, flashes of possibility - depths of aching darkness and shafts of startling light. A place where time shifts forward and back, where people and places long gone suddenly come into sharp focus. It's another element, not reality and yet as real and close as anything we know.

 

A Dirge

Anita Klein, "Betty and the Bird"

A Dirge

Related Poem Content Details

Why were you born when the snow was falling? 

You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling, 

Or when grapes are green in the cluster, 

Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster 

For their far off flying 

From summer dying. 

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping? 

You should have died at the apples’ dropping, 

When the grasshopper comes to trouble, 

And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble, 

And all winds go sighing 

For sweet things dying. 

Christina Rossetti

    I need a good cry once in a while. Happy poems don't mean a thing without a sprinkling of sadness and grief. It's like salt. In this poem the question "why?" of someone who cannot answer, the irony of birth happening in Winter and death in Spring and the string of beautiful images - snowfall, grapes growing on a vine, Swallows flying, altogether make a poignant statement of contradiction and loss - life in death and death in life - it's beautiful and sad, and it's how I feel about life overall. It's the mix of tears and laughter that lies at the heart of everything.

Let it go - the

Richard Emil Miller

Let it go - the

let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear

so comes love

e.e. cummings 

 A message I have to tell myself regularly. These are the mosquitoes of the mind, the gnats niggling at my equanimity, the "little foxes that spoil the vines" (Song of Solomon 2:15) - all these things I've held on to. I want to let them go, say goodbye, make peace, and make room - yes, for love. More love and less and less and even less of the rest.

[rain frog thorn bug tent bat]

Hiro Isono

rain frog          thorn bug          tent bat


along a broken mosaic    a spongy    ever-dwindling path

soaring trees    woody buttresses    their massive twisted fins

lofty crowns    shoulder to shoulder    climbing lime-green

vines    restless palms    one strangling plant    clinging to

choking another    a discontinuous canopy of branches and leaves

impenetrable    alive and teeming    tangled underbrush

the deeply shaded soil    lumpy roots    writhing

across the forest floor    low-growing ferns    seedlings

struggling for light    jewel-colored hummingbirds

insects sizzling and clicking and the dripping water

trickling into the tiniest crevices    steamy

claustrophobic air    a dazzling bellbird    lost

in a shaft of sunlight    a golden eyelash viper

sinuous as a vein on a broad-leafed frond    flat worms

land leeches    walnut-sized spiders    goliath beetles

camouflaged butterflies on dead leaves    parasites    bees

leaf-cutting ants atop glorious white lilies    everywhere

gripping    climbing    twisting    floating through the trees

stilt-like aerial roots    the mouth-amazed pitcher plant

buried larvae    fruit-eating fish    the perpetual battle to adapt

the ruthless drive    to survive under a punishing sun

what grows    bursts forth at astonishing speed    then decomposes

to be reabsorbed    so much unknown    unfamiliar

unnamed    but before long    the trees seem the same

the rocks    every bird track    who would dare think of such a place

who would dare        construct one         of his own imagining

and be utterly abandoned    in the middle of it all

if to be lost is to be fully present    if confusion becomes

the only boundary    and then    the decision    [to divide space

until a direction is created]    only a madman would begin

thought is its own cage    the mind    already anticipating

the first step    deciding    every turn will be coupled

by disaster    and perhaps    some bestial creature

crouched at the center    crying    waiting

for our hero    our everyman    our Elijah wandering the earth in rags


Francine Sterle

"Who would dare think of such a place/ who would dare construct one"! "So much unknown."
So much unknown. That phrase keeps echoing in my head. 

Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise the Rain

Unknown

Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise the Rain

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.

Let us discover some new alphabet,

For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,

The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,

The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,

And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,—

Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,

Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.

There is an oriole who, upside down,

Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,—

Under a tree as dead and still as lead;

There is a single leaf, in all this heaven

Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:

The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught

Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;

There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom

Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.

The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly

Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock

Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail

Surveys the wet world from a watery stone...

And still the syllables of water whisper:

The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait

In the dark room; and in your heart I find

One silver raindrop,—on a hawthorn leaf,—

Orion in a cobweb, and the World.

Conrad Aiken

Here's a treasure. A poem about the rain and all the little things it touches. A classic macro/microcosm theme. Here rain is the weather that affects us all, brings us together, unifies and levels us. I love the little details, the different perspectives and ways the rain touches the objects and creatures -  like a blessing that literally trickles down. Weeds, flowers, stones, birds, leaf, acorn, mushroom, bee, fly, snail, cobweb, and you and I - we are all touched by the rain. (William Blake would have loved this poem - "To see a world in a grain of sand..." - just his sort of thing.) Then there are the endearing personal touches, "Beloved, let us..", "be ourselves",  and, "in your heart I find one silver raindrop..." what a lovely way to say all things are precious, and that what touches the individual has universal significance as well. Amen to that.