Clouds And Waves

Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me- 'We play from the time we wake till the day ends. We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon.' I ask, 'But how am I to get up to you? ' They answer, 'Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds.' 'My mother is waiting for me at home, 'I say, 'How can I leave her and come? ' Then they smile and float away. But I know a nicer game than that, mother.

A Night-Piece

------The sky is overcast With a continuous cloud of texture close, Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon, Which through that veil is indistinctly seen, A dull, contracted circle, yielding light So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls, Chequering the ground--from rock, plant, tree, or tower. At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam Startles the pensive traveller while he treads His lonesome path, with unobserving eye

An Irish Airman Forsees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My county is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

Happy Birthday Gift - To My Sister

When I asked sea about the Pearls, It laughed and said that is one of my lovely jewels. When I asked about light to the sun! Overjoyed, he uttered there is no life without it. I asked river, What pleases its heart? And she said, to become lovely waterfall. I asked flowers; tell me why thy blossom is for?

White Clouds

White clouds Morphing wonderfully Watch those bears Changing into Rows of elephants Shaping like A frail old man standing Rearranging into children Playing with balloons.

A Sudden Downpour

Rain beats down on the window pane As the flood gates of Heaven suddenly open It is pouring out in torrential flow Like a Reservoir, all at once, broken It has come down as a welcome respite To fan away the humid sweltering heat It falls in drops and flows in rivulets Washing the dust of summer drought

America, A Prophecy

The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc, When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode: His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron: Crown'd with a helmet and dark hair the nameless female stood; A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night, When pestilence is shot from heaven: no other arms she need! Invulnerable though naked, save where clouds roll round her loins Their awful folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night;

The Flower-School

When storm-clouds rumble in the sky and June showers come down. The moist east wind comes marching over the heath to blow its bagpipes among the bamboos. Then crowds of flowers come out of a sudden, from nobody knows where, and dance upon the grass in wild glee. Mother, I really think the flowers go to school underground. They do their lessons with doors shut, and if they want to come out to play before it is time, their master makes them stand in a corner. When the rain come they have their holidays.

Child On Top Of A Greenhouse

The wind billowing out the seat of my britches, My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty, The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers, Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight, A few white clouds all rushing eastward, A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses, And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!

Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters

Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross surveys the city's blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers 'll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I'm taking your picture, pigeons. I'm writing you down, Dawn. I'm immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus. O Thought, now you'll have to think the same thing forever!

April

The roofs are shining from the rain. The sparrows tritter as they fly, And with a windy April grace The little clouds go by. Yet the back-yards are bare and brown With only one unchanging tree-- I could not be so sure of Spring Save that it sings in me.

Love Poem

Yours is the face that the earth turns to me, Continuous beyond its human features lie The mountain forms that rest against the sky. With your eyes, the reflecting rainbow, the sun's light Sees me; forest and flower, bird and beast Know and hold me forever in the world's thought, Creation's deep untroubled retrospect. When your hand touches mine it is the earth That takes me--the green grass,

Bearing The Light

Rain-diamonds, this winter morning, embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs; each solitaire, placed, it appearrs, with considered judgement, bears the light beneath the rifted clouds -- the indivisible shared out in endless abundance.

' I Am ' Sky #4 Series

' i am ' sky my colors are my moods ' i am' light blue when i'm at peace ' i am ' dark blue when i'm troubled ' i am ' dark clouds when i cry for justice ' i am ' light clouds when i'm in thought the stars are my teeth in a smile with the universe. the lightning bolts is my anger in full fury. the heavy rains are my tears.

Evening Love Song

Ornamental clouds compose an evening love song; a road leaves evasively. The new moon begins a new chapter of our nights, of those frail nights we stretch out and which mingle with these black horizontals.

On The Beach At Night

ON the beach, at night, Stands a child, with her father, Watching the east, the autumn sky. Up through the darkness, While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading, Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky, Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east, Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter; And nigh at hand, only a very little above,

A Wonderland

All roses no thorns, come to this wonderland fragrance everywhere, blue sky wears silky clouds Silver lining on golden rays, the chimes ringing everywhere An ideal place for body and soul Where mind is fearless and heart is bubbling....

A House Near The Hill

Ch'Ing P'Ing Tiao

Clouds bring back to mind her dress, the flowers her face. Winds of spring caress the rail where sparkling dew-drops cluster. If you cannot see her by the jewelled mountain top, Maybe on the moonlit Jasper Terrance you will meet her.

Featherbed

Clouds all tumbling steadily along, way up above my head, Looking, Oh, so cosy, like an exquisite featherbed. I could just relax there, within those many rolling hills, And sleep, and dream away my cares, my sorrows and my ills. Floating across the blue expanse of sky and space anew, I 'd thus become as light as air, and could bid the world adieu. © Ernestine Northover