To The River

Edgar Allen Poe is a classic. His work never gets old, so here I am, sharing some more of it.


To The River
Fair river! in they bright, clear flow 
Of crystal, wandering water,
Tough art an emblem of the flow
Of beauty - the unhidden heart -
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within they wave she looks -
Which glistens then, and trembles -
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies -
They heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.

   -Edgar Allen Poe

Frozen Poems

I'm not usually into writing love poems, but this one just hit me after watching the Disney movie Frozen - it's inspired by Anna and Kristoff. Enjoy! 

Worth The While

She laughs

It's twirling

Like her eyes

Their howls

Ringing

Never lies

He winks

It's quiet

Like his smile

But if you stick

It's worth the while

And, a bonus! Very obviously about the scene in the movie where Ana and Kristoff fall from a snowy cliff.

Sled Drop

Falling

Falling

Into snow

Hanging

Hanging

Let it go

It's like a pillow

Soft and smooth

My hair's now white

We've gotta move

HAZE by Carl Sandburg

 KEEP a red heart of memories

Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,

Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.

Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.
They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.

Other faces rise on the prairie.
 They are the unborn. The future.

Yesterday and to-morrow cross and mix on the skyline
The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets. One waits.

In the yellow dust of sunsets, in the meadows of vermilion eight o’clock June nights … the dead men and the unborn children speak to me … I can not tell you what they say … you listen and you know.

I don’t care who you are, man:
I know a woman is looking for you
and her soul is a corn-tassel kissing a south-west wind.
(The farm-boy whose face is the color of brick-dust, is calling the cows; he will form the letter X with crossed streams of milk from the teats; he will beat a tattoo on the bottom of a tin pail with X’s of milk.)

I don’t care who you are, man:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are gray dust working toward star paths
And you see them from a garret window when you laugh
At your luck and murmur, “I don’t care.”

I don’t care who you are, woman:
I know a man is looking for you
And his soul is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.

(The kitchen girl on the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset’s late maroon.)

I don’t care who you are, woman:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are next year’s wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.

My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. My love is an early robin flaming an ember of copper on her shoulders in March and April. My love is a graybird living in the eaves of a Michigan house all winter. Why is my love always a crying thing of wings?

On the Indiana dunes, in the Mississippi marshes, I have asked: Is it only a fishbone on the beach?
Is it only a dog’s jaw or a horse’s skull whitening in the sun? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?

Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keep their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?

The Arrow and the Song

This poem is called The Arrow and the Song, and it's by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I chose this poem because lately I've been feeling extra appreciative about having the friends I do. I don't have crowds of them, but it's about quality - not quantity. One true friend is better than a million fake ones.




The Arrow and the Song
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to Earth, I knew not where
For so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to Earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Dad's Haiku

Here's a poem by my dad, that he wrote in sixth grade - I found it in an old class poetry book from his school. This one is a haiku! From my dad to you, a special haiku.

Rain falling way down

From the high clouds above me

Hitting the wet ground

Plummy Tree

In my backyard, there are two plums trees facing towards each other and creating a shady arch. Today, I sat in between them and wrote this poem; dedicated to the Plummy Trees.


Plummy Tree
The glowing tree
Stares down at me
With a caring look
In its plummy eyes
With one slight roar
They're on the floor
But the blossomed fruit
Is revived.
In the spiteful wind
The world it spinned
But the tree, right here,
Did not budge.
So long, they say,
We'll see you soon,
But the tree just waves
Beneath the moon.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Shel Silverstein is one of my favorite poets of all time - He writes all sorts of stuff, and can control your mood with a single word. His poems always seemed sort of alive to me, instead of just words on paper. His sentences wiggle around with ink and and they splash off the page to fly away and read to someone. This one, Where The Sidewalk Ends, is one of my favorites, and I always loved the the phrase "peppermint wind." Here is his poem, for you.

Where The Sidewalk Ends
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where asphalt flowers grow 
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, the children they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
- Shel Silverstein