It is the black smoke rising
Oozing through shuttered windows
seeping into quiet corners
Blocking the heart from
the light of the mind
deepening the gloom of
the mind’s eye
~ Lynn Kincaid
Black smoke rising
Patience Taught By Nature
“O Dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!”
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards
Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old!
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;—
But so much patience, as a blade of grass
Grows by contented through the heat and cold.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
If you listen closely
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
~ Maya Angelou
With scented dew still wet
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—
One perfect rose.
~ Dorothy Parker
Come and marvel at the sunset!
Come and marvel at the sunset!
Lo—a storm is brooding near,—
All the thirsty world imploring,
In a mood akin to fear.
Like a beaker in her fingers
Holds the world the valley high,
Mountain-lipped and cañon-hearted,
To the largess of the sky.
~ Ruby Archer.
The water has no mind
The wild geese do not intend
to cast their reflection.
The water has no mind
to receive their image.
~ Zenrin Kushu.
Flood the skies
Darker—still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air:
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where’er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
~ William Cullen Bryant.
From the eyes of the angels
Come and look,
See those dewdrops,
Dripping from that silver thread?
See it glisten,
How they sparkle.
Those come from the eyes of the angels…
~ Staytom.
Blue Iris
“What’s that you’re doing?” whispers the wind, pausing
in a heap just outside the window.
Give me a little time, I say back to its staring, silver face.
It doesn’t happen all of a sudden, you know.
“Doesn’t it?” says the wind, and breaks open,
releasing distillation of blue iris.
And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be,
the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.
~ Mary Oliver.
At Dawn
Are not the forest fringes wet
With tears? Is not the voice of all regret
Breaking out of the dark earth’s heart?
She too, she too, has loved and lost; and though
She turned last night in disdain
Away from the sunset-embers,
From her soul she can never depart;
She can never depart from her pain.
Vainly she strives to forget;
Beautiful in her woe,
She awakes in the dawn and remembers.
~ Alfred Noyes
Janet Fogg / J.R.P. Fogg 