Eighty
We remember what
we said in the night,
but do the men?
Contemplative poems
Contemplative poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
Two
She moves in spring
as one who
has carried herself
all winter among
famous people.
Yet she does
her own housework;
knows, as her
ancestors knew,
to spread white wash
over rhododendrons
in bright sun, like
remnants of snow —
glimpses, which some
have seen, of
the mountain,
Aviary
The eight-year-old boy can’t reach the first branch of the
largest of a pair of Maples in the front yard so he settles
for the lowest branch of the smaller tree. He easily pulls
himself up into the first crotch and pauses there, planning
his route to the top of his favorite aviary. He knows each
branch like the back of his hand, every step, every
handhold. He starts to climb, one limb at a time.
As the boy ascends, the branches get smaller and more
flexible. He can feel himself now swaying gently in the
wind. He can almost (but not quite) poke his head out of
the leaves at the top of the tree before he’s forced to stop
climbing. Here he tucks a leg into the fork between two
branches and settles in.
Deluge
On the therapist's couch, I wonder aloud what it would be
like to bundle all the pain I’ve ever experienced together
with any future pains, to feel them all at once and be
done with it. I mean everything, from the hangnails,
slivers, cuts, and bruises, to the pain of lost relationships
and death. I think how overwhelming it would be, how
completely unbearable. Still, if getting it all over in one
great rush was possible, would it be worth it or would it
kill me?
a river
overflows its banks...
silence
Cabin Fever
Outside the cabin, a smaller, child-size log cabin once sat
next to the driveway. Over the years, a coven of spiders
and wood ticks took it over, the forest slowly staking a
claim, gravity wresting it back into the ground. We never
played there. Who wants cobwebs in their hair, much less
nightmares on the brain? There were bear claw-marks in
the wood, for crying out loud. No telling how many
creatures chewed on that shack, and the fallen pine
needles on the roof left a musty Hansel and Gretel feel.
Little children could get lost in there.
Finally, someone dismantled it, the children grew up, and
the ghost stories surrounding it gradually subsided into
memories of fear we’ve almost now forgotten.
Traveler
I’ve taken the highway, that path that leads from here to
there, from anywhere to everywhere it seems. Over
mountains and valleys, across rivers and streams, I’ve
hitched my way through cities and deserts, from ocean to
ocean, back home and away again. I’ve stood by the road
in the pouring rain, cars rolling by with somewhere to go.
Each time I look in a rear-view mirror, mile markers
passing by, my thoughts drift back to where I started,
when time was on my side.
There is always somewhere to go, something on my
mind, even if that something is nothing more than
venturing into the unknown. I’ve walked away from pain
and into the arms of love, each time the load a little bit
Bases Loaded
Grass-stains on knees are the least of their worries. The
ball is lost in the hay again. Earlier this spring, they
mowed a large section of this hayfield into a baseball
diamond and then adorned it with torn up bits of T-shirt
carefully arranged to mark out the bases. The infield is
cropped short but the outfield is truly out in the field. The
“hay” is really just a tangle of clover, some sort of
domestic grass and wild strawberries. The game itself is
doomed from the beginning. All attempts to keep the ball
in the infield wind up with the ball in the tall grass. It's
just a matter of time before this comes down to picking
berries rather than looking for the ball.
childhood...
nothing ever measures up
The Next Moment
He watched the leaf drop beneath the horizon and gently
light on the ground. He watched as it became a memory,
lingering there in the blooming sunrise.
one step closer
to revelation ...
a cherry tree blossoms
Beneath the Sky, Reflections
It’s quiet here. The sky is cloudless. A moth flutters on
the most subtle of breezes. There’s barely a ripple on the
water. If reflections could speak, they would speak of
silence, of harmony and of deep introspection. Locked in
the aquatic mirror, a world of wonder stands fully
exposed to this image of itself. There is no judgment, no
criticism no need for redemption, just a picture of what is
here and now, a picture sprinkled with lily pads and
geese, a peaceful scene at perfect ease...
Bathed in echoes from the surface of the pond, each tree,
each reed, each leaf lives a fleeting second life entranced
in the liquid glass. The moth settles on a blade of marshgrass.
Sunday Morning
Women, one after another
appear on the balconies of apartments
or back gardens of the houses
and hang in wires
their sheets,
these white flags,
signify the capitulation of the night.
The Refrain of a Pensioner
Sitting on a bench, lonesome
in a corner of a park
he fills his lungs with green air
and idly he drinks the milk of light.
He rises slowly, and he puts the path,
as a fiction book, in his pocket
walking towards the gate of twilight
where his white-dream night lies ahead.
Every day he repeats this journey
without betraying the day, air or wind
until the twilight runs away from him
or the night locks him in forever.
Letter from Prison
My dear friend!
This letter for you
I’ve written down
here in this green jail
Where my word smells like grass.
And my dreams are getting wet in the rain.
Here, where the life and death
have no demarcation line.
Here, where the grass, the rain and flowers
die in front of your eyes
and are born again into a day
as if by magic.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
Or try: