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Daniel Whitehead Hicky, night, in English Clear filters

ContemplativeDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Savannah Waterfront

Like an old stevedore the harbor sleeps, The ships at anchor and the barges tied. Beyond the mist, a lone star, curious-eyed, Watches the hesitant darkness as it creeps In measured patterns till the marsh is one With sky and river and, far out, the sea — Lost now and lonely and no longer free, But bearing still the memory of sun. No husky voices rise to break the spell, No banjo throws a note across the night; Only the long slow wash of a drowsy river That fails to wake the throat of a buoy bell, Says requiem for a day that has ended forever In yellow periods of lantern light.
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Harbor Night

Even the gulls grow tired when day is ending And the young stevedores’ last weary cries Drift over the harbor in forgotten music And the new tide comes in with quickening sighs. Eyelids of lanterns like slow fireflies flutter Along the silent pier, and whippoorwill From drowsy willow trees across the river Strike one high note and hold it, stubborn and shrill. Like an old drunken seaman now the sun Deserting the harbor pockets his gold and goes To some far salty tavern beyond the night, A tavern whose dark address nobody knows.
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Georgia Towns

Deep in the Georgia night when all The crickets have hushed their notes And silence lies upon the needles Of pines and on the feathered throats Of sparrows in the star-still boughs, Across the meadows of my mind There drift the names of Georgia towns Softly and slowly as summer wind. O little half-hid towns I love! I hear them waking, and in sleep, And all the music of their names Like opening flowers, a tidal sweep, Rests on my heart the hand of peace. O little towns how close you lie Upon the warm red clay, how near Your sun-drenched rooftops touch the sky!
ContemplativeDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Island Fishermen: St. Simon's

With sunset now and ripening of the tide, The day’s bright catch a thing for memory, Fishermen bronze as nets the sun has dried Turn to a smaller doorway than the sea, Taking the dim streets in a motley crowd, Their salty words and laughter lifting higher, Leaving the gulls behind them in a cloud, The small boats rocking, arguing with the pier. Deserted and forgotten now with night The boats grow lonely like old fishermen, Knowing no voice, no flare of cigarette To break the darkness settling warm and plain, Only the echo of a wave’s far roar, A pale wind breathing silver to the shore.
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Winter Night

Only the young will brave the snow And catch the flakes and watch them go In swirling patterns up and down The length and breadth of all the town. Only the young can laugh to see White, sudden blossoms on a tree That were not there an hour ago, Or lift their hearts to see the snow Reach out its hand and turn the night Into a wonderland of white. The old will rise and turn the lock When frozen fists of snowflakes knock Upon the pane, along the sill, And break the pine trees on the hill. The old will draw the curtains tight And have no traffic with the night;
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

The Whistling Swans

For seasons I had waited for this thing, The whistling swans to seek my marsh again— When suddenly, out of darkness, wing to wing I heard their wild white flutter swift and plain Lighting upon the waters where stars were sleeping. I pushed my door into the trembling night And sought the marshes’ edges, softly creeping Like a slow secret in the pale moonlight. Safe in the marsh they floated, spreading wide Their wings like day unfolding in the sky, And as I listened as near as I could hide, I prayed some latening neighbor might happen by To share that music, far too much for one To listen to, deep in the night alone.
ContemplativeDaniel Whitehead Hicky

A Snow So Wide

Whose prints these are across the snow I cannot say; I do not know. But journeying this path alone With silence on the heart like stone, I hope that I can overtake Him traveling through wind and flake, A lonely shadow in a night So brittle that it snaps with white Where fir and spruce and alder bend Beneath the fingers of the wind. I must catch him if I can And speak a word or two. No man Has eyes enough to witness all This blinding rush of petal-fall— A snow so deep, a snow so wide It takes a county in its stride,
ContemplativeDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Snowscape with Figures

No winter-sharpened stars hang in the sky. This is a night of snowfall and the black Thick darkness crowding branches of the trees. No sound awakes the silence but the crack Of hemlocks where the snow piles white and deep, And soon their music through the ice-thin air Drifts into quiet of the frozen shadows Until another branch breaks suddenly clear. But there are stars deep in the forest’s reaches Where small and furry and half-frightened things Search through the crystal night for sustenance, And stars shine in the branches where trembling wings Quiet as snowfall fold into the dark. Through all the woods, down every path I go, The eyes of hunger kindle in the night
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Home Town

The town that I am proud to call my own Is not a lighted city with towers of stone, No seaport sensuous with the smell of ships. Yet when the day goes by and darkness slips Into the hedges and the orchards there, Of all the world I think my town most fair, With lamps like casual fireflies in the dark And lovely as the singing of a lark The children’s voices and the crickets’ choir Lifting toward heaven as the moon lifts higher. My town lies seldom on a map or chart Yet bright it twinkles in memory of the heart, And there I turn, a tired, forgotten man Deep in the city’s blinding, hurrying span, To claim my peace, my lost identity Where even the sunflowers’ eyes remember me.
ContemplativeDaniel Whitehead Hicky

December Night

Through all this frozen night there is no sound Save my white footsteps on a whiter ground, No stir up from the meadow, nor the brake Lost in the whitening wind beyond the lake. How soft the lamps come on, their sudden gold Shining from windows warming up the cold; How pale the trees, how bowed their branches down With loveliness men cannot see in town. But hush, and listen! Above this stretch of white, This swirl of snow that blinds me like a light, I hear a slow sound plain and high and far,— The wind’s cold fingers polishing a star.

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