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Sad, Daniel Whitehead Hicky, in English Clear filters

SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Summer Shall Come Again

Summer shall come again, her slender rose Lend its bright ruby to the wind’s blue hand, And over meadows where the clover blows Bronze orchestras of bees awake the land. Small streams shall speak their music to the sun And in the green cathedrals of the trees The robins stare at summer till summer is done And all her splendor ravels to memories. Summer shall come again, and in due time, But in my heart no more her sun will climb Nor any flower unfold its miracle, For she is gone whose laughter was a bell, Whose love made bread and wine of every stone And kindled stars and moons when there were none.
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

The Trees Must Go

The trees must go, they said, to bring a view Of distant mountains to the hilltop’s brow. First one by one they fell, then two by two. Though that was years ago, I see them now Swaying against a startled patch of sky, In long green sighs going down upon the earth, Shaking the sunlight from their leaves, the cry Of sparrows that woke the morning with their mirth. The view is nice, they say; it reaches clear Across the valley and brings the mountains near And the young breath of spring lifts cool and clean. But when I look beyond the hilltop there, I see a million leaves that might have been, And hear their little thunder, warm and green.
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Taormina, Revisited

Never come back, you said, to these wild slopes Where the slow wind spends all the almonds’ flowers, And a lone shepherd, climbing wearily, gropes From ledge to ledge, the sheep bells chiming like hours Aging the village below us. Never come back, O never, you said. But I return today, Hearing remembered breakers leap and crack, Drowning the silence with the thunder of spray. Nothing has changed. It is only you and I. Peace rides the cobbled streets; the almond pours Its sun-hot petals beneath the quiet sky— But eyes of lovers carry the light of yours, Their lips your laughter, the songs that we have sung A drift of Time away, when we were young.
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

The Blowing of Leaves

The blowing of leaves is in my heart tonight, The sound of all Novembers I have known. Across remembered skies like comets’ light They flare and die. Before the fire, alone, I watch the logs give up each smoldering jewel; Slowly one by one, like years, they fall away To nothingness where ashes cold and cruel Anonymize the fires they were today. Beyond my windowsill the new leaves fall, Leaves of an autumn far too new to know; I shall not traffic with them, hear their call, Nor turn to watch the first swift flake of snow. Kindle the fire again! Let it leap bright! Back to your wine I tell myself, proud host To all the autumns out of Time tonight— Swing wide the door, let in each straggling ghost!
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Orchard in Autumn

The thieving wind has stolen all that summer Bequeathed to autumn: leaves that turned to fire Under the frost’s white whip; the sumac’s glimmer, The measured music of the crickets’ choir. The empty boughs that knew a glory once, Like wrinkled hands of old and lonely men Reach toward the waning sun for sustenance; Overhead the southing sparrows speed like rain. The weight of Time hangs heavy on the hour Where no wind stirs, and in the dark no light Kindles the memory save one gold pear, A ghostly lantern in the frosty night.
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

The Day You Die

The day you die I will not come and say: Poor weary dust, how rested now, at peace, Nor shed a tear upon that bitter day Above the new turned earth granting you release. I will go seeking all you were and find Dark eyes that I remember where larkspurs blow, And, listening, pluck your voice from the warm wind As clearly as a red rose from the snow. Granite can never capture nor hold you fast; Forever at my side your steps shall be, Tracing the paths we knew and loved the best, And searching restless patterns of the sea I will find your face in all the tides that run, Your laughter, defiant, lifting toward the sun.
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Moment of Yellow Light

Mellow now and trembling gold The pears hang in the air Like yellow notes the wind may strike On any day as clear, And on the ground their crumpled leaves Lie one with earth again To shape from dust another leaf, A blossom washed by rain. O autumn day I cry to you: Must all this splendor pass Less than a sigh across the hour, A shadow on the grass— Will no one come to share this light Of pear and waning sun? Autumn, spend gold more miserly If I must watch alone!
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

For a Battlefield

Unless your feet may tread as young winds tread The aisles of sunrise, do not venture here; There is a quietude death owes the dead, A silence past the silence of a tear. Let winter rainfall and the creep of moss Write on each stone. They are the hands of Fame That brood above a passionate battle’s loss And give to glad, gay youth less than a name. Speak now no word. Let only Aprils stir The grasses on forgotten battlefields With helmets of bright gold and lavender— The flash of splendor that a crocus yields. Unless your feet may tread as winds at dawn, O, do not tarry here . . . pass on, pass on!
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

October Evening

The pears hang heavy, gold along the day. Reluctantly the crisp wind-sharpened leaves Forsake the quivering boughs and drift away, Lost in the gathering dusk, the wind that grieves. Chrysanthemums, once red and yellow lights, Upon the rustling grass lie frozen, brown; Slow chimney sparks, fireflies of winter nights, Blossom in yellow patterns and are done. The year is waning, guttering like a lamp, Losing itself in darkness and in time, One with the tiring wind, the ripened pears. A late bird, shadow-blinded, fumbling home Cries loneliness through silence cold and damp; A whole world answers him, yet no one hears.
SadDaniel Whitehead Hicky

A Letter from the Front

There is so much to write, so much of death and dying, So much of anguish in the dark and stricken mind: Another city fallen, a shattered fort retaken— I cannot write for burning eyes grown blind. But tell me, tell me quickly, swift as lightning, If summer’s on the Georgia fields again, Crepe myrtle thick with pink and sudden crimson, Their hot and crinkly blossoms steaming in the rain? Tell me, tell me if the bleeding hearts of melons Lie secret-like beneath the ribbons of the corn, If still, O still the crickets wake the starlight, The Chattahoochee reddens in the land where I was born? Still does the quiet duskfall purple up the doorway, The cotton stretch its acres warm and white;

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