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Dreamy, Daniel Whitehead Hicky, in English Clear filters

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!
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

Marsh Lilies

There are a thousand lilies in a pond Beyond the marshes’ edges, and beyond There may be more where cypress dark and Fashion a roof where slender herons sleep, But I can only speak of what I know. So, quietly with dusk’s blue fall I go Down to the marsh where lilies open wide Showing the yellows of their hearts inside, And in an hour’s time, or maybe less, My eyes have counted acres of loveliness As though a snow had fallen in this land Of scorching sun and cypresses and sand. But there is one, no matter how I try, I cannot pick beneath that stretch of sky, A brighter one than any lily I know. I reach for it and it is trembling so
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.
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Retired Sea Captain

Weep not for him, come home to stare away The long, slow years that reach beyond the sea, To add his curious coins of memory, A Midas from the harbors of his day. Before the hearthfire he remembers now Algiers, a million diamonds in the dark, Proud Istanbul and Athens white as snow, Liverpool loud with seagull and the lark. He nods, and beckons, and Calcutta comes With all the fires of sunrise in its eyes; The Congo answers with a tide of drums, Pale China tells him all her mysteries. Weep not for him. He rides the sea tonight Before a hearth where threads of slow flames climb, His compass trembling toward the north star’s light, Safe in the archipelago of Time.
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.
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Wood Ibis by Moonlight

This was a cypress swamp by setting sun. Its waters ran with amber and the hot Slow molten gold of day’s last light. Not one White wing had ventured to this darkening spot. But now by moonlight I return and see The cypress blossoming with the hush of flowers; Each stump is white as snow, each withered tree. If I should call out through these lonely hours A single word would wake the garden here And all its folded blossoms suddenly Spread wide their petals and, soaring white and clear, Give back their full-blown beauty to the sky.
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

Summertime Hill

It is summer now, the half-awakened hour for bee and clover, For yellow butterflies in the cannas’ scarlet throats, Summer, when still the breath of the shattering lilac lingers And the slow incense of the moonflower lifts and floats. He lies asleep, or on the green edges of sleep, this boy With a dozen small summers behind him, forgot like a prayer, His cap pulled over his nose to lessen the freckles. The sun and the sweat of the day have captured his hair. Far up in the oceans of sky his ships are sailing, The pale and the lean flotillas of cloud and space; Beside him a hornet explores the lashes of a daisy’s eye, The wind blows hot through a pattern of Queen Anne's lace.
DreamyDaniel Whitehead Hicky

I Have a Need of Gulls

I have a need of gulls again and their flying Over the foam-white acres of the sea Where the sunrise drifts like a fleet of ships afire, And the dark like eternity. I have a need for the yellow sea oat’s music And the single salty note Curled in the palm of a shell as pale as the sigh In a sandpiper’s throat. Too long the city has housed me and fed me its fare, Too long I have run with the crowd; I have a need to be free again like the gulls, To bathe my face in the cool white peace of a cloud. I have a need to lie at length on the sands, To unshoulder my burdens out where the seagulls cry, And to all of my heart’s dark questions unanswered Hear the white answers they write in the sky.

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