IceM - It was a pleasure reading your poems in this thread. I was particularly fond of Pens and Pencils; A Nihilistic Mindset; and Cyclical Sonnet.
IceM - It was a pleasure reading your poems in this thread. I was particularly fond of Pens and Pencils; A Nihilistic Mindset; and Cyclical Sonnet.
"A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one's own path, not chasing after the dreams of others." - Chin Ning Chu
Boyhood
Now, I dwell on that little boy
who shoveled dirt and rocks
(Daddy I have to sneeze)
in the pasture on Saturdays--
who, within the mud-colored clouds
caused by his irregular hunching and heaving,
began to hope for gold.
Stopped only by his close-eyed spasms
(the dust is in my nose;
Just a few more minutes)
he dug and dug until his bucket was full.
Then leaving the field (find anything good? hope so!),
the boy’s palms would ache beneath a handle
too rough for his fingers.
That same mass of manzanita limbs
who sprawled across fresh linen
(Steven did you change your; I will, Mom),
who yearned to grow as tall as the trees
whose chips cracked in his campfire-song soul—
he who soon forsook his shovel
today now digs between two blue lines,
still hoping for gold.
Last edited by IceM; 02-26-2015 at 05:18 PM. Reason: Improved second stanza.
Well, look what the cat dragged in...
J
Three-and-a-half years never seemed so brief, right?Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts
When I was re-reading my poems and other favorites from this forum almost a week ago, I was wondering to myself whether the same group of poets I posted with long ago (you, Jerry, AuntShecky, Hill, Bar, Delta and others) were still around. I'm happy to see you (and others) are still here.
Voices
It is out there somewhere.
Perhaps, beside the stream,
Far beyond the undergrowth and fallen redwood
That closed the trail to travelers
(the rangers never did remove that tree),
It awaits me –
The lone blackberry bush amidst the briers
Whose fruit will sustain me forever.
Perhaps instead it dwells among the stars.
Like a comet would my soul sprint –
A headlong rush for a flickering red or blue
To call my own.
Or perhaps, like kingdoms since past,
It is buried within the sands.
Out in the San Joaquin
From the hilltops, those swaths of yellow and green--
the fields of dry grass where the rabbits scurry,
the squares of vines and the pistachio groves where children
in the stillness of the night will steal the season’s first fruit--
stir in the wind, undulating to and fro in the midday sun.
There too rest the beds of those once-proud streams--
that network of veins winding across the brown chest of the earth--
that now are vestiges of ancient waters
whose currents have long been still.
Here, Thoreau would thrive.
On his morning afternoon late evening walks
among the vineyards the hills the barren plots of dust
where orange trees once stood
(they laid like the wreckage of ships found in shallow seas
when the farmers uprooted them),
he too would see hear feel Nature in its full splendor:
see the crawfish emerge from the reservoir
(a single ripple is left in its wake).
and sun itself on the banks;
see the hawk plunge between the vines
(something nervously scurries amid the weeds)
and emerge with nothing;
see in the farthest reaches of the hills
a wildflower blooming in the stillness.
Beautiful imagery. A California masterpiece of a poem waxing nostalgic.
Reminded me of my own childish pilfering of cherries, blackberries, and apples (Seattle); grapes (Lodi Lake); pistachios and almonds (Modesto) when visiting family as a young adult: furtively eating and not tempted to carrying away the treasures.
It's sad the ground water has become so depleted that the landscape has changed, literally lowering tens to eighty feet in areas if I recall in spots. Streams have become seasonal at best in many places. Crawdads and sticklebacks must be eking a sparse existence nowadays.
I never witnessed the orange groves being torn up, I'm blessed not to have done so; but I still hear the red-tailed hawk every day here in the California foothills of home, and the sight and sound of California quail makes my spirit soar.
So much beauty at home if one just becomes still and soaks it in.
Yes, the great poets would have flourished here, as you evidently have.
Thank you so very much for your poem.
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
tailor
who am I but a stitch in time
what if I were to bare my soul
would you see me origami
7-8-2015
Out in the San Joaquin;
I commented where Tailor also shared it, only one word fits - heavenly.
Extraordinarily well done.
Tailor, thank you so much for your kind words! I was especially happy that you had similar experiences in your hometown and areas you've grown up with which you could relate. I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say there's nothing that can match the beauty of raw nature--of the tilled lands and the furrows and the trails of dust lost in the wind when the tractor meanders across the field, let alone the sensation of the almonds in full bloom and the silent whisper of the rivers...I could go on forever.
It's truly sad indeed that the groundwater is so rapidly being depleted. Within the last year, there have been multiple times that I've visited my parents after a light week at the university, only to see vast squares of land that in my childhood were populated with almonds and pistachios and oranges and grapevines now lie empty. Seeing the trees in bloom and bearing fruit on a near-daily basis (when the fruits and nuts were in season, of course) was such a significant piece of my youth, and to see the trees and vines gone is saddening. Almonds and vineyards have been hit the hardest in my area, but oranges are getting taken down too.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm so, so happy that you liked the poem, let alone put it in the Favorite Lit-Net poems thread! Every time I wrote a poem on this site, I hoped I would make it into that thread, and now I finally have. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, NikolaiI. I'm so, so happy that you enjoyed my poem.Out in the San Joaquin;
I commented where Tailor also shared it, only one word fits - heavenly.
Extraordinarily well done.
Richgrove (Home)
There, far east of the highway,
deep in the black blanket cast by the solemn hills
during sunrise, she rests--
she with the roads and walkways of dust
whose clay-colored haze trails the children on their march to school;
she, village of the orange groves, where
under the eager twinkling of the midnight sky,
rapid thrusts from within the shadow of the trees
give birth to wordless utterings.
Until then, they depart,
waves of brown bodies flowing into the vast earthen squares:
some to the berries, others to the vines,
others still to the almond groves whose fallen blossoms
are buried in the dust by the procession of soles.
* * *
Again, I walk the gravel road
amid the vineyards. In the twilight,
a mockingbird sings to her mate across the field
and the leaves of the vine bob and sway
in the midseason wind like a fisherman’s line
on the water, and I enter the reservoir
I often visited in my youth. Then,
our Labrador burst into the azure,
that double image of sun and sky and cotton-ball clouds
shattering into a thousand thousand ripples--
and into my lap he would leap,
almost knocking me over. Mom would shout
and Dad would laugh and Brother too.
But now the ripples have ceased,
and amid the furrows a mouse somewhere scuttles
and an owl perched atop the water tank gazes into the distance,
perhaps at the mouse,
perhaps at the blackness of space.
* * *
Out through the windowpane the children gaze,
sometimes at the sanguine sky that signals the return
of the gleaming bodies bronzed by the sun,
sometimes at the rolling hills--
those towering knuckles of earth on which
the lupine bloom after the rainstorms--
and sometimes at the red blue yellow green beacons
blinking in the black empyrean.
Later, despite the heavy bass that beckons the parents
to the building down the street,
the children will dream of cities
seen only on the screen;
of plazas and piers and downtown parties
in which the people, standing before the flickering neon signs,
are smiling.
You are very, very welcome my friend! Poems about nature, glorifying the earth are the most beautiful to me, and bring the most joy... I have always followed intuitively Schopenhauer's wisdom "As soon as one writes for gain, one begins to write badly." And when I realized how interesting the times we live in are (with the environment), I realized that the primary good was to do good to mother earth, help protect all her species, balance, harmony and bio-diversity, as it is source of life.. and her resources - I suppose, I have actually held this belief since a little child; I've known if we only attain peace for good, and reduce humanely our population to a sustainable level - then we can live on this earth for many millennia, and explore all of the higher things in life.
Later on I understood what there actually is to explore, and my understanding of all this deepened, and I put it into practice, and it works. It's still such a small step though - but I feel, to spread the message, that to reduce one's consumption of life and resources by 95-99% is very achievable, very doable, and also very rewarding and fulfilling.. and so doing this first, I found the best thing I could possibly do is simply write poetry, about how beautiful life is, all species are, and how wonderful this world can be, if we only follow the wisdom that comes so naturally, when we pause to reflect.
There's an idea in Hinduism that is, basically, if you slip and fall - you still don't lose the progress you've made, and I've found it's a wonderful one. It helps a lot. Another thing I have always tried to share - along with the point of not writing for gain, or, the corollary - is to encourage people, to let them know, that their writing is a light to this universe, and these poems are doing great work, great good. You never know when it will inspire one, and then another, and another; and so on. As Goethe and many others have understood, our words and actions echo throughout eternity. . . So it especially came to mind when I understood the difference between sharing power, strength and hope, and the opposite - long have I understood that to tell people they are strong, that they matter, this is the greatest good we can do for someone.. Although, naturally - to live a life of this kind is the primary way, as we inspire by example; but also to write poetry in such a manner, as the world is made up of words.
As Goethe says, 'Correction does much, but encouragement does more.' So I've always sort of felt, but understood more and more as time went on.
As far as poetry is good - another thing I have come to understand, is that if I write poetry that is true, that's the best I can do, because truth is beautiful, and good. A true poem is a good and beautiful poem, in other words. As Schiller says, the purpose of all art is to create joy; or Whitman, "Do anything, but let it prodjuce joy."
So, thank you, so much.
For IceM:
Happy Birthday! dear poet
I pray time has been kind
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor
tailor
who am I but a stitch in time
what if I were to bare my soul
would you see me origami
7-8-2015
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