I never saw a moor;
I never saw the sea,
Yet know I how the heather looks
And what a billow be.
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven.
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the checks were given.
a Chinese Banyan,
belted with prayer plaques,
entreats but sky & soil.
when I was a child,
roosters aggressively charged;
now: they flee, clucking.
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Through the inky night,
flies an orange spark.
And then there's darkness
once more.
And then a spray of sparks
arc through the dark.
And then there's darkness
once more.
And then there is a flame,
and darkness is held at bay...
tentatively.
incense tracks
meander skyward --
erratically;
as they rise, they diffuse
to become nothingness.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
but not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
but keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
the tree that reaches
over the hot spring-fed pond
thrives on steam treatment.
The valley stretches in such a way
that it gets sun but one hour a day.
That Happy Hour when the sun aligns
upon dewy grass and deep green pines.
The local villagers, they all know
when they should come and when they should go.
But that Happy Hour is not for either.
It's to face the sun and take a breather.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 