A thick cloud nestled into the
valley down below,
I wonder if the forager
in that streambed knows
that it's sunny above.
Foggy Stream [Lyric]
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Category Archives: Poetry
“I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down
from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there
uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made
me think of myself,
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous
leaves standing alone there without its
friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain
number of leaves upon it, and twined
around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in
sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own
dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than
of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it
makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens
there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat
space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a
friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
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“Afternoon on a Hill” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!
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Weightless [Haiku]
a heron stands tall
at the branch’s end,
as if weightless.
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“Snowflakes” (45) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town --
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down --
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig --
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!
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Stone Ghost [Haiku]
the clouds retreat,
revealing hilltop ruins:
a ghost in stone.
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Staggering [Haiku]
hill slope trees
like staggering figures:
soon swallowed in fog.
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Right-Side-Down [Haiku]
the butterfly
knows no upside-down, only
where the flowers are.
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“Spritual” [Poetry Style #13 (精神)] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]
All wish to return,
Hoping others will come:
A clear water ride
Where strange flowers bud,
And lime-green parrots fly
The willows, to and from --
The mountain folk arrive
Deep bowls fill with wine...
To take a life beyond
And not end in ash,
But still be of nature;
Who's up to that task?
NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a crude translation of the thirteenth of the twenty-four poems. This poem’s Chinese title is 精神, and it has been translated as: “Essential,” “Animal Spirits,” and “Spirit.”
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Nature Reclaims [Lyric Poem]
All it takes is one thin crack, and
A fine flurry of blowing seed.
And nature takes back all that land --
Wall-to-wall with growing weeds.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 