[at-l] Poems

[WHHAWKINS@aol.com]

Its now time for a break from all the other stuff, and be entertained.
Enjoy.

Wildbill

By Mary Oliver
 Wild Geese   

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.
_________________________________________________

At Blackwater Pond   
At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled 
after a night of rain. 
I dip my cupped hands. I drink 
a long time. It tastes 
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold 
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them 
deep inside me, whispering 
oh what is that beautiful thing 
that just happened?
________________________________ 

The Sun   
Have you ever seen 
anything 
in your life 
more wonderful 

than the way the sun, 
every evening, 
relaxed and easy, 
floats toward the horizon 

and into the clouds or the hills, 
or the rumpled sea, 
and is gone-- 
and how it slides again 

out of the blackness, 
every morning, 
on the other side of the world, 
like a red flower 

streaming upward on its heavenly oils, 
say, on a morning in early summer, 
at its perfect imperial distance-- 
and have you ever felt for anything 
such wild love-- 
do you think there is anywhere, in any language, 
a word billowing enough 
for the pleasure 

that fills you, 
as the sun 
reaches out, 
as it warms you 

as you stand there, 
empty-handed-- 
or have you too 
turned from this world-- 

or have you too 
gone crazy 
for power, 
for things? 
 
______________________________________

 Sleeping in the Forest    
I thought the earth remembered me, she 
took me back so tenderly, arranging 
her dark skirts, her pockets 
full of lichens and seeds. I slept 
as never before, a stone 
on the riverbed, nothing 
between me and the white fire of the stars 
but my thoughts, and they floated 
light as moths among the branches 
of the perfect trees. All night 
I heard the small kingdoms breathing 
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night 
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling 
with a luminous doom. By morning 
I had vanished at least a dozen times 
into something better. 
_________________________________

by Margot McCreay

Being in Nature restores me--  
I soak in warm sun in early Spring,  
I listen to water move, 
I walk through a brilliant sunlit meadow and  crickets rasp their song 
and  
grasshoppers hurtle themselves out of my path. Wind energizes me.  
I am part of Earth's circle.  

______________________________
Even Trees  
by Kay Grindland

Everything sings. 
Birds do, of course  
Even trees 

have their own songs.  
Wolves make easy running rhythms. 

Water plays in great  
crashing choruses  
and back beat drop notes. 

No song is ever solo.  
Frogs collaborate with fish  and pond water. Insects hum 

to the beat of bird wings.  
Sunrise in spring  
is a symphony. 

Imagine the songs  
in a forest, in a galaxy  
inside of you? 

If you listen,  
you will find one. 

If you sing  
it won't be a solo. 
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