"catkins" poems
#(a travelogue)
He stared down through
the unbroken silence
lapping the shoreline
Water skippers dart around
the rocks and windfall driftwood
settled juxtaposed in cattail reeds
and emerging broadleaf sprouts
A petrified heartwood timber
lie fallow waiting bare barked,
hushed like a pining lover’s
timeworn love seat,
rubbed smooth as
the crystalline waters
of half-moon lake
Lingering for a while ―
like a hidden stalker,
a perched wildcat waiting
for the full moon’s
swooning spell to saturate
the thickening dusk quietude;
arousing the urgent
call of the wild —
exhaled from the held breath
of the wilderness nocturne
on half-moon lake
The stillness was scattered
with the soft downy hairs
of the sleeping cattails, and
the newly shed catkins
a spring gust bestrewed
from a tall resin birch tree
nigh the Sitka willows
He sat quietly ...
time out of mind ―
tossing his eyes up into the sky;
taking the time to read the stars ―
catching them each again
as they fell into his gentle hands,
to show him who he was
Seeing their sparkly tracers
trail-out above the cattails,
from a distance
they resembled falling stars
unable to perceive their own renaissance ―
plashing lightly upon the still-water
on half-moon lake
A lone shadow glides stealthily
near mid-tarn,.. swimming
enchantingly with the grace
of a blackswan
Appearing to glance shoreward
at the glowing low stars
rise and fall, as his eyes
twinkled skyward over
the moonlit lagoon ―
heavenward of its moonlit ballet;
the lone sleek dark shadow
slipping through
a faint circular ripple
stirring the smooth as glass waters ―
disappearing like a fleeting moment
waning deep aneath
a subtle silent wake.
When all the clear lines blurred,
he knew it had been so long ...
but hearken !
… an interceding
long drawn out wail
echoed a feral ache
across the stillness,
breaking the silence ―
as the shadow reappeared;
his tears surrendered
to the undulating call of the wild;
he felt the spirit of the sole Loon,
as black and white
as the moonlit night,
stir deeply in his wanting heart ―
lay bare the silence
in lengthy yodeled psalms
to the god of the moon
Diving down deep yet again,
keeping the light he’d been given,
vanishing into the lifespring
sanctuary of half-moon lake
harlon rivers ... May 2018
travelogue: 4 of some more
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 2:36 PM UTC
Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, ****** like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is not wrong.
The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded
down starch halls with the other unnested throng
in wheeling baskets. You tip like a cup; your head
moving to my touch. You sense the way we belong.
But this is an institution bed.
You will not know me very long.
The doctors are enamel. They want to know
the facts. They guess about the man who left me,
some pendulum soul, going the way men go
and leave you full of child. But our case history
stays blank. All I did was let you grow.
Now we are here for all the ward to see.
They thought I was strange, although
I never spoke a word. I burst empty of you,
letting you see how the air is so.
The doctors chart the riddle they ask of me
and I turn my head away. I do not know.
Yours is the only face I recognize.
Bone at my bone, you drink my answers in.
Six times a day I prize
your need, the animals of your lips, your skin
growing warm and plump. I see your eyes
lifting their tents. They are blue stones, they begin
to outgrow their moss. You blink in surprise
and I wonder what you can see, my funny kin,
as you trouble my silence. I am a shelter of lies.
Should I learn to speak again, or hopeless in
such sanity will I touch some face I recognize?
Down the hall the baskets start back. My arms
fit you like a sleeve, they hold
catkins of your willows, the wild bee farms
of your nerves, each muscle and fold
of your first days. Your old man's face disarms
the nurses. But the doctors return to scold
me. I speak. It is you my silence harms.
I should have known; I should have told
them something to write down. My voice alarms
my throat. "Name of father-none." I hold
you and name you ******* in my arms.
And now that's that. There is nothing more
that I can say or lose.
Others have traded life before
and could not speak. I tighten to refuse
your owling eyes, my fragile visitor.
I touch your cheeks, like flowers. You bruise
against me. We unlearn. I am a shore
rocking off you. You break from me. I choose
your only way, my small inheritor
and hand you off, trembling the selves we lose.
Go child, who is my sin and nothing more.
4k
Crimson maple buds magically pucker
under brightening skies
Lenten rose reluctantly unfolds
absolving the shadowed snow,
stemming the wintertide
Spring's impending bloom
mystically stirs the delicate human heart
soothing from outside its sheltering shell
A converging pleasantness
of a sunshine sown awakening
cleanses each morning breath drawn
to sate an urgent restrained longing
The wilderness carpet comes alive
with a burgeoning salient sweetness
drawing out a glimmer of gladness
from stale suffocating darkness’
wallowing in the winter ennui
Another kind of poignant balm sinks
from the tall mountain willow tree
touching the sprouting blue sky
Furry fragrant catkins blossom sweetly
like the remnants of a love once known
softly brushing against a fading memory
of unerasable stains begrudgingly beget
Like fawning flowers falling fallow
in a passing season’s pollination breeze
Manipulating frayed heartstrings,
unhealed as the deer peeled scars
and rubbed bark of a mountain willow,
scarred from another season past
Some protective shell ― never grows back
when benign heartwood is brought to light
harlon rivers ... Spring 2018
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 11:59 AM UTC
Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, ****** like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is not wrong.
The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded
down starch halls with the other unnested throng
in wheeling baskets. You tip like a cup; your head
moving to my touch. You sense the way we belong.
But this is an institution bed.
You will not know me very long.
The doctors are enamel. They want to know
the facts. They guess about the man who left me,
some pendulum soul, going the way men go
and leave you full of child. But our case history
stays blank. All I did was let you grow.
Now we are here for all the ward to see.
They thought I was strange, although
I never spoke a word. I burst empty
of you, letting you learn how the air is so.
The doctors chart the riddle they ask of me
and I turn my head away. I do not know.
Yours is the only face I recognize.
Bone at my bone, you drink my answers in.
Six times a day I prize
your need, the animals of your lips, your skin
growing warm and plump. I see your eyes
lifting their tents. They are blue stones, they begin
to outgrow their moss. You blink in surprise
and I wonder what you can see, my funny kin,
as you trouble my silence. I am a shelter of lies.
Should I learn to speak again, or hopeless in
such sanity will I touch some face I recognize?
Down the hall the baskets start back. My arms
fit you like a sleeve, they hold
catkins of your willows, the wild bee farms
of your nerves, each muscle and fold
of your first days. Your old man's face disarms
the nurses. But the doctors return to scold
me. I speak. It is you my silence harms.
I should have known; I should have told
them something to write down. My voice alarms
my throat. "Name of father-none." I hold
you and name you ******* in my arms.
And now that's that. There is nothing more
that I can say or lose.
Others have traded life before
and could not speak. I tighten to refuse
your owling eyes, my fragile visitor.
I touch your cheeks, like flowers. You bruise
against me. We unlearn. I am a shore
rocking you off. You break from me. I choose
your only way, my small inheritor
and hand you off, trembling the selves we lose.
Go child, who is my sin and nothing more.
3.1k
The barron earth seems barron still,
The snow is gone but green lost still,
But on the Aspens, the catkins grow,
The male, the female, each in the wind,
The grow and grow and ask to be seen,
A sign of life in a barron land,
The males they dangle, the females *****
A source of life, before the leaves,
Winter's gone and Spring has rose,
The Aspen Moon approaches full,
A few small leaves upon the ground,
A strawberry, a flower, some blades of grass,
As the Apsen Moon begins to wain,
Fast rushes Springtime just like the Bull,
The catkins promise, the leaves fulfill,
New life, new living, the Aspen Moon.
Jul 8, 2012
Jul 8, 2012 at 12:40 PM UTC
Sable, the swallow rising
as it banks over the white conduits
of marrow in the body, rain
slashes through the honey locust,
along the long ellipse of its hunt
as savage dragonflies rise from stems
to cling, a deep sienna of doeskin tremors
over their sting, catkins,
an aftermath, melancholy to the skin
soaked in white calla,
its reticence assails
the sleeping orchards of the heart,
in its darkest sheaves,
to cleave apart the soft joining of lips
and silence me;
for eternity
is this moment,
and the light you give
cloaks me in a coat of flames,
the burnt locust of slaughter, taunt
the rubric of Christs hidden scriptures,
as I night,
the body, solely a vessel
of shadow, returning
through a field of windfall,
ripe with wasps,
echo you
in me,
a dream of a dream dream't,
in the dim recess of light
your lips close
like a sutra over mine,
a brutality of moments
ground out of thick pine,
as the fine agony
of cricket ballets rise
shivering, to stillness,
this silence is a lotus,
a blue psalm,
throttles the throat,
as a quorum of swallows
gather between the swathes
of sunlight and skewed shadows,
and lift as one body, subsumed
by our abandoned depths,
out of exile, you
have made me a homeland
of truant light and as I night,
lightning opens like scripture,
a black plea, poured over some sore refuge,
and so that I may never be restored,
cloak me in a coat of flames,
suffering an ecstasy of moments hardened in amber,
over the white conduits of marrow
in the savage body, writhe
a black throng of swallows,
assail the sleeping orchards of the heart,
in its darkest sheaves, to cleave
apart the soft joining of lips
and silence me....
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 4:05 PM UTC
an enduring cypress
immortal knotted rings
until death
two as one
held breath
a contorted filbert
purple catkins bring to flower
deeply rooted visions
creativity, awareness, knowledge
enlightened fruition
a variegated willow
to drink up sorrow's rain
in tolerance we bend
but not to point
of breaking
three trees
foretell a future
laced with little deaths
cypress, filbert, willow
lest we should forget
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 10:56 AM UTC
'
~~
**Catkins and crimson
heather bouquet: flowery
vase - enchanted gaze!**
~~
'
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 1:48 PM UTC
Perched motionless
Gleaming among the catkins of the oak—
with toy accordions for leaves
And a heron—watching
Neck pleated
Head resting in feathery shoulders
Sharp-eyed, beak brutal
Watching—
where below
that beer can, squashed and stabbed
...And did he see her?
by the naked window
Did he see the lace that bloomed?
No—fell
like spring’s full flakes
to coat the hills in white
for an hour at best in its cool damp?
Did he see?
the way her hair lapped
the spine and blade of back?
Bent the night—so darkly
red from black
as she pulled her blouse above her head?
And did he want!
the flesh of warm yellow lamplight
the smeared press of spit and sweat!
YES!
Squash and **** that beer can!
Sculpt your loneliness!
and stick it through
with any hard implement handy!
Grind your teeth on dumb regret
and **** yourself!
You know you don’t—love her?
Be jealous of her sheets, her springs, her sunsets!
on their ways to frost and moonlit sleep
turning forsythia of day
to fuzzy falls of glitter-gray
spilling down thick hips
of the river’s dungeon banks
so steeped in heat
to the dizzy roar that follows....
Be jealous of the River!
who always goes to her
when you will not...
And if—you really loved
I mean—loved!
who you saw...
you would have seen
the tired tears—roll than linger—Years
forsake their bones
defy the need for sleep
Defy everything!
Except—
the moon’s cloister...an owl’s call
And if you had loved her
you would have made the distance!
crossed the lawn!
skipped stairs!
Fought the Night of Time!
taken her porch like a champion!
Heart pounding near—the door down!
And if you had really loved
who you had seen
I MEAN—LOVED HER!
You would have—
You would have done—
ANYTHING!
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 9:28 PM UTC
(repost)
Perched motionless
Gleaming among the catkins of the oak—
with toy accordions for leaves
And a heron—watching
Neck pleated
Head resting in feathery shoulders
Sharp-eyed, beak brutal
Watching—
where below
that beer can, squashed and stabbed
...And did he see her?
by the naked window
Did he see the lace that bloomed?
No—fell
like spring’s full flakes
to coat the hills in white
for an hour at best in its cool damp?
Did he see?
the way her hair lapped
the spine and blade of back?
Bent the night—so darkly
red from black
as she pulled her blouse above her head?
And did he want!
the flesh of warm yellow lamplight
the smeared press of spit and sweat!
YES!
Squash and **** that beer can!
Sculpt your loneliness!
and stick it through
with any hard implement handy!
Grind your teeth on dumb regret
and **** yourself!
You know you don’t—love her?
Be jealous of her sheets, her springs, her sunsets!
on their ways to frost and moonlit sleep
turning forsythia of day
to fuzzy falls of glitter-gray
spilling down thick hips
of the river’s dungeon banks
so steeped in heat
to the dizzy roar that follows....
Be jealous of the River!
who always goes to her
when you will not...
And if—you really loved
I mean—loved!
who you saw...
you would have seen
the tired tears—roll than linger—Years
forsake their bones
defy the need for sleep
Defy everything!
Except—
the moon’s cloister...an owl’s call
And if you had loved her
you would have made the distance!
crossed the lawn!
skipped stairs!
Fought the Night of Time!
taken her porch like a champion!
Heart pounding near—the door down!
And if you had really loved
who you had seen
I MEAN—LOVED HER!
You would have—
You would have done—
ANYTHING!
Jun 28, 2017
Jun 28, 2017 at 11:06 AM UTC
The leaves are coming, slowly budding,
The Aspen catkins are long past gone,
But on each willow branch buds are forming,
***** willows stand and face the dawn.
A world reborn, each day grows older,
A thousand branches each reborn,
The willows wait in pools of water,
On banks and marshes, low but full.
The barren winter is long past gone,
New life that started from the thaw,
Each branch, each tip, each growing twig,
The ***** willow cotton has come again.
The Aspen Moon has fled the world,
The Willow full and full of life,
Soon it will go as all moons do,
And the Willow Moon a lost memory.
Jun 24, 2012
Jun 24, 2012 at 2:46 AM UTC
Under the spread hazel's winter
umbrella hung with pale catkins
pulling at a black bin liner rubble
spilled, a little toad tumbles free
from under in turmoil of warty limbs.
A toad in this garden where is no pond
found a moist pocket of plastic pleats
and a larder of wood lice in the rotted
pile sits on my palm calm as a buddha
thoughtless, yellow-eyed, unidentified.
Later, returning for forgotten secateurs
he drifts down in the water *** I let in
to the ground, trailing a bubble stream,
an olive green indifferent nature god.
The lordly stars sustain his crawlspace.
Jun 4, 2011
Jun 4, 2011 at 2:12 AM UTC
Like the elms, I am bleeding
But nothing so sweet as sap
You sit perched on the branch above me
Contemplating your belated Autumn nap
Your eyes harmonize with the brown bark
And I envy you, so simple and blasé
I crave some shelter from your rain
But it's cold, and still drizzling dismay
There's a shadow falling over us
The forest has learned to be a clever thief
The light catches you smirk while I weep
Like a willow without a handkerchief
You hear applause, so take your bough
All while dawn bends and slowly breaks
My lips snap like frozen twigs as I wonder;
How can you slumber while my heart's awake?
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 3:03 PM UTC
sweet bird of budding april's pretty wing,
sat in the willow where the catkins grow,
enchanting like the river's winding flow,
small chatterbox that always loves to sing,
the blossoms kiss the sky whose wandering
finds vast crusades where fleeting warriors go,
true to their loves e'en in the bleakest snow,
or some princess who finds a sapphire ring.
enchanted lands, the bird sings in the tree,
so long forgotten once found near and far,
where streams wind yonder where the bluebirds play,
on honey branches by the windswept sea,
as if they whispered underneath a star
of princely gold the beauty of the day.
Apr 3, 2024
Apr 3, 2024 at 2:34 PM UTC
There's summer-sand
Between her teeth
When siphoning
Passion from stones.
And she tastes each
One gradually
As they bring remorse
In mem-ori-o-so,
While catkins fall
Artificially behind
Her soul.
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 6:13 PM UTC
Trees strung with Catkins.
They hang on tight, bewitching the eyes of the watcher.
The observer, who so sees them twitching in the breeze of spring.
Perhaps, they belong to the Manx cats who left their tails behind when they played.
Or perhaps they're just the tails of mischief making local kittens, their tails got snagged when out at play.
Poor *******
The woman from the florist shop stopped.
Picked one or two.
Such a perfect accompaniment too.
A few spindly twigs.
To concoct a springtime creation.
For the lords and the ladies.
Of this great nation.
(c) Livvi
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 3:56 AM UTC
We found a rock looking out over the river
And sat there until the sun went down.
Little bear, tell me our love isn’t bound
by ancient sadness, interred and bland.
Tell me that like this twilight, this brown water, this red sky,
we roll in the world’s performing heartbeat
and clasp life in our childish hands.
Look at me. Our touch is calligraphy.
And we transcribe uniqueness in each other’s skin.
We deliberate on dug out tattoos,
climbing ivy and on pruning the dead-heads,
hallucinating our springtime as scars.
We live like the reeds, the Thames willow
plunged in the pavement drinking at mud.
We turn like the catkins, the knotted branches and
ducks lined in a row. We’re tidal, in a flux
demanded by a drill sergeant moon.
This is a vision of permanence at night
and this vast imagination is an echo.
We perch upon each other,
like sparrows upon the fences of history
Roots in your dress. Your lips sowing.
Nations are being re-sketched by our pencils,
so many have died for a line in the sand.
She’s heard the screech of the ***** the robin’s call to arms
but chooses the sunrise, to roll with the seasons.
In springtime together we reap the hay, its grows again.
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 5:55 AM UTC
Catkins wave the winter goodbye
Sticky little buds rest for a while
before opening themselves to the world
next to the tea rose and chamomile.
Primroses and violets
line the hedges sparkling lime
waiitng for the lilacs and pansies
in the heat of summertime.
Blue **** and the Jenny Wren
bob excitedly across the wall
With moss in its cracks
and spiders at nightfall.
Pecking for grubs in gaps
searching the the odd meal
finding bits and bobs and
a scrap of old orange peel.
The blackbird proudly presents
her newly hatched eggs in the nest
with a whilstle to die for
in her black shiny Sunday best.
Blossom like pink sugar lies on twigs
on the Apple Tree and the old pear.
one swift blow of the north wind
and that will soon disappear.
Spring is a promise of warm weather
of sunny evenings in the deck chair
There is no other season like it
and nothing can ever compare.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 2:25 AM UTC
I am afraid of change -
it's so relative, so hard to prepare for.
I might like it better if it came less frequently,
if it waited just a day more so I could enjoy myself in the thicket of catkins.
Or gave me a notice so that I'd know it would be goodbye.
Spring comes again next year, I know this. But too fast we move on from the mourning of Winter. Slow your sunshine, pull the winds back, give me one last song of sorrow before you forget about her and move on.
Like we always do, always moving on, leaving it in the dust.
Take a breath first so I can at least let it go.
Apr 19, 2021
Apr 19, 2021 at 8:08 AM UTC
White snow of petals
heaven drifts silent through the garden
Spring maple, catkins green aglow
love potion of pollen snows
barefoot - grounded in softest newborn grass
Breathing in.....
to be one with earth and trees, planted, rooted deep
awakened from hollow sleep
hands pressing into the spirit of Spring
touching the sacred, unseen
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 8:21 PM UTC
I hear the subtle sound of heartache
calling across the quay,
young lovers spell Joni's words
with the catkins of the tree.
I feel the heavy weight of lover's wake
as we dream on through the day,
old demons used to poison me,
before you took them all away.
I taste the blood in chocolate wine
and it's sweetening my mind,
it's telling me of fortune's treat,
when good intention is combined.
I smell the human in our longing sweat
as I press into your skin,
steady as my doubts are perished,
all happiness, lived again
I see the poetry in street-lights
imitating the moon,
telling me when darkness falls,
light will follow soon.
I know there's more out there
than ever I've seen,
more than whatever I am
and whatever I've been.
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 4:05 PM UTC
Laying among the saturated soils
Amidst the dry leaves and briers
The wood around me sturdy
Tulips urgent in growth
How can everything around me be so brave
When I am not.
When I am but a tightened voice, a hushed mind, I lay still and do not have the courage to whittle my way through the frost.
Resilient and beautiful in the decay of rock and withering thorn
As these things close in about me
I could only wish the transference
Into my own doubt.
Justification is a long-spent nightmare
Wasting closely by, sinking into the earth of my skull.
Catkins and the spines of gum trees hesitate in the sky
With no breeze, and no self-fulfillment
Never searching or wincing at another open sliver of bleeding heartwood.
It's funny how the moon has always been there, perchance
As it dangles now in the evening air
Full and light like a swan breaching a blue lake.
Almost breakable, almost surreal in strength.
Things grip to life in these woods.
Under my body thousands of dances for survival.
And here I feel it the most
A yearning that is not there, was never there,
Never born into me and never settled in my marrow.
Turning upward,
I speak my truth.
I can only be so much these wires of thorns
This tumult of leaves
Until I acquiesce to the night.
Jun 5, 2016
Jun 5, 2016 at 9:51 AM UTC
Time slipped off my mind,
So did life and reality.
But as they hanged the lights,
and started planting the
green neons, I recalled time,
Just two days to the
Great Indian festival,
Where I visioned her,
With the red dress,
And the big round ear rings,
Walking the pavements with me.
The lights seemed vibrant,
The breeze smelt catkins,
And the rusty autumn leaves
filled the streets, where
we walked down with hands gripped.
Ow what beautiful a time.
But time ain't going to be the same,
My hands would soon be left free,
My heart torn apart, with blood
filling up her empty soul, As
We would face the time, with
wet eyes and a heavy voice, as
The next time, The lights
would be dimmed, the breeze,
would smell whisky, The rusty leaves,
fill my hair, Where she kissed me,
Under the same tree.....
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 3:48 PM UTC