"lichened" poems
This forest shares its secrets with the wind,
Its whispered acorns; deeply buried prayers.
Where ferns glow green and stretch out spongy limbs,
And lichened rocks are holy altar stairs.
Black beetles genuflect and flash their shells.
Moth’s tattered wings reach out to supplicate.
The breath within the soil gently swells,
And lifts up cantillations to the day.
A tree trunk lays itself in feathered moss,
While rings of ivy lash it to the ground.
The ancient Oak knew nothing of it’s loss,
And wears the vines as Hera wears her crown.
I knew all this when I was still a child,
When God still showed His nature in the wild.
Oct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012 at 2:33 PM UTC
Unknown and known
Poetic terms that you
Delicately paint across
The screen
Unreal and real
Canvas 's
Flickering
Abundance
Is like n *****
Is a lovely simile
Is a metaphor for a fantastic
venture
Is a statement
Of falling in love
With your words
With your work
With the You
Wonderfully
Genuine
Foolishly
Aetheral and crystalized
Like
Snowflakes through air
Briefly temporal, anchored
On the misty treetops of my
Unreasonable reason
Slightly
Holding on those
Unleaved, yet loving
Widspread branches
To
Waver and yeald...within
Blizzards of swirling
Emotions
~~
Both
Burning
Unstoppable
Yearning
~~~
Of my and thine mind
~~~~
Growing from souls
Spontaneously, naturally,
Without a question!?
Rays of our universal consciousness
Gently melt snowflakes into the water
That sleeps and slides awaken slipping
Downwards the lichened tree barks toward The ground, appointing and connecting
North, South, East and West
Where they rejoice the seasonal
Foundation of fastbinding spins
between
:;'".,,;;
Thine and mine
Tiny dot particles asking eachother
Inviting the most beautiful
To appear
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 11:24 AM UTC
Evelina’s fence of lichened cedar
slouches at the wetland border
her willows wildly weep
on silken cattail shoulders
the neighbors say she’s crazy
snidely call her Javelina
she's sane as any one of them
this brilliant winter morning
Evelina speaks of weather and dogs
hers, a Chihuahua named Fawn
mine, a Frenchie named Sparky
the weather, typically Northwest
in parting, sculpted driftwood
spiraling tornadic rings gifted
between palms roughly
worn by time and sea
Evelina’s yard is thick with trees
the neighbors want cut down
for now, she’s doing all she can
just holding swampy ground
each morning wakes triumphant
to beachcomb on the shore
pockets weighed with treasure
this moment, nothing more
Jan 17, 2017
Jan 17, 2017 at 9:58 AM UTC
On the upward path
Low cloud
Sinks past
Our careful steps
Leaving a pale fire
In the mist-feathered sky
‘one opal cloudlet
in an oval form’
The cleft-next ‘gate
Mossed lichened
Two steps
To the plateau
Where we watch
Crows flocking
Up and beyond
Any possible algorithm
A Zen stone
Green-cloaked
Prays in the keen wind
I look back
To your settled shape
Blue-buffed
Yellow-gloved
In a snowed field
Across
The immediate view
Dry-stoned waves
Dip and rise
The sun’s paintbox
Selects colours for
A crouched hill
Distant
Having climbed over
The plantation wall
Your freckled face
pale with the touch
Of cold fingers
In the damp silence
Listening to each other breathe
The mist returns
Sep 29, 2012
Sep 29, 2012 at 3:02 AM UTC
Encounter shellac where the live oak could balk
in sways of stomata to spare shadow from earth
swaying like Eve in Persephone’s wake
should a frenzy of madrigals
cluster to feast
where her prodigal snake once faced sentience.
A tree grows in reaches long since she passed
fragrant lacking tulips within a thicket of moss.
Now my soul skirts the path of Icarus
to bathe in the cerulean beyond reflection
your eyes have consumed from the sky
like a beast coaxing the blessings of the wind.
I was placed here for you.
A voice lichened in cypress knees carries
with the caress of her woods
pressing me forward
into the dew and new ground
enriched with instinct into the roots of palmettos
shielding the glade of tomorrow
still ripe with blackberries
where she whispers with thistles.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 2:26 AM UTC
So closely, too long have I walked with Death,
Nothing shall ever look the same again;
Flaunting in face his tainted, foul breath,
Stabbing me anew with tears of sharp pain.
How many years ago it seems to be!
When I mused beneath noontime's honeyed rays
Dappling ev'ry lichened woodland tree,
Whilst mocking and beckoning brighter days.
May's gentle, sweet breath of pine-scented night
Redolent with newly mown meadow hay
Stifles song and dulls each thrill of delight,
Reminding sweeter yet shall pass away.
So closely, too long have I walked in dread,
Crippled by pain within agonized breast;
Too long lingered in the land of the dead
Whilst only parting shall mock my request.
The scythe of the grim reaper draws e'er near,
Terrorizing each sleepless night and day,
Making game of wildest nightmare and fear
As a gleeful child delights at his play.
~Hilda~
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 6:26 PM UTC
Today is a day,
for nostalgia;
For the reaper to finally and momentarily be
beaten.
Even in all of his infinite wisdom,
in which the past becomes just a laugh,
and the lurid poisons of our love,
have the shallow touch of a feather.
When the snow begins,
we relive all those duldroms,
all those meaningless nothings
seemingly so meaningful and wrong,
long ago.
We retell our stories,
silently,
to ourselves,
feeling less bitter as the words
litter our minds,
powdering the pain,
and covering with joy,
our sorrow.
In dementia,
they say,
our love goes stronger every day.
Grows newer
in old ways.
I hope to be like you someday.
Today,
we will beat the bitter sandpaper of tomorrow,
that which rubs away our definition with every brutal blow,
with the soft tapping of our fingers
against our skulls.
Puzzling over what made us beautiful and purposeful,
instead of what crowds against us like a box,
instead of what destroys us like a skipping cd,
instead of what sings against our mind like a harpy
with it's constant verses of regretfulness
that grow stronger with every fatal flaw
we rehash in ourselves.
once more,
you will be as beautiful to me today,
as that swirling suffocation.
I watch you fall outside my window,
covering each and every lichened rock,
in a linen of newness.
In silence,
I stop listening for the return of your love,
and instead marvel in the present satisfaction,
that you are,
and were.
I revel in your presentness,
in the swiftness of your presentation.
In the delicacy of your touch,
and the humility you drive me too,
as you take me too my knees with
each
quiet
drop.
And yes,
you will melt.
And yes,
I will remember.
And yes,
I will see the snow melt,
driven away by the erosion of the sun.
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 7:10 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
What I Found While Cleaning a Faeries’ Well
Perhaps it was because I cleared the vines
The ancient vines, with tools of iron, of steel
And traced the circles of the well’s lost lines
With my unhallowed hands, by touch and by feel
Or that I wore my boots, or forgot my prayers
To the White Lady said to haunt this place
Or whistled secular songs, careless airs
Until the dusk, when I came face-to-face…
I have lived to tell of this wildest of adventures
I found on the lichened stone – a set of dentures
Nov 19, 2020
Nov 19, 2020 at 9:12 AM UTC
A whittled rose in the mist of June
An old spruce guitar out of tune
A broken lichened picket gate
A dusty mail box - too late
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 8:23 AM UTC
The hill
beckons
willing feet,
take firm steps
on steep slopes.
Rising quickly,
a first view.
Thereafter,
and steeper still,
rocks replace grass,
boots slide on lichened stone.
As mist falls
a sudden chill.
Silence.
Sightless of distance
each 'summit' brings
yet one more.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 1:48 AM UTC
oh, they come in the troves of a’thousands
yes, the gulls overhead come in troves
watching the water as they appear,
and take every saltwater fish from the sea
this is the season of music a'plenty
but plenties tend to appear and recede...
tales from a bench by the fire
in a home so lichened,
recently it sprouted a tree on the roof
this home was constructed
a thou-sand years,
before any knowledge of myself was conceived.
so take every fish from every sea
and take every stock of red beeberries
here i will rest and refill my glass
as the tree on the roof will observe life and death,
these seasons of cold will come and then pass.
Nov 18, 2019
Nov 18, 2019 at 4:01 PM UTC
Off on one side in my head. Only
Way to say it. Christmas does it to me
Every time.
I'm dangerous now. Squad don't know
But Inside hardly soldier anymore.
Standing orders, tactics, kit and all
That stuff replaced by unmilitary
Wondering at the sky,
Or the beauty of the brackets of the forward sight
That frame the blade, the 'I': the part of me
That is my target every time I fire.
Still, my private holiday tomorrow: I will
Close eyes on blinding sand
And wake in chilly splendour of
A Northern wood with bracken underfoot,
And streams and lichened rocks,
And lowering clouds, a scattering of birds across the wind,
And peace.
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 8:02 AM UTC
Morning.
My window open
the new days view
in front of me
So bright the birch,
fresh burnished by the sun
standing in front of
the lichened wall.
the hanging bird feeder,
full of grains,
waits for the birds that
rarely come.
the cats
who reign here
have exiled or
killed them all
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 6:10 PM UTC
Rock in stream
Somewhat eroded
Beneath
Chipped and battered
Mossy and lichened
Rock in stream
But enduring yet
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 2:06 AM UTC
Screaming , "What?"
. . . does no good .
Turn your hands inside out . . . you , the magician
tricked me out .
A childhood playground
(swinging up and over the the bar) . . . a distance too far to accomplish . . . come toppling down bar to ground . . .
So I lofted my dreams higher than possible , improvable saith the powers that be .
I turn over in my grave before I've been buried or depositioned
Yes I've sinned over and over and made my Jerusalem look like Heaven
Let no stone remain on top of another
Let no word
persuade another
unless it be
the truth
I leave the words
to be the pale wind combing through the limbs of bare trees lichened in hopeless desparation
. . . consummatum est .
Jan 7, 2025
Jan 7, 2025 at 7:46 PM UTC
eddys
sound eddies around my ears
radio sound
pounding hammer sound
the water of two days ago
eddies in ghostly markings left in the sand
energy eddies around me
camellias of all colors and styles eddy through pine trees
their dead blossoms eddy
amidst the detritus of pine needles and dry branches
the talk of friends, their voices full of wonder,
eddies through the tree branches that reach into the blue
flowing in, inundating, eddyfying
creeping into the lowest spaces
crawling over weirs into emotional wells
churning, then eddying
as the ebb begins dragging everything loose with it
everything unnecessary with it
pulling the teeth out of the mouth of God,
to keep,
to treasure
to remember the eddys
each in turn.
c. Roberta Compton Rainwater, 1998-2009/2017
streams
a dry leaf dances in the stream as it eddies around the stones,
crosses the hilltops, careens off of trees immersed in it.
the stream moves fast and cold after the rain.
I hear it all around me,
the prayersong it composes and decomposes,
recycles and rebirths every moment. It delights
in the light, moves the light across lichened stones,
smoothes it through my hair and across my face.
everything moves with this stream;
there is dance, here is dance,
yonder is dance.
dance and song reverberate
in my heart
as I sit on the rocks in the midst of the stream.
it reaches up and over me, whelming some of me,
cleaning most of me.
above the valley, I am cleaned and Loved into Being.
c. Roberta Compton Rainwater, 2004-2009/2017
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 5:19 PM UTC
The cracked and umber, cyan, lichened bark,
its wintry deprivation echoes stark
impoverishment: the denizens live their
neglected, leafless lives, in Highgate Park.
The winter icy earth’s, anaemic fare,
enough for hungry birds and squirrels, there
is insufficient food for bigger beasts,
who huddle, famished, in the frosty air.
A grassland’s faded, green, uncut, now greets
all walkers down its dwindled concrete streets,
replacement for old honeyed flags: new flaws
displacing golden pathways, lined with seats.
The squirrel, hungry in the cold still gnaws
her nuts: she holds the winter food in claws,
and quickly looks for danger, then a pause,
and runs, avoiding snapping canine jaws
Dec 8, 2024
Dec 8, 2024 at 11:02 AM UTC
Awkwardly leaning forward, sloping over damp, brown earth,
stands a young boy’s chiselled memory.
Above rooks caw incessantly in budding branches,
yet little ever grew beneath the great yew’s venerable shadow.
Here beside cold, forgotten, lichened stones,
thin pale weeds strain for scarce obtainable light.
Small insects forage through fallen leaf litter
whilst passing squirrels move swiftly on, sniffing decay.
Lettering barely legible, a long-dead stonemason’s art
serves only now as a brief refuge for tiny red mites;
and yet for those with eyes to see a tragic tale is here,
a tale two hundred years in the telling.
“Hic Iacet Poor Benjamin,
who did Fall into some Awful Vat
within his Father’s Manufactory,
whereby he Perished,
Scalded like a Cat.
No more the Trees of Youth he’ll Climb,
for Ten Short Years was all his Time.”
Awkwardly leaning forward, sloping over damp, brown earth,
stands a young boy’s chiselled memory.
Above rooks caw incessantly in budding branches,
yet little ever grew beneath the great yew’s venerable shadow.
Jan 23, 2018
Jan 23, 2018 at 4:58 AM UTC