"poplar" poems
Surveying
northern autumn afternoon
Pitcherelli, ex-marine, body-builder,
Lussier, long-haired father of three dark-skinned children
and myself, sharp-edged loner, ex-lover of a fair share of
women
are belly-laughing in the dying sun. Clouds.
The crew, in timber.
Laughing
over recent visits to marvelous cities where
we could not keep ourselves from touching the terminal buds
of numerous exotic trees
and attracting ridicule of stylish girls and tame boyfriends.
Pitcherelli before the Albany bus station
shaking hands with a red pine planted thirty years ago.
Lussier, one hand in a child's hand and the other
feeling scabrous bark of urban woody plants.
Myself among partially shaved heads and leathery aromatic
jackets
getting close to the hairy bud of an unidentified poplar or
sycamore.
People
laughed, but we laughed best
back on our mountain
under the blackening weather.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 12:53 PM UTC
Dust-covered two-lane highways
Catch the footfalls of my meanderings.
Meadowlarks and Phoebe-birds
Sing backup to my tuneless whistles.
Clouds illuminated by God-rays
Paint the sky above my head
And the Man in the Moon
Smiles as I bed neath a willow for the night.
I am a wanderer, a vagabond, a ***
The iron wrought train tracks
I secretly ride pass through the fields,
The forests, the mountains and valleys,
The cities and suburbs, the small towns too,
Home to so many who choose there to dwell.
But my home is the open countryside,
The fields of wildflowers and bushes,
The occasional oak or poplar for shelter,
With a stone for my pillow
Anywhere I wish to rest.
I am a wanderer, a vagabond, a ***
I am the outsider.
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 1:42 PM UTC
The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering;
Sit closer love: it was here I trow
I made that vow,
Swore that two lives should be like one
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—
It shall be, I said, for eternity
‘Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done;
Love’s web is spun.
Look upward where the poplar trees
Sway and sway in the summer air,
Here in the valley never a breeze
Scatters the thistledown, but there
Great winds blow fair
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
And the wave-lashed leas.
Look upward where the white gull screams,
What does it see that we do not see?
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
On some outward voyaging argosy,—
Ah! can it be
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
How sad it seems.
Sweet, there is nothing left to say
But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the ******* of May
Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
Ships tempest-tossed
Will find a harbour in some bay,
And so we may.
And there is nothing left to do
But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
I have my beauty,—you your Art,
Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
Like me and you.
7.1k
When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs,
he forgot the copperheads and the assassin...
in the dust, in the cool tombs.
And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street,
cash and collateral turned ashes...
in the dust, in the cool tombs.
Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw
in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember?...
in the dust, in the cool tombs?
Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries,
cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns...
tell me if the lovers are losers...
tell me if any get more than the lovers...
in the dust...
in the cool tombs.
6k
Dry land,
quiet land
of night's
immensity.
(Wind in the olive groves,
wind in the Sierra.)
Ancient
land
of oil lamps
and grief.
Land
of deep cisterns.
Land of death without eyes
and arrows.
(Wind on the roads.
Breeze in the poplar groves.)
Village
Upon a barren hill,
a Calvary.
Clear water
and century-old olive trees.
In the narrow streets,
men hidden under cloaks,
and on the towers
the spinning vanes.
Forever
spinning.
Oh, village lost
in the Andalucia of tears!
Dagger
The dagger
enters the haert
the way plowshares turn over
the wasteland.
No.
Do not cut into me.
No.
Like a ray of sun,
the dagger
ignites terrible
hollows.
No.
Do not cut into me.
No.
Crossroads
East wind,
a street lamp
and a dagger
in the heart.
The street
quivers like
tightly pulled
string,
like a huge, buzzing
horsefly.
Everywhere,
I see a dagger
in the heart.
Ay!
The cry leaves shadows of cypress
upon the wind.
(Leave me here, in this field,
weeping.)
The whole world's broken.
Only silence remains.
(Leave me here, in this field,
weeping).
The darkened horizon's
bitten by bonfires.
(I've told you already to leave me
here, in this field,
weeping.)
Surprise
He lay dead in the street
wit ha dagger in his chest.
Nobody knew who he was.
How the streep lamp flickered!
Mother of god,
how the street lamp
faintly flickered!
It was dawn. Nobody
could look up, wide-eyed,
into the glare.
And he lay dead in the street
with a dagger in his chest,
and nobody knew who he was.
Soleá
Wearing black mantillas,
she thinks the world is tiny
and the heart immense.
Wearing black mantillas.
She thinks that tender sighs
and cries disappear
into currents of wind.
Wearing black mantillas.
The door was left open,
and at dawn the entire sky
emptied onto her balcony.
Ay, yayayayay,
wearing black mantillas.
Cave
From the cave
come endless sobbings.
(Purple
over red.)
The gypsy
calls forth the distance.
(Tall towers
and mysterious men.)
In an unsteady voice
his eyes wander.
(Black
over red.)
And the white-washed cave
trembled in gold.
(White
over red.)
Encounter
For you and I
aren't ready
to find each other.
You... as you well know.
I loved her so much!
Follow the narrowest path.
I have
holes
in my hands
from the nails.
Can't you see how
I'm bleeding to death?
Don't look back,
go slowly,
and pray as I do
to San Cayetano
for you and I
aren't ready
to find each other.
Dawn
Bells of Cordoba
in the early morning.
Bells of Granada
at dawn.
You are felt by all the girls
who weep to the tender,
weeping Solea.
The girls
of upper Andalucia,
and of lower.
You girls of Spain,
with tiny feet
and trembling skirts,
who've filled the crossroads
with crosses.
Oh, bells of Cordoba
in the early morning,
and, oh, the bells of Granada
at dawn!
5.9k
*By no means is this my work, I’m highlighting this in celebration for Black History Month
————————————————————————-——
Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to ****
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
-Abel Meeropol
Feb 2, 2021
Feb 2, 2021 at 11:34 AM UTC
What can you say about Pennsylvania
in regard to New England except that
it is slightly less cold, and less rocky,
or rather that the rocks are different?
Redder, and gritty, and piled up here and there,
whether as glacial moraine or collapsed springhouse
is not easy to tell, so quickly
are human efforts bundled back into nature.
In fall, the trees turn yellower-
hard maple, hickory, and oak
give way to tulip poplar, black walnut,
and locust. The woods are overgrown
with wild-grape vines, and with greenbrier
spreading its low net of anxious small claws.
In warm November, the mulching forest floor
smells like a rotting animal.
A genial pulpiness, in short: the sky
is soft with haze and paper-gray
even as the sun shines, and the rain
falls soft on the shoulders of farmers
while the children keep on playing,
their heads of hair beaded like spider webs.
A deep-dyed blur softens the bleak cities
whose people palaver in prolonged vowels.
There is a secret here, some death-defying joke
the eyes, the knuckles, the bellies imply-
a suet of consolation fetched straight
from the slaughterhouse and hung out
for chickadees to peck in the lee of the spruce,
where the husks of sunflower seeds
and the peace-signs of bird feet crowd
the snow that barely masks the still-green grass.
I knew that secret once, and have forgotten.
The death-defying secret-it rises
toward me like a dog's gaze, loving
but bewildered. When winter sits cold and black
slumped between its two polluted rivers,
warmth's shadow leans close to the wall
and gets the cement to deliver a kiss.
5.4k
In the parched path
I have seen the good lizard
(one drop of crocodile)
meditating.
With his green frock-coat
of an abbot of the devil,
his correct bearing
and his stiff collar,
he has the sad air
of an old professor.
Those faded eyes
of a broken artist,
how they watch the afternoon
in dismay!
Is this, my friend,
your twilight constitutional?
Please use your cane,
you are very old, Mr. Lizard,
and the children of the village
may startle you.
What are you seeking in the path,
my near-sighted philosopher,
if the wavering phantasm
of the parched afternoon
has broken the horizon?
Are you seeking the blue alms
of the moribund heaven?
A penny of a star?
Or perhaps
you've been reading a volume
of Lamartine, and you relish
the plasteresque trills
of the birds?
(You watch the setting sun,
and your eyes shine,
oh, dragon of the frogs,
with a human radiance.
Ideas, gondolas without oars,
cross the shadowy
waters of your
burnt-out eyes.)
Have you come looking
for that lovely lady lizard,
green as the wheatfields
of May,
as the long locks
of sleeping pools,
who scorned you, and then
left you in your field?
Oh, sweet idyll, broken
among the sweet sedges!
But, live! What the devil!
I like you.
The motto 'I oppose
the serpent' triumphs
in that grand double chin
of a Christian archbishop.
Now the sun has dissolved
in the cup of the mountains,
and the flocks
cloud the roadway.
It is the hour to depart:
leave the dry path
and your meditations.
You will have time
to look at the stars
when the worms are eating you
at their leisure.
Go home to your house
by the village, of the crickets!
Good night, my friend
Mr. Lizard!
Now the field is empty,
the mountains dim,
the roadway deserted.
Only, now and again,
a cuckoo sings in the darkness
of the poplar trees.
5.1k
You say love is this, love is that:
Poplar tassels, willow tendrils
the wind and the rain comb,
****** and drip, ****** and drip—
branches drifting apart. Hagh!
Love has not even visited this country.
4k
Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands
From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk, who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
By day its voice is low and light;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep’s fall,
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor,
And seems to say, at each chamber-door,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared;
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those hours the ancient timepiece told,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
“Ah! when shall they all meet again?”
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
3.6k
Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
Strayed in a fitful fantasy,
Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly,
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.
Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold
Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun
On the burnished disk of the marigold,
Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun
When the gloom of the dark blue night is done,
And the spear of the lily is aureoled.
And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine
Burned like the ruby fire set
In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,
Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,
Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet
With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.
3.4k
So many people into soft drinks think soda is soda
It’s a general subtle to that order
However, there is a feud going on between Sprite and Coke
It may sound like a joke
You might even choke
But to Sprite they have appeal
Then there’s Coke who feel they are for real
Pull out your straws and open a bottle of Coke and Sprite
Let the soda challenge begin
The texture of Sprite in the see thru glass with its lemon and lime
The Coke having its own ingredients with assorted flavor combined
However with every pour
It is the every soda fizz that is galore
Sprite says, “They have the taste that dazzles the mind”
Well Coke responds with, “We have been around since time”
The Coke’s story centered around some Poplar Bears
Well Sprite in that instance can’t compare
Sprite is determined to have the customer obey their thirst
That’s all that matters when doing it first
Well this challenge is really hard to say
But to this poet that is ok
Sprite and Coke both have good taste
Surely I am not going to spend time and make waste
So what if Sprite is clear and Coke is dark
Both have been around and made their mark
This soda challenge is done
It was a matter in thinking soft drink fun.
Mar 18, 2014
Mar 18, 2014 at 6:47 PM UTC
What is different about your trunk?
Said the Cedar to the Ash.
It's rotten, ere forgotten,
And its branches have long gone.
What is different about your leaves?
Asked the Oak to the Holly.
They're pointed and disjointed
And their colour has gone dark.
What is different about your boughs?
Asked the Poplar to the Yew.
They're leveled and disheveled.
Do you like them? Oh I do.
The sunlight is fanned by your boughs, dear Yew,
Rain makes night seem longer on your leaves, my Holly
Your trunk may be rotten, dear Ash, but it is terribly untrue
To say that it does worse than any other.
The forest lights with sunly sprights
And I will walk among the trees
And hear the sounds and see the sights
Of a nature much more at ease.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 9:24 AM UTC
Mariana in the Moated Grange
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The **** sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary
I would that I were dead!"
And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"
The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
Oh God, that I were dead!"
3k
i.
unfiltered asiatic plaything seeks
hypoactive cradle technocrat
evicting meaningful poach,
mendacious transcripts of
past events found in his
memoryless playhouse.
poplar crowd scribbles observations
outbound punch of laughter
sighs to the scrambled, ethnic
postgrad nation.
microfiche telegram exploits
meaning to deeper courtesies
current surrendered upon
entry.
ii.
psychotropic sustenance
fizz thru ***** vein corridor
secret mission lifestyle
learning fast in enormous packs of
tiny lies.
spew logic chagrin mediated
bloodstain; cerebus twitching
outside of beingself.
iii.
heart ceases,
sacred whitepaint moans.
o infidel,
strike thrice; a chord
binding us- nasty, *****
beads bleeding rich.
cloaked bushes tasting,
hisses cured human oaks;
tapered horns that sob,
casting waved heels.
iv.
dawn fallen, only concrete
possible now. separated by
thousands of what is not,
shocks disintricate; undwindling
patriots mailing lessness,
laughter sounds fetching
offband pitch.
Feb 13, 2010
Feb 13, 2010 at 7:11 AM UTC
Between autumn's offerings
And spring's wings,
Our winter lights are everything.
Crisp sky nights string tinsel streams,
And crystal air heils winter's dreams.
Poplar trees that snowed in summer
Are treasures held in winter's slumber.
Bare branches reach in silhouette
For crowning stars where none now sit.
Here dreams of flight and fancy thrill
Shimmering eyes on a gift-wrapped hill.
Shorelines once rubbed with reeds,
Are splashed by our moonlight beads.
Knolls wrapped in wreaths of herring bone,
Like sirens call us from our home.
Stars held in place by poplar fingers
Ring our ponds like carolling singers.
There nestled by framed winter scenes,
Our winter lights glitter red and green.
These lights that through our window stream,
Bring to mind warm Christmas dreams
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC
The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade:
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his ***** their image receives.
Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew,
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.
The blackbird has fled to another retreat
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
And the scene where his melody charmed me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.
My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.
'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Short-lived as we are, our enjoyments, I see,
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.
2.3k
A brook runs through my Grandmas farm,
That used to carry gold.
My Grandpa
-Benjamin-
Did not yield the land,
To the British, who wanted it dammed.
In 1968, they took him in,
To have his appendix removed,
And Grandma never remarried.
My Aunt Alice,
Was a witch.
She flew in on broomsticks
We never saw,
But heard in the barn,
Where she parked.
She brought foreign sweets that didn’t
Crack our lips,
And told us naughty jokes.
-Oh Pope the *******
Please pass the Custard!-
We’d squeal and never tell,
And feel all grown up and,
Conspiratorial.
Grandma says she died running with
The wrong pack,
That she was knocked from the sky,
By a cross.
Later we learned,
It was a broken heart that did it, that
Grandma wouldn’t accept a,
Jewish man in the house,
So she killed herself.
Mary was dead when we got here,
Her tree is the prettiest.
It’s a large yellow poplar that
Trembles in the slightest breeze.
She was a violinist,
A frail, little thing, who
Is fading away in family photographs.
Irridescent sparrows trill,
Beautiful harmonies,
From skinny branches,
Shielded by the most delicate,
Drooping fronds.
You see, my Grandmother has three beautiful trees,
Growing in her garden,
One for Benjamin, one for Alice, one for Mary.
My grandmother used to sit under these trees.
They’re feeding off the bones she says.
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 4:26 PM UTC
i recall
with a fondness
blurred by years
the town of
my formative years
in the mountains
the heart of the table lands
dissected by a highway
it crouched, along the sides
of a shallow valley
i remember a greeness
that came from the trees
eucalypt and pine
most prominent
in my mind
and the grass that grew
lush and tall
only to be mown
each Saturday morn
i remember
churches and schools
the wide expasnses
of playing fields
and parks with
hurdygurdys and swings
i remember the pool,
that too turquoise
rectangle,
that glistened
with wet invitation
and on the highest peak
the stolid grey water tower
lording it over all
i remember rough tarmac
under my feet, running from
light pool to light pool at dusk
and frost on picket fences
in early mornings,
like delicate sugar candy
solidier braving the early sun
our house, small on a large block
with hydrangea at the front
wisteria overtaking the fenceline
an at the back door a concrete slab
painted fire engine red,
but faded to overipe watermlon pink
poplar trees garding the back
and the smell of onions
burning on the grill
hill's hoist with tennis ball
and pantyhose
standing to silent attention
and in the forground
my brothers and clans
playing football, league
with passion and
burgeoning skill
all this comes to mind
on a cold winter's day
i may of come a long way
but my heart still
ties me to there
and the memories
make the knots
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 9:05 AM UTC
Dry brown cattails fall over one another in autumn
each year crossing on the forest floor,
waiting for spring rain.
Trees line the neighborhood street but true beauty
lives in the swamp down below.
We ran through branches, slicker boots in the mud
crunching through the tall grass and fallen leaves
exploring where the deer sleep. Graceful bucks
peruse the land. I try to catch a glimpse at dusk
when the silent fog begins to rise.
Forgotten streams dart through the reeds where
shallow water is perfect for spawning Northern.
Fallen tree trunks, ominous giants are the
only way to cross the creek
with dangerous swirling currents my daddy
always warned me about.
Poplar bridge is covered with graffiti and scars
the place I got my first french kiss
while the sun sank down into the swamp’s horizon
and the sky filled with precious stars.
The childhood place you yearn for
after the years go by
When every dark thought drives the car down the road,
ending up on that bridge just to watch the creek flow.
Stillness in the middle of a city
isolated from the corruption outside
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 3:35 PM UTC
This brown buff speckled throstle of a bird sits in the higher most branches of a yet to be leafed poplar tree . . . and sings. Such a song in the April morning air it greets the day, celebrates the rising sun. Above a suburban street the bird’s song catches the reverberation of a double row of houses, their windows bouncing sonic reflections of unaccompanied melismata.
Olivier Messiaen loved this bird for its répétition égale. Walking the mountain woods around his summer home he would wonder that the grive musicienne could make so exactly repetition after repetition of a complex phrase. A proto-minimalist perhaps? The male mistle thrush appears in several ***** works but most prominently in Saint Francois d'Assis singing luminously on the clarinet.
Although this is the ungregarious male singing away on this spring morning his name carries a female designation Turdus Philomelos. Poor Philomel, whose name means one who loved song, she was a princess of Athens lusted after by King Tereus who took her to a cottage in distant woods and ***** her. Then, he cut out her tongue.
Vengeful Philomel alone in the woods, but a most resourceful and artistic young woman, she set about weaving a tapestry that told all.
*‘She set up a Tracian loom
And wove on a white fabric scarlet symbols
That told in detail what had happened to her*.’
She sent the finished piece to Tereus who promptly ordered Philomel's death and that of her sisters (one of whom he was married to). As the girls were about to be slain they were changed magically into three birds . .
Joanna Laurens play The Three Birds takes the only fragment we have of Sophocles telling of this strange tale. Laurens is both musician and linguist and the text is a marvel of strange sounds and rhythms as the sisters communicate with each other in their personal private language akin, it is said, to Jersiese, an ancient Breton dialect.
So thank you dear song thrush for this morning's wonder: a song sans pariel.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 12:52 AM UTC
"The tallest poplar I'll grow to be,"
said the young tree.
"Standing above the rest,
I'll be crowned the best.
Fortified and grown,
the forest will be mine to rule alone."
Ripped from the roots,
and cut down by a man in boots,
the dreams quickly faded.
"There's not much to make of me now"
Thought the tree,
whose complexion quickly changed
from wide-eyed to jaded.
Hauled onto a truck
Off he went.
To the lumberyard,
the young tree was sent.
Chopped to pieces,
stripped of his bark.
Our young poplar was afraid his life,
would never leave a mark.
"Some wooden crates they'll make of me"
"The peaks of the other trees I'll never see"
"I'm useless, I'm broken"
"In the forest my name will never be spoken"
The story doesn't end though,
it's only just begun.
For the life of this tree,
is one that's not yet done.
The lumber was chopped, cut, and carried.
To a town of a man named Jack,
who was poor but newly married.
"I've got little money, but I make good shoes"
"I've got to take care of my wife, I've nothing left to lose"
"I'll open a store, and become a cobbler"
"And with the money I make, I'll buy my family something proper."
So Jack took his life savings.
And off he went, to open a store,
To make enough money to pay the rent.
Our poplar was still together,
chopped into many pieces.
Next to some hardware supplies,
and a vendor selling fleeces.
"I'll take that lumber, it'll do the job."
"Just take my money, and I'll be along"
Years passed by as Jack labored hard.
A few kids came along, a house, and a fenced in yard.
One day a special man came to town.
Not the type of man that you see every day,
for this man wore a royal crown.
"Wooden clogs I need for my feet"
"To keep them dry as I walk along the damp street"
A chance to make shoes for a king,
this was enough to make Jack sing.
He looked through his supplies,
they weren't enough.
To build shoes fit for a king,
would be quite tough.
"I have just the wood, "
he thought to himself.
"From when I first built my shop,
there is some left on the top shelf.
So he took the remaining scraps,
and he made new shoes.
Shoes for royalty,
clogs fit for a man more special than me.
And now our poplar finally got his chance.
To join in the royal dance.
And on the king's feet he stays.
Helping him rule the land for the rest of his days.
So, if you find yourself cut down before you grow.
Just remember, and make sure you know.
Your chance will come, sooner or later.
To become a part of something greater.
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 7:49 PM UTC
When sleep eludes me at night
And my mind floats aimless
Like a sail boat idle on the sea
When on my bed I lie staring vacant
At the pale moon that gleams,
A medley of sounds falls in my ears
I hear the chirp of cicadas, the screech of bats
The hooting of owls, the flutter of moths
The staccato notes of the crickets
And the shrill sonorous music of grass hoppers
Among these and the silent music of the stars
The one sound that delights me most
Is the sound of the whistling Thrush
Her loud song cuts through the air
And mingles with the soft hush of leaves
Hidden in the blanket of darkness
I am not privileged to see this beryl bird
To me, a Goddess of enchantment n’ magic
Sometimes like a sweet secret
She emerges from the depth of a ravine
Sometimes she hides in the leafy coverage
Of a nearby poplar tree
Always she starts with a hesitant whistle
As though rehearsing her own art
However gaining confidence
And happy over her trial attempt
She soon bursts forth into 'full throated' song
Creating such sweet vibes of warm feeling
And producing in me an instant healing
Nay, she sets my soul on fire
And swallows me whole
Creating in me an eternal longing
To hear her pour out that celestial melody
Sitting in some far fringe of Heaven
To make me lose myself within myself
And slosh my soul in mad ecstasy!
Oct 24, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 at 7:17 AM UTC
If you had come away with me
into another state
we had been quiet together.
But there the sun coming up
out of the nothing beyond the lake was
too low in the sky,
there was too great a pushing
against him,
too much of sumac buds, pink
in the head
with the clear gum upon them,
too many opening hearts of lilac leaves,
too many, too many swollen
limp poplar tassels on the
bare branches!
It was too strong in the air.
I had no rest against that
springtime!
The pounding of the hoofs on the
raw sods
stayed with me half through the night.
I awoke smiling but tired.
1.9k