"sapless" poems
White-furred hill flowers bow
Gust-bent,
Wet in April snow,
Lavender beneath their
Downy coats.
Tender soldiers of spring
Grasp wind-blown gravel steeps,
Stand to beckon brown grass,
Soft-call the life in sapless trees
To ring with green again
Against Old Bully Winter’s
Blustering.
Quaking aspens,
Earliest to leaf in yellow-green,
Curling grama grasses,
Tough food for buffalo,
Cannot boast first life each Montana spring;
Only zombie-lichens,
Rock-fast mosses
Throw off winter’s death
Before the crocus' rise.
On eastern Montana hills
No street-hemmed dandelions
Colonize in chute-dropped ranks;
No time-tamed tulips
Live on wind-round knolls.
Here, the yucca’s bayonet-sharp ******
Here, the wild onions’ scent-strong hold;
But these arrive after early chill,
Following the purple crocus on the hill.
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 8:36 AM UTC
Best and brightest, come away,
Fairer far than this fair day,
Which, like thee, to those in sorrow
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring
Through the Winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon morn
To **** February born;
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs -
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another’s mind,
While the touch of Nature’s art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
Radiant Sister of the Day
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun,
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sandhills of the sea,
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal Sun.
1.9k
in a studded wood, you river
sapless stream of spruce bark
-no ailment
-no midwife for the sediment
in a black mirror, the seer
needled to the tree-
two ravens
I know what my future holds
watch as the horse balks
white rind eyes
hopeless as stars
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 2:19 AM UTC
Spend less time...
Clinging onto whatif branches .
They’re frail & sapless.
When happiness breezes by, it can’t be contained in a bottle.
If you don’t understand the breeze,
you’ll climb desperately
tumbling from broken branches & broken spirits, only to be plopped where you started, but sorer.
Let go completely and fall, the wind will catch you,
toss you up and around
and gently set you down
on the dirt
Dec 20, 2018
Dec 20, 2018 at 8:16 PM UTC
My heart is the Atlantic
or any great body
a balance of storm and calm sea
My love is a warm breath of wind
that shakes at the bounty of your tree
My love is a root of May seed and sod
the blood of bud and Autumns bloom
My love is midnight's lamp
a light beam of noon sun
hunting for you
My love is a harvest
the heart in your hot mouth
My love is a satellite
among the constellations of the south
My love is a fire
of kissed limbs and sapless spine
the feverish red beginnings of you and I
My love is gospel truth
in its white-topaz chapel of amber and gold
My love is of Earth's perfume
and oceans song
born from beauty's ethereal mold
Oct 29, 2016
Oct 29, 2016 at 9:34 PM UTC
sun dial back the hour
cared over by petrified habit
couple clusped our gelid tumour
dare drained from our relation
sapless
Aug 11, 2022
Aug 11, 2022 at 6:33 PM UTC
An impish dweller of
sunless times, but a Guardian
of the monsoons within which
our thoughts raced as fast
as lightening did across the wet
patio tiles and those pouring black skies.
My brothers, they smelled
of grass blades,
of sun-ripened wheat.
But I smelled of barren
waterlogged dirt, sickly and twisted
with sour veins, but left flowering
a heavy rain-sodden smile.
Only now as I sulked
in years, ruminating,
fermenting,
I grew sullen.
Sapless and fruitless, I sought
the meaning of your touch and devotion.
For, I grew no roses,
sung no sweet scent,
sank spines and dried sympathies...
But you stopped
a moment,
And your cheeks
teased my petals with warmth
that rivalled any sun.
Nov 11, 2017
Nov 11, 2017 at 12:45 PM UTC
Beautiful child of the sun how can something shining with beauty and sadness
listening to people's tragedies quietly, creeping anxiety as they rant casually it's madness
I got jealous from those trickling tears I forbid they fall for others but I'm sapless
If I gave up everything will the moon shine on my empty soul and color my empty canvas?
Jan 30, 2019
Jan 30, 2019 at 8:54 AM UTC