Robert Francis Short Poems
Famous Short Robert Francis Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Robert Francis. A collection of the all-time best Robert Francis short poems
by
Robert Francis
backroad leafmold stonewall chipmunk
underbrush grapevine woodchuck shadblow
woodsmoke cowbarn honeysuckle woodpile
sawhorse bucksaw outhouse wellsweep
backdoor flagstone bulkhead buttermilk
candlestick ragrug firedog brownbread
hilltop outcrop cowbell buttercup
whetstone thunderstorm pitchfork steeplebush
gristmill millstone cornmeal waterwheel
watercress buckwheat firefly jewelweed
gravestone groundpine windbreak bedrock
weathercock snowfall starlight cockcrow
by
Robert Francis
Words of a poem should be glass
But glass so simple-subtle its shape
Is nothing but the shape of what it holds.
A glass spun for itself is empty,
Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.
Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence.
Words should be looked through, should be windows.
The best word were invisible.
The poem is the thing the poet thinks.
If the impossible were not,
And if the glass, only the glass,
Could be removed, the poem would remain.
by
Robert Francis
Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berry bush
in sun, and I am one.
Such merriment and such sobriety--
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk--
was this not always my true style?
Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds.
Can you mistake us?
To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together--for this I have abandoned
all my other lives.
by
Robert Francis
The beautiful is fair.
The just is fair.
Yet one is commonplace and one is rare,
One everywhere, one scarcely anywhere.
So fair unfair a world.
Had we the wit
To use the surplus for the deficit,
We'd make a fairer fairer world of it.
by
Robert Francis
Winter uses all the blues there are.
One shade of blue for water, one for ice,
Another blue for shadows over snow.
The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice-
Both different blues.
And hills row after row
Are colored blue according to how for.
You know the bluejay's double-blur device
Shows best when there are no green leaves to show.
And Sirius is a winterbluegreen star.
by
Robert Francis
Bull by day
And dozes by night.
Would that the bulldozer
Dozed all the time
Would that the bulldozer
Would rust in peace.
His watchword
Let not a witch live
His battle cry
Better dead than red.
Give me if you must
The bull himself
But not the bulldozer
No, not the bulldozer.
by
Robert Francis
From where I stand the sheep stand still
As stones against the stony hill.
The stones are gray
And so are they.
And both are weatherworn and round,
Leading the eye back to the ground.
Two mingled flocks -
The sheep, the rocks.
And still no sheep stirs from its place
Or lifts its Babylonian face.