Best Sundials Poems
Swiftly
On a rainbow
Rode the moonlight
Surfing on the river’s drifting leaves
Afloat upon the hopes
Of spinning dandelions
Creeping through the gray
Of tombstone chill
Shadowing the sundials darker side.
Mingling amid the stoic lovers
Teasing the silent Owl’s sight
Haunting the silhouettes of cities
This forever artist paints its endless night
I've spent sundials of time feeding ghosts,
teaspoons of fear
dollops of regret
pecks of what ifs.
Just to keep them pacified
'til I could grow some balls and climb
the cold cliffs of courage.
but the truth is...
I'll never climb to higher realms
-don't have the gift.
though it took some time
I've accepted all of it.
I'm a creature born of the ground
made my nest in the good earth
I don't breathe stars
but I do inhale dirt...
I've grown up(somewhat) and tossed the ghosts
into a pit called self-forgiveness.
I still feed them scraps from time to time
but they'll never get what they desire,
the main dish with all the trimmings
silver-wonderful -shimmering.
Tracking time has changed throughout the years
Improving how hours, minutes, seconds appear
Sundials, hourglasses, pendulums and more
Wall, wrist, mantle, waterproof - clocks galore
There is a certain beauty to time hanging from a chain
A charm of steady ticking from a wound-up spring
Some families hand down diamonds, silver, or lockets
Heirlooms that include timepieces in pockets
Traditionally these events are solemn occasions
Like weddings, high school or college graduations
Grandfathers will take sons or grandsons aside
To privately bequeath his pocket watch with pride
He will slowly raise the timepiece to his ear
Pausing to listen to the ticking gears
Dangling the chain he clicks cover to open
Reverently holding the beloved token
Peering into the crystal face with serious affects
Both mentally count the second hand’s ticks
With slight nod of head grandfather might relay
Special words of wisdom in his own way
I remember with fondness my own ceremony
Granddad’s advice more valuable than money
“The thing about time that will help you
Is be where you are whatever you do”
Thanking my Granddad we shook hands
In hindsight I know I did not fully understand
Years swiftly passed with many tick tocks
Today I give my Grandson Granddad’s pocket watch
Written 1-17-2016
Favorite Contest
By Casares Nance
Third Place
Prompt: Sundial
Stone keeper
of time so frail,
Gazes over gardens,
Poisoned
by pretentious people
Longing to lengthen living.
Time trickling away,
The truth shall stay.
Superior shrine of ages
Shines,
Preserved
past periods
when legends had long lost life.
Casting contorted shadows from its path,
The renewed sun shall laugh; last.
Beings;
bemused, gather, bustle
past, ignoring the Supreme Instrument
that guides us through;
The mysteries of an instance,
Telling the truth of transience.
This monument of mortality
Stands to send shivers up spines,
To implant the silhouette in our minds.
As sparkling sunsets cast the
Longest shadows,
we are momentarily blinded
by a majestic marvel.
Until, fading in regenerative glory,
It depicts a darker dream
a premonition…
Throwing hindsight gloom on the
Everlasting reminders,
Etched onto the graves of all who forget;
Memento Mori
Be mindful of death
Memento Mori
Remember that you are mortal
Memento Mori
Remember that you will die.
Sundials, in ancient times, were placed on graves with the words "memento mori" to
symbolise time running out for mortals.
"supreme instrument" refers to the name of a sundial in India.
TIME
passes
timepieces
sundials, water clocks
known relics of past time
timers supplant the hourglass
“I-phones put the wristwatch on hold.”
revised June 21, 2014, Spring Equinox.
Sunlit curly blond hair, icy blue eyes
Horse shoe crabs, sundials, cloudless skies
Rolling Stones, Dean Koontz and Mathematics
treasure hunting, pizza nights, schematics
fossils, meteors, tulips, strawberries
complex creation physics and theories
Sea breezes, ponies, quiet dreams
Plotting and planning your life schemes
Memories linked to the songs you hum
Trapped in your heart to beat like a drum
Chatting fingers, friends, long wavy hair
Sharing time and space with those who care
Mountain drives, lakes, snowless nights, roaming hands
Your mind and your world constantly expands
The hopes and dreams that you still wish
A boyish dork some call bookish
Midnight loving, long pillow talks
James Bond watching, languorous walks
Tim Tams, wine and fire light
Eyes that gleam as souls ignite
Whisper white sands shifting beneath your feet
You live your life to a different beat
Bonsai trees, stargazing and jars of treasures
just some of your many intriguing pleasures
Surfer boy who daydreams but loves me true
The gift is the joy in you simply being You
It is ceaseless and silent and governs all—
Everything on earth and what is in space.
It orders the seasons and leaves that fall
And it etches furrows on the human face.
Of what occurs in its domain it is aloof,
Though masses in a disaster meet death.
It is ever with us, constant change is proof.
But we cannot alter it, even for one breath.
We have made ways to count its advance
Inventing clocks, and sundials, and watches.
They help us gauge the end of life’s dance
Marking mortality in time-driven swatches.
I only tell of sunny hours ...
Although dark shadows cast their gloom.
My prototype in ancient times
Stood guard outside a Pharaoh's tomb.
*
From Egypt's Valley of the Kings
To dreaming spires of Oxford town,
My heritage of solar time
From east to west has earned renown.
I only tell of pleasant times
Although dark moments leave their trace,
But I prefer to spread the light
And show the world a sunny face.
13.02.19
Sundial Wisdom Poetry Contest : sponsored by Julia Ward
*note: A sundial dating to the 13th century B.C. and considered one of the oldest Egyptian sundials, was discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, the burial place of rulers from Egypt's New Kingdom period (around 1550 B.C. to 1070 B.C.).
* various sundials dot the university town of Oxford, the most famous of which can be found in Corpus Christi College.
Obscured sundials lie
Our garden desecrated
Stray towards calm waters
Endless purple flowers
and salt pools like polished mirrors
give color to the desert
and reflect the clear blue sky---
disguising with their beauty
the poor soil and salinity
of wastelands inhospitable,
inarable and dry.
Wrapped in a serape,
and sipping chocolate´,
I gaze up into the universe above me,
musing in soliloquy
on Him who formed the galaxies,
and thinking of eternity,
while hoping in His sympathy---
that He has formed a soul somewhere to love me.
Oh, Chile,
your beauty, charm and mystery allure me:
Wild as the desert breeze,
rugged as the heaving seas---
la alma solitaria
su eco puede eschuchar
y encuentra su lugar
dentro de ti.
Vine rows gently rustle
in the sunlight warm and gentle
as carmenere fills glasses
and companions wine and dine.
Blue mountains, dusted white with snow,
uniting sky with earth below,
cast shadow on the living
like sundials of the time.
And the rainbow-colored buildings
are contrasted with my feelings
as I walk the narrow avenues
unnoticed and alone,
contemplating freedom's price---
a wanderer in paradise---
whose travels, like the tracks of tears,
have marked the passage of the years
but led me to no comfort, home
or friendship but my own.
Oh, Chile,
your beauty, charm and mystery allure me:
Wild as the desert breeze,
rugged as the heaving seas---
la alma solitaria
su eco puede eschuchar
y encuentra su lugar
dentro de ti.
Oh, Chile,
your beauty, charm and mystery allure me:
Wild as the desert breeze,
rugged as the heaving seas---
la alma solitaria
su eco puede eschuchar
y encuentra su lugar
dentro de ti.
rain drops due cause the dew thickens
in the morn light barely flicking, misting
crickets stop in thickets and listen
stillness of the moment sundials ticking
presence of the motion constantly spoken
loads of odes a la mode left open
soaked in a coat my hope approaching
light broke I awoke and eloped with odin
my lips sealed no promises broken
mind in a frenzy, excited for devoting
more meaning in the fire, desire is stoking
lines that humble me, released emotions
spiritual language, balanced ascending
challenge amending, talented bending
of words I've heard or purged for an ending
my muse eludes to conclude I'm attending
© 2010 (Jim Sularz)
A morning meadow - tall, red-yellow speckled,
now, humbled low by the wind.
Conifer sundials – mirrored shadows, slowly stretching, dancing, and then diminishing - along blurred edges of a lush, flowing sea.
Feathered, high flying eagles soar, circling small and wide, against a blue, white pillowed sky.
… a crow caws.
Nuzzled prairie dogs, with tethered tails, scamper for cover,
for danger spirals, just above.
Harvester ants marching in tiny zigzagged columns,
tunnel an ever deepened colony -
twisting around creviced rocks and roots.
Lightning fast gragonflies – thin tinsel winged airships,
darting, spinning, some kissing.
And white petite wild-flowers,
bobbing from honey bees, stand quivering.
Multi-colored butterflies flutter, undecided,
and brown-helmeted grasshoppers oddly peer -
like praying mantises, eager to leap.
Chirping sparrows, with cocked tails,
sand-bath in a warm, thirsty, summer sun.
And cat-tails, bursting, pierce through a sparsely wooded island.
A distant thunder-clap, and crawling, flat, anvil-headed clouds -
slide down majestic, snow-capped mountaintops,
marking the hour, like clockwork, this time of year.
Dusk comes, bathed in a warm, orange-amber hue,
waxing and waning with a melting sun.
A red fox stirs, finding at twilight’s gate, fresh promising scents, for her young.
And black masked raccoons steal away, through soft, cool moonlit grasses –
in a hushed, clown-like parade . . .
As I dwell in this sanctuary of place and spirit,
beneath an infinite, star-painted canopy.
I know with certainty - of mind, heart and soul,
that when God’s rainbow palette had hardened and dried -
All were - Forever One.
** Watching Time **
From all analog to any
Digitally shown markings
Of humanity’s invented
Way to watch over Light
— passing or coming —
Time…
In less than a breath,
So, so many ways our anxious
Noting of hours may be halted:
By accidents or by
The Will of Heaven!
Remember ever seelng those once
“Must-be-shown” to the garden’s
visitors? — Those unique,
Stone, short, column-standing
Sundials, marking the hours
With shadow and sunbeams
Since 1500 B.C.E., which have
Long been overgrown — all
Caught up in ever-ongoing
Miles of shade-overwhelmed, leaf-
Overhanging trees, and, too,
From climate affected heat
And rain…The gray, raining
Clouds so thick and towering
On high with the rising
Moisture of all humanity’s
Tears.
Then there will always be
The remaining, need-to-know
Few, who for medical or
Technical or religious
Or any other practical or
Curious reson, will try to
Fix their Heaven-warned
Clocks, and to finally give up
…Calculating to guess-estimate
By motions of the sun, the
Moon or the constellions; by
The ebb and flow of tides
Until, finally, in the far
Places, when necessary, to
Pen lines on paper, or
Like (we may suppose) our
Earliest ancestors, resort to
Notching strokes on sticks: to
Keep track of all the transient
Things that can’t be fixed, or
Hidden…Finally, quitting numbers
To throw it all off to Magic
With all the other unexplained
Wonders there aren’t any ideas
For, and at last figure up all
Those anxious guesses about the
Hour of the End-of-Time by the
Repeticious and exhausting
Counting of fingers and toes.
———————————————————————————————————-
(c) sally young eslinger 6/8-7/10/2023
She sells suicide in the mirror i see
by the seashore dark lady
how i adore her
arch angel say it if you want
that whore its allright
she sells herself black magic
by twelve
arms open wide laugh
and i know i got a knew flame
im gonna buy a brand new dance
the most amazing show on earth
dark angel if you will
because she sells suicide from new orleans
suicide from down below something i been missing
all the things she said
something special
perfume i wont take to kindly to
she sells sundials and daisie
bad scratches in seriuous ways
I'll run
and her thoughts make me crazy
she sells jokes and smiles
make it all worth the while
and the gun was in my hand
lend me my light liar liar liar
and ask the page through the tinted glass
has love brought me to a higher place
does she realy truly
surely she does
she sells suicide in a darkened room
even to the saddest of us clowns
the ones that get down and pray
the ones that care to no longer to save the day
wont turna card up anymore
when all the merry men clapped
have company they shouldnt have
gypsie music
begging us once to marry them
im a mistake in the past
the brew was gone
Liar liar
string our dreams along
and im coming clean to gypsie music
Im thinking ill be alright and wheres my reason
till we have heaven in sight
say it if you choose
she sells suicide everyday
this im sure
she sells suicide
i want some more
to know more of myself
suicide for the rich
the down beat the trodden
the happy and the poor
very close to you
I'll find it in you
and secretly true
the queen and the three
i wish you could have seen my face
lend thee thy light
she sells it by the truck full
she sells it to bangkok
while you pray
and yore wont take to kindly to it
she sells suicide
to forgotten faces
laughing and dancing
like the sound of my voice
i heard it was true
liar liar liar
the black two eyed jack
I'll fight
but never thought id see it like this before
Pendulums swing,
presences in moments tick
rhythms persevere
reverberating emotions tingle
soul pressure surges
sundials dance in resonance to sunrise
a captain's badge drops
memories unfurl as tomorrow glides on fragments of the present
while today remains clouded in visions of tomorrow
soaring with the wind in whistles and swerves,
lingering in numbered days,
responding in time signature meant to be told as reality deja vus discern
all will be seen and read as the end approaches diminuendo,
the music will voice and undo in liberty
and surrendering skies sing songs of victory
in time's inevitable signature...