Best Upland Poems
Thy Silent Thoughts
So beautiful are thy silent thoughts
I would watch thine eyes all day.
There is wonder in them, as the sun's first flash
Through tumult of ocean spray;
In them the shining calm of upland pools
Mirrors the glory round,
And their shadows are the shadows of sweet flowers
Upon the summer ground.
So beautiful are thy silent thoughts
I would watch thine eyes all day;
More beauteous in their silence than the stars,
Than the silent stars, are they.
R. J. Lindley,
November 9th, 1973
From a wheatfield's tapestry
I embrace again my childlike wanderings...
a time I deeply remember
when I played without restraint...
our murmurs still squeaking with every
rhythm of past rougish pleasures:
Swooping into a time tunnel
and chasing late summer leaves;
I am still in awe of duskfall's wild hunts...
those bouncy trails of recklessness
mirroring my youth's enthusiasm.
How we fought gothic pirates untold
across a tousled upland,
then down again through muddy creeks
and grass alike, slingshots whacking
the likes of Captain Hook;
As four gang mates of the Lost Boys roar
'The Pan is with us', and Tiger Lily too;
embarking yet on another episode
till my pals and I invade a shipwreck trap.
~
It is late September again...I reminisce
about this raucous ritual of wild carousals
where I would throw fear to the winds,
where my soul dares the invincible...
my imaginary friends and I walking on air,
designing unbridled fancy against real time:
My dream-like squad is somehow gone
lost in the slings of innocence...
that age of pubescence can be cruel, rude
that treacherous moment when
our wheatfield grows old with me...
Now I gently sob and smile...and yet,
that tableu of shimmering gaiety
still enriches my inner child--
with untamed, Pan- like curiosity.
HAIKU & TWO SENRYU
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
white sky... low the clouds
winter... stuck in a drift again
spring... where are you...
~~~
the bobbin dipper flies
below our secret rivers
spring... summer delight
~~~
ring ouzel... moorland
high craggy tors... upland moors
birding adventure
~~~
the avocet
fenland treasure... coastal dream
no spade required
~~~
harbinger of spring
declining population
drives birders cuckoo
~~~
be proud... sing aloud
needs no invitation
jenny wren is spring...
~~~
hedgerows... tinkling bells
charms of goldfinches rejoice
inviting springtime
~~~
a flash... gone... dived
a kingfisher fishing
the river ripples
~~~
look high to the sky
skylarks sing a challenge
give us back our land
~~~
hope... no... it must be
put nature on a rostrum
give back her freedom
~~~
look... oceans waves
on shores display their wisdom
ere we could read it
~~~
rock pools... origins
with good intent life explodes
evolution... real
~~~
our fate in our hands
as is... we will all perish
give nature a chance
~~~
A SENRYU
or
TWO
~~~~~~
no known foibles
maybe a spring twitcher
Maureen McGreavy
Jan Allison
a moral supporter
worth her words
Sympathy
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
Why Do I Write?
You ask me why I sing?
You ask me why I write?
You ask me why I bleed?
What choice have I besides?
I long to fly, to run away
To some safe haven just to play
To see the light of blessed day
And give my longing heart full sway
I want to grasp the star and moon
And live my life; t'will end too soon
And kiss the clouds up in the sky
But here am I, what choice have I?
Why do I sing?
Why do I cry?
Why write of pain
No lullaby?
What choice have I?
I want with zeal to be adored
And I want Fame there at my door
I want IT ALL and so much more
Tell me, is anything for sure?
Why so I beat my wing?
I was born to soar…
Eileen Manassian Ghali
TIME AND PLACE
Spring is found in the Lowland valleys with gowan-filled braes of Scotland
When the early-reaching flowers bloom in cool freshness, and
The air is bracing and always new-washed-glass clean -
With the Ochils in the background green,
Willing us, begging us -- Come to the heather hills, please !
Around Ben Lomond, they perfume the breeze
With memories of Bruce and Wallace
And feel young in our face.
Summer is a thousand-mile southbound road-trip heading
To Yellowstone through Montana and Wyoming,
With 104F degree air gushing in the vent,
And dinner in the Angel Inn, where we went
For a chicken smorgasbord snack
And a cool six pack.
Autumn is a Saskatchewan garden with leaves singing,
Tenacious against a hissing wind; and clinging
Above the grass, feeling the ice-chilled bite,
Anticipating a coming gown of white.
Winter is cold with lots of snow:
Moscow.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20 August 2014
Notes:
Gowan = small daisy-like flower
Brae = riverbank
Ochils = Ochil Hills, a lovely upland part of the Forth Valley
Bruce and Wallace = famous Scots heroes in history
Angel Inn is near Casper, WY
Moscow - capital of Russia
There was a very old giant lumberjack of England,
who was invited to dinner at a wood-house upland,
but the chimney was a wee bit low,
and the doorway came up to his toe,
he cut down the house and they dined on bare land.
Ah Gabriel!
How hard a task was laid on you,
how hard the trust,
how hard
to travel through
the empty miles of space
unto a cloistered girl
who knew no man,
to startle her
and race her heart
past fear,
and then announce
strange words --
that she would bear a son of destiny
who would be named
as Yahweh's chosen one.
Was all the gospeling
the holy one commanded you to speak
some comfort to her then?
Or did her face grow white
as stone?
And did her knees collapse
with all the gloried weight of you?
Were you to her
a hollow wind,
within the tensing air
a shadow blurred,
a light askance
just there
beyond the corner of her eye,
an echo of a voice beyond the upland hills?
Or did she know you then for what you are,
God's able bodied one,
God's might,
and look you eye in eye,
and calmly kneel
in smiling awe,
amazed at all the golden splendor
in your wings and wake,
with gentle handmaid's reverence
and, grace inflamed,
said yes,
hands crossed
along her heart,
her belly swelling quick with majesty,
reducing you to tears?
Autumnal Light.
Softly they walk on a day in October the old man
and sunlight amongst ageless olive trees planted
when his great grandfather was young.
On the track there is mark of hooves from flocks
of sheep that walk here daily on their way home
after grazing on the upland.
Bits of fleece on thorny bushes, black pellets
and the pungent aroma of the wooly backed
still lingers…
He sees the old cottage the roof has fallen
in and bushes grow through its floor, but
he doesn´t stop, it was all so long ago.
Light is fading wants to turn in, time to go
home for him too, autumn evenings are chilly,
and damp, no good for his chest.
SEASONAL PLACES
Spring is found in the Lowland valleys with gowan-filled braes of Scotland
When the early-reaching flowers bloom in cool freshness, and
The air is bracing and always new-washed-glass clean -
With the Ochils in the background green,
Willing us, begging us -- Go to the heather hills, please !
Around Ben Lomond, they perfume the breeze
With memories of Bruce and Wallace
And feel young in our face.
Summer is a thousand-mile southbound road trip heading
To Yellowstone through Montana and Wyoming,
With 104F degree air gushing in the vent,
And dinner in the Angel Inn, where we went
For a chicken smorgasbord snack
And a cool six pack.
Autumn is a Saskatchewan garden with leaves singing,
Tenacious against a hissing wind; and clinging
Above the grass, feeling the snow-chilled bite,
Anticipating a coming gown of white.
Winter is everything dead:
Gateshead.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Notes
Gowan = small daisy-like flower
Brae = riverbank
Ochils = Ochil Hills, a lovely upland part of the Forth Valley
Bruce and Wallace = famous Scots heroes in history
Angel Inn is near Casper, WY
Gateshead = dreadful UK industrial town - do not visit it.
I watch fascinated
at its teetering stance,
bobbing up and down,
picking at small insects
that infest the lonely loch,
that it chooses instead of
upland streams or creeks
or fast-flowing rivers,
or in some lonely lake.
Today I sit on a small chair,
behind some bushes on the shore
of a lonely loch, away from it all.
Ah sandpiper, are you emulating me?
Are you in search of lonely spots too,
far from the worrisome cities of the world?
Let's leave behind us wars and strife,
enjoy a bit of peace. Let us be true to love.
A breeze strikes, up and up you fly,
with stiff bowed brown wings
and your characteristic cry,
swee-wee-wee, swee-wee-wee.
Where will you go for shelter?
Do you prefer the secluded estuaries
or the protected inland lakes?
I see you return, too good a place to miss.
But look, you've found a mate.
Heaven provides, love conquers all.
I think I'll turn in, my wife awaits.
Jeb was a veteran of the War of all wars,
When brother fought brother and families closed doors.
Wounded in battle in the year of sixty-one;
Four years before Gettysburg, fore' it just begun.
Jeb got a Medal of Honor two years ago;
Six months later he buried Anna in the snow.
A mason by trade, local tombstones his forte;
A loner by night, a master craftsman by day.
He lived in an old, clapboard excuse for a home,
Making his living, chiseling hard bedrock stone.
Each stone custom crafted with names of the deceased;
From a quarry, in the town's dangerous northeast.
A rocky splinter of land carved out of coarse stone,
In a place called Diablo, better left alone.
It was here that he'd come, first thing every morn,
When the daylight was with him; the day's mist airborne.
Copious creations completed correctly,
Any work Jeb finished, it was done adeptly.
None to be shipped until the final okay, and
Then only after, he firmly packed them in sand.
Jeb had always hoped that Anna would bear him an heir;
Now alone, there was no one with whom he could share.
Fortune never shined on this kind-hearted old man;
Knowing in his heart that death, could not be outran.
It is said that one day the dark reaper came, and
In the early dawn in the slippery upland,
Jeb fell to his death on an iron wagon below;
The old stone mason landed head down in the snow.
His skull was split open with much gory detail -
Birthed the Stonemason's Legend - a most morbid tale.
Folklore surrounded this magnified tragedy;
As the specter each night, retraces its journey.
You don't want to venture to the quarry at night;
You may find yourself slip with no one to indict.
The townspeople close their windows, just before dark;
Fear the Stonemason - his journey, now to embark.
August 5, 2016
How to break an addiction. Decide to live.
What can I learn from my pain. Danger.
And friends are merely friendly, live on independent
of your injury. You will not be missed in church on Sunday.
Grass. Weed, broccoli, burrito, stink, pot, skunk.
I'm talking blue grama, upland bent, smooth brome,
riverside panic, wild rye, fowl meadow, spike muhly,
sweet vernal, salt marsh, bristly foxtail, little bluestem.
Reefer is unhealthy, opens lesions in the brain,
wormholes into hell, yet should be legal. I'll vote that way.
It may ease the pathos into non-existence
well as meditation, bird watching, last will and testament.
Each joint hurts, rib joints, spine joints, skull plate joints.
The head and hip and heart will hurt, all three.
Insomniac I like the way bones crack and clack like
wooden wind chimes, an untuned piano, a tree rack of wornout shoes.
Never forget, the mind is the body paying attention
to what it's doing. Without that connection, each finger bent
or toe smashed is just added to the collection
of anonymous body parts of holocaust victims
in their mass graves. Better when every life saved
or lost is a front page story, an illusion of shared
sacrifice or joy, but that expresses only the surface
of our emotions. I'm mostly relieved to have survived.
In August school holidays rain or sun
Cattley guavas are ready in upland
We trek and pick until we are full
But one who doesn’t may be a fool
Red or yellow both are very tasty
We eat them raw or in jam or jelly
Sweet tropical cherry fruit in the sun
In large bushes make watery tongue
On strawberry guava birds feast
Stories come up of seeing some beasts
Monkeys are happy to make their fill
Families make a day in the nature's fields
Some fight diabetes and,for vitamins
Others taste them till they reach the rims
It's like a great feast in the bushy places
just like the Champ de Mars horse races
Pickers also picnic to make it all fun
Staying there till the setting sun
Old man looking back in time
He remembers it well when the Mediterranean was
rich grassland had many lakes and the people
living there never starved.
A mountain ridge between Spain and Africa kept
the Atlantic Ocean away, but a seer had been on top
of the ridge and seen the mighty ocean, and felt the strain
of the mountain and took to warning people to move
upland; only a few listened and moved to Cadiz.
Earthquake, big fissure in the mountain keeping the ocean
at bay; it took forty days and forty nights, only a few people
with their chattel escaped.
The new ocean was now called: “Between Land Sea.” and people took up sailing,
trading and warring, later tourists came who
had no interest in the passing of time, and that is ok, I understand
that most goats ended up in Spain and the donkeys in Tripoli.
Across the limpid and serene river, the oasis of the Wild West pioneers,
there are ivory and charcoal peaks waiting for mountaineers
to discover as they rest under the long-leafed pines that sway;
on this side, the saw-tooth oaks and the daisy bushes are lovely greeters.
Not long ago, this abandoned upland was the home of gold-diggers,
sarcasm and violence went hand in hand...even eagles could have lost their feathers,
and those cluttered wooden shacks weren't not built for comfort,
but with limited space, they could hardly stretch out their legs and sleep like bears.
Travelers are very fascinated by the peace and scenery, not seen from their urban lair;
come to enjoy a short period of tranquility and breathe in the crisp air:
some write, some paint...others dream away to visualize that great era!
Look past that river, willow oaks and maples can soothe the travels of a trudging bear.
Find your spot, whenever you choose and be vowed by an imagination so rare;
take off your fedora hat and go beyond those mountains brightened by the sun's glare,
let a mockingbird or shrike delight your senses with their beautiful song...
with a fervid wish, let them take you where they have watched the new moon's mare.