The blue waves smack the shore
Outlined by the oaken door.
Stand beside the cypress tree
Throw your arms out to the sea
On a mossy cliffside you can spy
The wheeling curlew, hear it cry.
Smell the cedar in the grove
See grass wave where rover's rove.
Hear the sea gull, feel the wild
White sails on silver, be beguiled.
So far from madness of the city
Cell phone rings, no longer free.
You run inside the cottage door
Find your backpack on the floor
Dig the phone out, as it plays
A ringtone singing "yesterday"
Its Chase bank, with a suspect charge
Ten thousand, that's awful large.
Text message comes from your landlord
Rats with fleas came in a horde
Your boss says he's needs you back soon
Work has come like a monsoon.
You leave the cottage bitterly
But you can't eat the scenery:
Can't throw the cell phone in the sea.
At least you have the memory...
The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
The night opens up in a swirl of blue.
A yellow crescent moon solos the distant sky,
Some masked town is central in the midst,
With a pointed church steeple,
Marking the blue-lit sky.
A formidable cypress tree,
Darkens the foreground,
As an artist adds light in the dark.
He climbed to the top of a tall cypress tree
All his fertile countryside world he could see
His father’s fields, neighbor’s houses, and kin folk’s, too
For seventeen years, the only world he knew
College and military brought changes galore
Stretched his knowledge and character even more
In hindsight, realizes how far he has come
From those years on that South Carolina farm
To be localized has rewards and blessings
Gives life a simpler pace though sometimes boring
Keeping close to family, neighbors, and friends
Building memories that linger long within
Yet, far beyond those familiar childhood walls
He found healthy growth in academic halls
Taught to be a man by military aid
Great character builders that will never fade
So much was gained through seminary studies
Treasures that have guided him like a ship’s rudder
Learned to serve others with care and compassion
To be grateful to God for His redemption
This man will never know what life might have been
Had he remained in his country boyhood den
Now, he’s glad and satisfied to have found and gained
More life beyond those dirt fields and cotton gins
Note: This poem is the twin poem for "She Speaks for the Dead." This one is in the mockingbird's perspective.
I perch upon the locked gate,
awaiting the deepest hour of night.
My abode is among the shadows
of the gravestones, still and weathered.
There I hear a faint sound of
bare feet along the grass,
And I see a Woman near the cypress tree.
She is frail and clad in robes—
She looks at peace with the world, and with Death.
But the Woman stops as if she is waiting for something,
listening for something in the stillness.
Could it be my own voice that She is
calmly awaiting? Some trills of
Truth to break Their silence?
I feel a change in the air
as the shadows deepen on the headstones,
the monuments, the cypresses, the gate.
I begin to speak for Them
and that Woman with the gleaming
yet respite eyes
I begin to speak for Her.
My channeled chirps are
variations of lives once lived,
and my growing audience is vastly keen.
Luna’s image reflects on flat water;
she smiles at her likeness and ripples softly quiver.
Beneath the glinting surface another universe exists
where subaqueous creatures live, busy in their nests.
Moss shawls arm drape low on sitting cypress tree,
ungainly, with legs so short below her knees.
Yellow pollen gathers brightly, floating along the dock
forming lacy fabric, the moon’s evening frock;
oh, that I could be she waltzing on this liquid floor,
evermore a lover of the lake.
March 6, 2022
"And now I drink a toast to your coffin.
May it be fashioned of lumber obtained from a hundred-year-old cypress tree
whose seed will germinate this year."
Rob Brezsny
Refrain:
And now I drink a toast to your absence of coffin.
May you become refashioned of organic fibers
gifted from a thousand-year-old cypress forest
whose vulnerable seed will regerminate yet again this year,
and every year to follow
to lead our future
through all past time
of well-rooted trees
born for regenerately crowning Earth.
The laggard flow of fresh water
With scattered pads of green
Tall blades of sawgrass stretch around the bank
A lingering fog hovers
Sun is trying to sneak through with its warm rays
Lichen hanging from cypress tree branches
With a heron or two
A sea of ferns and thickets
Found everywhere
That offers a habitat to the
Seen and unseen
A path to follow as a deer strolls through
Savoring the spectacular scenery and
The smell of nature in the wetlands
Fern Garden By: Robert Butler
Sponsored By: Rhonda Johnson-Saunders
Contest Name Florida Nature
I look up from the valley and I see the mountaintop.
Up where the air is clearer and gentle breezes never stop.
Where the eagle’s nest can be seen in a mighty cypress tree
God’s awesome splendor is waiting there for all the world to see.
In an effort to get closer to the one who made it all
I will climb the lofty mountain and listen for His call.
And when His call is heard and His orders are made clear
I will join His mighty army as the final battle nears.
The evil one will also gather all his minions here
And the battle that will follow will make nations disappear.
For all the blood that’s shed will, like a river, flow
And the valley will not be the same as the valley that we know.
The righteousness of God will certainly prevail
And Satan’s wicked army shall ultimately fail.
So if you want to be there to see how it comes out
Let destiny lead you and there will be no doubt.
Written By John Posey
01/11/13
for my Father
My father is as noiseless as the bird,
Transfixed upon his pirouetting bob,
To angle fish his self-appointed job,
He speaks with silence. It is his every word.
Mirror to him, voiceless and unstirred,
The heron stiffens, ready to make hob
Among the flitting silver swimming mob.
Beaking his prey, he leaves the water blurred.
He rises like a spirit from the lake
to seek his nest, crowning a cypress tree,
At the utmost reach of my pursuing eyes.
Dad passed today. Contented with his take,
his creel pegged out, my father sought his quay
Eternal, at a height I can't surmise.
You know I had a lover's quarrel with God
As I sat there telling him ~
I knew the fastest way to heaven
Was straight through hell
Though He did not see it that way
Nope, not at all
God said you need to go down this one path
But as I sat out there on that enormous cypress tree
I thought and I listened and I thought some more
What I was feeling now and what I should be feeling
Where two very different things.
But as I said before ~
I had a lover's quarrel with God
But never once did he let go
Of that unconditional love for me
No ~ never once and for that, I will always love God
1 / 1/ 2006
I want to stroll with you
along the twisting paths where the
canopy of limbs bare shade
Hands held softly
I want to sit with you
under the old cypress tree where the
limb bends a sunken seat
Hands held tenderly
I want to talk with you
of our souls melding force where the
breeze only hears our voice
Hands held confidently
I want to dance with you
in the eve of our days where the
golden years sashay by
Hands held joyfully
And so I dream…….of you
Wishfully
Prayerfully
By: Debra Squyres 3/8/2012
The vivid colors of summer
Come flashing down at me
I can feel the summer sun
Penetrating through my body
As though it were trying to
Possess my very soul.
I lay on the softness of
The moist green grass
The smell of the freshly
mowed lawn is intoxicating
The sun gives the grass
A glistening hue of color.
As I read the words from
The book of poetry in hand
I feel beads of sweat dripping
Down between my breast
I see the large cypress tree.
That makes me think
I should move under it
Before I melt into the grass
I shield my eyes from the
The brightness of the hot sun.
Though I so much enjoy
The vivid colors of summer.
The Age of Man
Is but a brief, abbreviated span
Of seconds ticking in a moment’s course.
Infinity: the final source
Is like a charnel house, with cypress tree
And yew and myrtle, growing in the graves of Space,
Where decomposes Time’s own face.
It is written that countless rows of
Cypress trees were planted
Like grove, for miles to go,
The Arab’s hand are cursed with
The blood of the African slaves,
Buried beneath this strangle hold
Of the sweet cypress tree
There rest the skulls and bones
Of beheaded and castrated African Slaves
You dare to look at the Arab Women
The cypress tree entangled with
The souls of African Slaves,
Who fruit are we. Thank you
Sweet Jesus, We made this far
When I kiss
The lips of spring,
I shall marry thee and
Present this golden ring
We kiss the wind or
We kiss the lips of spring
The Gods shall
Perform this ceremony
Upon this hill and underneath
This Cypress tree
When, I call out your name
Your face appears, again
This time, I surely know, and
I make this sacred vow
So, let me kiss the
Lips of spring
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