Long Beeches Poems

PRELUDE.
When the sky and world are dark no sounds are heard in the woods. Perhaps the scrabbling of night creatures on the hunt fo food. But no sound of woodpeckers ra ta tatting, bird song...

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War, Is Unholy Hell

War is wicked rot and most holy hell
 man's evil is its murdering spell
Yet mankind never ever truly learns
 love and faith it arrogantly spurns

Poetry by the great Siegfried Sassoon
 glows like...

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*** Pulled from the Mist *
   What Creating Art Is About*

(For Debbie Harding)

She gasped with an awe of nature,
Walking on a lone trail 
   to its end in the dense

Forest —...

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I set off along the faint trail
it was one I had not noticed before
plunging me deep into unknown territory
stomach clenched in excitement as I strode on

Tall old Oaks, Aspens, Chestnuts and Beeches
cloaked the way ahead,...

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LANDSCAPE
 
Noon time, the star in the sky burning at zenith
The deep azure, was radiant with fiery heat
 
Laid on the skyline, its dome calm and serene
The yonder river, slowly ran on the grey scene
...

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A restless night, another hum-drum day,
Resolve to take a pleasurable walk;
I make my way towards St Mary’s church.
Across the street, a sixteenth century home –
Maltravers Manor, testament to time.

I’m heading for the ancient Hollow Way
Where...

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When coming to, 
and arriving in,
Cali, 
August of 2008,
I felt like a refugee.
   Seeking a city of refuge,
   Sacramento,
   wondering if my healing would be allowed here.
Healing from inflicted...

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The vividness of the dazzling tones
of an Autumn's landscape is alluring,
making the beeches gleam when it rains;
it has captured me into the realm of fantasy,    
as I am taken onto a road...

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My heart felt old; I sought the cold.
Canada’s land was what I planned.
Among trees grand and far inland
To dance my sad brand of sarabande.
Yet precious moments come when joy flowers,
Far briefer than Four-O’clocks,
As resurrected visions...

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He heard the crows, 

morning-cawing-crows,

morning-language-cawing-crows. 

There was for him, 

always, uncertainty in the cawing, 

an uncertainty he couldn’t hear,

though he tried for most of his life. 

There was brotherhood, yes, brotherhood— 

an association-brotherhood, a knowing,...

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February 27th Lower Peninsula of Michigan
One week of true cold and snow is all
This year
Today is the warmest day ever recorded
For this entire month

An ancient age is passing

Winter shorter
To the flowing length of my shadow
Stretched...

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When all the land is in repose
There is a noise, as nightfall shows,
A noise to stir the sinews of your mind.
And those who hear it at its best,
(Who know its sound, as others rest)
 May...

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Long ago..........
In a far off time.........
When trees could move
and trees could whisper..............

The King of Earth.........
Did bestow on the trees
A life of their own..........
The seeds sown

For the King of Earth did ask...
The Whispering Trees
a certain task........
Hide...

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I often visited this forest,
making acquaintance
with a centennial maple tree;
there I conversed eloquently...
as if I were talking to a trusted friend. 


I went back yesterday around nine
to admire its shimmering green foilage,
and discovered it was...

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Martin came to a cleft in the rocks
The oriole must have gone this way
It was narrow and curving
A sudden turn, and everything seemed to change.
Shrill, reedy music of pipes filled the heavy air,
A smell of...

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I have an idea for some verse,
   But cannot get it down
With rhythmic phrases, just so terse-
   This causes me to frown;

There are two subjects, worlds apart,
   'Tis they...

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I'm standing on a fragrant lily field
by the serene bay towards midnoon,
falcons gather by the splashing rocks
with eyes that scare away hungry larks;
they must catch their prey and be fed:
they'll attack with their claws a...

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How lovely to spend time
On a hillock overlooking the bay!
The ruddy sun just warms enough,
So I’ll enjoy my perfect day.

The sea is not perfectly calm.
Waves roll towards the beach,
What are they whispering to the sand?
What...

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Scarce had it rain'd - blue hued
drops showering down; 
in the witching hour I rode, 
where the earth is overrun by weeds, 
yellow fringed with black-eyed-susans; 
trees overhung with wild cherries.

Pacing past the sequester'd glen,...

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That was the place of our first encounter, a grove that
painted our inner feelings, much more on these smiles
lit by sunshine; that was our favorite refuge when spring
gave us her wonderful gift, and dreaming we...

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Foul as Funk!...
   Stenches your honey-sweet words;
   Politically polite,
   as you perpetrate,
   ya freakin posers!

How can you be so disillusioned
   as though you are morally...

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It’s Autumn weather, geese fly by,;
Autumn rust,red,gold,so gay

Drystone walls edging fields,

Apples gathered,holly berries

Flash so brightly

Look like flowers

Sun shines sideways,shadows long

Of trees appear.I dwell among

Woods of gentle beeches sing

Swaying with the sideward wind.

See their roots, all...

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Beauteous scene of scented spring
Farthest from the world of men
In the sacred breath of woodland
Singth therest lark and wren

Shades of beeches, pines and birches
With the shades of Autumn mingle
As in hut a silent damsel
Cooks and...

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Beauteous scene of scented spring
Farthest from the world of men
In the sacred breath of woodland
Singth therest lark and wren

Shades of beeches, pines and birches
With the shades of Autumn mingle
As in hut a silent damsel
Cooks and...

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In brooding dusk they gather from the East
Arrive in twos and threes upon the trees.
Autumn beeches, now devoid of leaves,
Begin to darken as the branches heave
And teem with animated rooks.

And jackdaws too, all jockeying for...

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