Long Flowering Poems

The First Valentine Poem

Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) has been credited with writing the first Valentine poem for his wife in 1415. Charles wrote the first Valentine poem in the first year of his captivity while being...

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Left:
Let's start at the beginning
of your ecotherapeutic day.

I'm talking today with Fr. Time,
Earth's only fully self-ordained ecotherapist,
and recently published author of
"Journals of MotherEarth."

We have no corporate sponsorships to report,
although we are for sale
especially if you're...

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Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me...

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Today, catching sight of the mallards
crying over Lake Iware:
Must I too vanish into the clouds?
—Prince Otsu translation by Michael R. Burch  

This world—
to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields
lying darkening at dusk
illuminated by...

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Year One -

Tell me Eve,
does this Garden have everything we need,
do you think the walls are too tall,
are the gatekeepers reasonable, tolerable, right about it all,
what did Lilith know, where did she go
far past the...

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Could you tell me, please,
how to become polypathically smarter,
economically deep learned and wisely adept 
co-arising ecologically systemic theories
to grow more co-empathic trust 
of and for cooperatively organizing positive 
nutritional slow-growth,
optimally sustainable Continuous Quality Health Improvement?

Try...

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Today
we left off yesterday
to pick up
where speaking non-violent principles 
too often neglect to listen
to liberally artistic,
green and active
yet non-reactive
compassionate healers
may need to co-invest more
in co-operating democratic research
of
and for
WholeEarth DiaLogical Matriotism.

Excuse me,
but co-passioned listening
to silence
speaks not...

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To receive care
that best meets your needs,
and also,
by the way,
everyone else's too,
we look first
to where and when we have given such care
since our original longest reborn journey
down Mom's birth canal,
prepared just in time for our...

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Toddlers' Exploration: 

Cardboard drum, a thunderous beast,
Playful roars in tiny fists and feasts.
Fleeting wings glide, dreams just out of reach,
Soaring through tales of barnyard Waddles and Squeaks,
Moo! Quack! Giggles tumble and bump.
Flaps flapping, bright colors...

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My TransITion began there
right there
in my woodland playground,
when I first knew
something right feels wrong to others.

I was blind to curve-balls
hurled at me.
Being "It" is not why I grow
this TransIt mind and body!

Or, is it?

Could I...

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In the realm of moons and breathless tides,
where promises dance with a serendipitous sonnet of sunrises,
along with morning kisses, unfolds a love story—
a poetic novel etched in the chronicles
within the hourglass of time,
a journey that...

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Dear Local Boards of EcoSchool Education,
Departments of Environmentally Protected Walkable Transportation,
Cooperatively Maintaining Public-Private Works
and STEAM Play
and WinWin GreenGames,
Hysterical Historical Associations,
Social Work Departments of Climate Restorative Therapy,
and Public Health-Wealth Departments:

Did you leave anyone out dear?

Just the...

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Earth's diverse Trees of Tribes
mentor ecotherapy with me,
EcoWe,
echoing sighing resonant waves of wisdom
surfing through lunar waxing-waning freedoms
of humanly divine burning nuclear bushes.

Show me,
unveil We,
boundary wu-wei issues
weaving functions with frequencies,
tipping wild-flowering forms with full-color fluencies,
soaring summer's...

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There remains,
among cherished riff-raff,
old trope
tropical wet and warm
reproducing images,

Sadly resilient
and madly resonant,

About organic holes
and tumescent poles,
full-flowering 
young
green feminists
of feckless zero-empty wombs,
glacier valley lows
merely reflecting
volcanic mountain peaks

1's and 0's
blushing co-binaries 
of upright monotheistic YangPower
never
ever yielding to...

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This is my translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's second elegy from his Duino Elegies, which he began composing at Duino Castle in 1912. 

Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Every angel...

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These words of love I give to you, my dear
to have comfort in the stillness of time
and meld two souls to keep love's wishes near
when the length of the years and age will climb
I will...

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Hope and Effort

                            When the sky is veiled...

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Just as honesty plants seeds of integrity
so too
vulnerability plants seeds of honesty.

My primary vocation
in this my gay grandfatherly retiring age
is to parent mindbody challenged adolescents
of diverse colors
as ecotherapeutically as possible
to optimize their and our wealth
of...

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I suppose it isn't rather nice
to think of us this way,
but to the squirrels
and the trees,
the robins and the grasses,
human natures are Earth's great transitioning immigrants
on this block
we call a planet.

In this newest arrival sense,
I...

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Reflections

Though our love nurtured well in passion's fire
Aroused now as a lamplight on life's road
This ember's torch burns still from our desire
With gleams of memories from love bestowed
as we journeyed in wondrous enchantment
I've kissed you...

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Enjoy our parting day
the young girl child,
now full-grown wise Elder,
reminded me,
the brother she had taught to flex male muscle
without overbearing her Sister Gaia powers.

On this classic sun-baptizing fragrant May morning,
reflecting this same gently caressing day...

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"Energy fields extend to infinity.
Consequently they are open--
not a little bit open,
not sometimes open,
but continuously open.
The long-established view of the universe as an entropic,
closed system is rapidly losing ground.
Proposals that living systems were open systems
led...

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Spawned from the loins that 
Perpetuated the loyal serfs mongrel
Seed:-
These peoples of a conditioned and
"Resigned-To-it-all" breed.
Born into the enveloping tedium
Of interlocking days...Interwoven
With interlocking days -
Victims of stark circumstance
And vague promises unmade.
Gregariously living out their lives
When...

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The Celtic dreams come forth through auric visions of an all-seeing eye. 
An ancient calling where the mystic rivers flow down a rugged mountain
while Angels bathe in the springs of an everlasting and radiant beauty....

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