Long Nightjars Poems
Long Nightjars Poems. Below are the most popular long Nightjars by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Nightjars poems by poem length and keyword.
Under the hedgerow,
nothing will fall apart, nor hold,
until a first milky dribble
is squeezed into the
mewing mouths of the newborn.
Small forms roll in their dim pelts,
nightjars swoop from branch to tree trunk,
bat calls return to receiving ears.
A child's dream grows a face-masked cloud,
small eyes appear behind a mattress of foliage,
clairvoyant glimmers of the yet to come.
Every dawn is a stranger, a nakedly visual light.
Gaps in the shrubbery coalesce,
to reveal a small industrial unit,
cogs and wheels run deep,
as they turn something into something.
Further back,
the goose-necked end of a small pond
curls morning mist into unworldly shapes,
will-of-the-whisps,
that drift in and out of an opening sky.
A yearning awakens,
one warm breath starts a dew-cold engine,
soon the seen, will be accelerating,
emerging once more into something else.
When the earth's shadow
falls on the moon.
In the loneliness of twilight
I keep you alive
and fresh in my mind
You seem so near
every time I close my eyes
Oftentimes I venture
into the eventide
When the moon invites me,
reminiscing as nightjars
chatter your name
Do you miss me
as much as I miss you?
The light of the moon
shines enough light for me
to see nebulous memories
of us more clearly
Under moonlit skies,
we savored
nature's cacophony until
our eyes grew weary with sleep
The memory of you
haunts me still
Though you'll never return,
I'll always think of you
In the hour
of the vanishing sun
Date written and posted: 02/04/2017
What is happiness, I just wanted to know,
Was it the song of heavy rain or the breezy snow?
Was it a dance of colorful water fountain,
Or was it a beautiful sunflower covering the whole mountain?
The spell of rainbow across a shinning stars,
Or to see fireflies in a blanket of nightjars.
I was certain that happiness is something to be earned
As I became older, all the more I yearned,
In the process, I forgot to laugh,
and it feels as if happiness is just like falling graphs
I swarmed across the river
Where I saw leaves of trees fall and quiver,
I saw myself in the crystal clear reflection
And I understood that it was always about perception,
As I was curtains of a play has been lifted
I finally knew that life was gifted,
And it is how you take the life to be
That only if you smile, the exact reflection you'll see,
The same is the case with happiness that you want to achieve,
That's when you give it, only then you receive.
dust-wearing-wind carries a feeble cry in its palm,
settles it near ears that can no longer hear.
Cries arise from hollows of your hungry face,
a pulpit of high cheeks bones— in sharp relief
to sunken skin-scape sallow and paper thin—
a preacher on the harrows of hunger.
Vulture keeps a still, silent vigil,
a patient witness to your starvation,
comrade and adversary
in a fight for your last breath and beat.
Your loyal companion, a symbol of death
where drones rain with flames on tents of refugees
and sky splitting missiles make shrapnel of the sun,
where dragon fire artillery shoots the moon
and shreds stars till they fate-fall
like the last nightjars from nocturne skies.
Dear child of war,
alone with nothing in your belly but a stone,
rib bones a famine cage,
thoracic fingers squeeze your soul.
Your heart a hostage,
flutters like a lost moth against your sternum.
I long to hold you and feed you
honey made from a million wild flowers
uncrushed beneath metal plates of tank treads.
I yearn to bathe you of collapsed concrete dust
cleanse you of your mother’s blood, her
rattle-boned, battle-owned, maternal body wrapped
over yours as they fed her Kalashnikov lead.
My faraway ache for your plight pales
against your tiny body’s black-rose-throes,
a pawn to thorns of soldiers
grown on rocket-torn-boot-worn streets.
War-zone fig trees bear no fruit,
hibiscus buds die as hornets knit nests into shrubs,
tomorrow but a diseased wheat field laid to waste.
Dear child of war,
deliverance will come when pall-bearer winds
carry your cries elsewhere…
Above the Blue Ridge hills
flights of stealth owl
glide in from the moon.
Strange how a jungle is never quiet
but these Tennessee woods
sleepwalk along moccasin paths
watched over by the velvet foliage
of dreaming tree.
Owls are the true eagles here,
they hunt the thriving flesh
and distain all that no longer trembles.
They do not scavenge
but scatter prey before them
hunting the huntable on sonic waves.
Sometimes on a summer night I leave a cabin
to walk among the owls and nightjars.
To sit silently listening to the rustle and scurry
of a timid pulse and the silent wings
of its pursuer.
Occasionally a deer is startled
by an incautious movement
sending it crashing through the dark brush.
I do not carry a gun here, but if I did
I would never break the silence of these woods
for the voices of the dead and the living
sing in the air as softly as stars do
when reflected in the eyes of hunting owls.
I have a passion to hold a lamp aloft,
to capture one acre of starshine
before the sun writes a new dawn.
Rusting Chevys bloom in the half-light.
Nightjars depart on shadow wings.
Shimmering’s walk toward my window
on silver slippers.
A native mildness calls me out
to the green hollows
where poppies cling to secrets.
I’ve a yen to lean like a greening barn
that’s honeycombed with sky.
The dew bathes, hills run with deer.
The woods hold aloft their nocturnal dreams
while the sky turns those to mist
I am invited to be kin,
to the verdigris of millstones,
to the mist and blood
of feuding legends,
to the weather-worn
secluded places
where dirt roads end
and life proclaims
its right to be free.
Soon the forest would reveal its dark secret
Poems are written. Music is composed. Ballets are staged.
In enacting suspense-filled plays, each creature is engaged.
Mysteries, like petals of blossoming flowers, unfolded.
As sketched by nature, the shapes of plants and trees are moulded.
Midway through the brawl for existence, the fittest survive.
From Mother Earth, life-giving nectar, all creatures derive
Do trees pay tax as per their heights, and do beasts as per strength?
Which creature has measured the forest's height, breadth, width, and depth?
What serenity between drops of the flowing fountain!
Isn't there a transmission of peace between each mountain?
The food cycle and water cycle roll like the planets.
Prey and predator eye each other in forage facets.
Owls, bats, hawks, frogmouths, and nightjars share nocturnal secrets.
Some feed others. Some feed on others. There are ruts, no riots.
The gentle breeze soothes the soul, though the gales disturb
Love lives long, between the strongest tree and the weakest herb.
Doors of forests, yet, like puzzle-filled caves, are numerous
Amidst sunshine, unknown nooks in it are voluminous
In the Appalachian hill country
there are night birds;
they call to each other in the dark
yet hunt alone.
These birds are not
owls but nightjars, they are known also
as whip-poor-wills, goatsuckers,
or bug-eaters by the locals.
When they utter they shiver
the ear-hairs of all that harken.
When clinging to a tree trunk
their dim mottled plumage
makes then almost invisible.
When they fly
they fly with no whisper of wings
but in an eerie silence.
Some folks around here
reckon they are more 'ghosts
of the air' than birds,
and are bad news.
The wise women
believe that they can curdle milk
and spoil the overnight vittles
left on the stove,
the menfolk smile
knowing
it was them that left the food out.
The night-birds swoop and flutter
without a pitter or a patter
until the dawn light reveals them
to be nowhere found
and still as silent as the stony ground.
As dusk hours darken the skies ever later
Crepuscular creatures return
Strisores awaken the heathland
As the heat of the day still rises from the earth.
Quietness blankets the world in black
So silent I hear only noise
Yet over the volume of nothingness
The nightjars are back with their voice.
The trilling incessant and echoing through
The forest, rebounds from the trees
Bringing the woodlands alive at night
As the sound travels far on the breeze.
Pausing only to breathe and break their song.
As I hold my breath to silence my body
Closing my eyes to strain and not to miss
A single note in their evening aria.
As I retire to my chamber
Window open to allow warm breeze
Finally as sleep creeps into my mind
The nightjars commence their diminuendo
The noise of the night retreats
Inky blackness taking over the sky
Dreams float through the dark
Accompanied by the memories of the day.