Long Robins Poems

The very fact of being alive, often causes one to seek adventure;
And sometimes it is no deterrent, when it carries traces of danger.

I was not a seasoned survivalist, but very much loved the outdoors,
Like varicolored...

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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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I.

Espy, distinguish divinely made lively, lovely Trees
Unisex Trees, inhales carbon dioxide, then breathes
out for us humans, life given clean oxygen
Stout roots run deep, holding God's earth
Also, with you we were taught our first lesson

II.

Animals take...

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Child of the King, 
Who is my everything.
He makes my heart sing.
To His love I’ll forever cling.

Although I’m not a real beauty, my heart is sincere and tender.
Though I’m less than perfect, my soul always...

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For years I've tried to figure out
The tree Joyce Kilmer wrote about.
Was it an oak, or maybe elm?
What was it so appealed to him
That gives his simple poem so much clout?

He thought that he would...

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It was tranquil sultry August, and the birds were singing,
The insects were all buzzing, and toad frogs were springing.

And I was deep in the mountains, taking snapshots of nature;
For I felt I was a good...

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The old sorcerer was teaching his apprentice a lesson about the moon, but as usual the subject drifted, this time, to witches. “How would I know a witch if I saw one?” The apprentice asked.

“It’s...

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Trifolium pollinated courtesy bombus

Before landscapers mow swaths
across undulating waves of clover
(the father/daughter team
usually cut grass every Tuesday)
bumblebees alight from one to another flower.

Meanwhile, I lie splayed
mid morning June 28th, 2022
with stomach upon natural carpeting
quietly basking...

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Itsy Bitsy the tiny pixy always wore a frown
for the other pixys treated him like a clown
The other pixy boys did not want Itsy Bitsy around
Itsy Bitsy flew too slow with small wings that were...

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Though I'm ashamed to say it now, I never took conservation seriously,
Just living life as if nothing else mattered, full of wonted complacency.

I would hear intense talk of the climate, recycling and global warming,
But I...

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I was a hopeful actress, but so far had only been offered bit parts,
And I fought to pay the bills, as a starlit owl, working after dark.
        ...

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A raw dark, persuaded by rusty leaves
	who break through the hushed prayers,
		vibrant hopes and dreams,
			stirring light that lives beneath the heavens,
	confiding joy, revealing wonders, confessing
		swaying branches, havens
			for hurried squirrels and clever wrens,
cardinals in scarlet cloaks,...

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Like the breathless air of twilight,
As the moon softly rises and tempts the stars
Into the quiet revelations, admissions
Grace, splendor, magnificence…
Painting the dreams with a quivering ink,
Spilled upon the emptiness beneath the still, white page,
Simplicity at...

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The enchanted forest- what a sight! 
With glorious rays of the dim sun,
 Shining through the peaks of the wise old trees.
With massive faces carved in the rough bark, close to the shiny multicolored leaves.

Whisking...

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I was an experienced astronomer, with bright eyes ever turned to the stars,
As the mysterious, intelligent aliens, might in their turn, be looking to ours.

Space had always held fascination for me, with wonders of worlds...

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I find my entertainments close to home
as nothing could be more wildly hilarious
and downright curious
than my own complex teenagers
who sometimes speak
and do their math
about what adds up toward our shared
and independent 
futures.

Then there are cacophonous...

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I was a professional landscaper, with passion for nature, and a green thumb,
Like passions of smothering, dreamy nighttime, to which we gladly succumb.

My work took me to many gardens, set in the butterscotch zones of...

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Frost leaves my heart feeling cold and clammy, like a icicle hanging down from a gutter, dripping liquid sparkles as the sunlight softens the edges of my feelings and frees my thoughts to believe in...

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Faulkner's comment, I imagine him
tossing it off like Yogi Berra between games
of a doubleheader. The hero, the expert, the virtuoso
has no real control, is going to feel
unmitigated, unsparing forces, a mighty sun
swallowed by a black...

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~Another Magical Fairyland Story - Under  A   Spell - Part 1
 (Short Story or Narrative poem)



It was a very nice and warm spring day to go out for an early morning ...

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How Pale the Poem!
(An Echo Poem) (1)

Are poems lovely as night's stars?
Aren't all more fireflies viewed in jars?
*
*
Faint points of light man barely sees
now (gift of Science) galaxies,

are strung on necklaces like beads.
Star deaths the...

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Early Poems XX

These are my early poems or juvenilia. 


Paradise
by Michael R. Burch, age 15

There’s a sparkling stream
And clear blue lake
A home to beaver,
Duck and drake

Where the waters flow
And the winds are soft
And the sky...

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Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch

Sleepyheads!
I recite my haiku
to the inattentive lilies.
—Michael R. Burch

Stillness:
the sound of petals
drifting down softly together...
—Miura Chora, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sky tries to assume
your eyes’...

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These are my modern English translations of Takaha Shugyo haiku and tanka...

hatogata horarete ichiju haya mebuku

A single tree
with a heart carved into its trunk
blossoms prematurely
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

dôkefuku nugazu tentômushi no...

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I was a happy, fluent linguist, fruitfully helping revive endangered languages,
As colorful rainbows walk across the sky, in buttery hours, turned languorous.

I enjoyed doing practical fieldwork, and establishing useful literary programs,
As the honeysuckle sun loves...

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