(for Dad)
Late afternoon came floating down the creek.
Appalachia’s air chilled gradually,
The valley’s likenesses on deeper pools
Shivering as mayflies burst the watercolor
Skins, and theirs, taking to air, trailing
Papery past selves after them in flight.
Brown trout missiled the sylphs, arched and slapped
The surface, falling back, while I cast toward
A trembling pool, slowly wound my line in,
Looked up. [...]
Like urban tumbleweed the
plastic grocery bag blew across the empty
overcast park, green with the whispers of
storm;
we watched it approach, you
nestled into me, silent, from across the
grassy expanse and pavement, with the same
nervous smiling, quiet intrusion any other
stranger might have greeted us–
tipped its rustling head and averted its eyes,
leaving us to our leaves
and our close, closed [...]
Thank you very muches to all those who participated during Love of Nature Nature of Love Month on WIZ. The list includes:
D. H. Lawrence
Rainer Maria Rilke
Th. (Eric Jepson)
Adam K. K. Figueira
Laura Craner
Andrew Marvell
An esteemed company!
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes ;
And their uncessant Labors see
Crown’d from some single Herb or Tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd Shade
Does prudently their Toyles upbraid ;
While all the Flow’rs and Trees do close
To weave the Garlands of repose.
She could smell the season on him. Summers
he came through the door redolent of horses
and wild mint; winters, copper and ice.
Metallic and snow-clean, he cooled the house.
The poplar’s shadow on her hand
Indicates a tree in spring.
Willets, catbirds, and broncos all hear
Big-hipped nature dancing across the Rockies
Stripping and putting on the many faces of
A weather-beaten land:
Green, red, brown, and white,
The flag of summer on the horizon.
They are indivisible incompatibles,
This landscape and
The mutterings of a middle woman.
Her words lie naked in a field,
Lost [...]
Adam writes of this video Valentine that he made it for his “wife and (if the latest ultrasound is correct) five daughters … I think it fits your theme this month, and the connection to nature should be obvious.”
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Adam K. K. Figueira was born to the east of where he lives now, but then [...]
“Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you [...]
Weisst du, ich will mich schleichen
leise aus lautem Kreis,
wenn ich erst die bleichen
Sterne über den Eichen
blühen weiß.
Wege will ich erkiesen,
die selten wer betritt
in blassen Abendwiesen -
und keinen Traum, als diesen:
Du gehst mit.
***
Understand, I’ll slip quietly
away from the noisy crowd
when I see the pale
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.
I’ll pursue solitary pathways
through the pale twilit meadows,
with [...]
She lowered her eyes, and suddenly saw the fox. He was looking up at her. His chin was pressed down, and his eyes were looking up. They met her eyes. And he knew her. She was spellbound–she knew he knew her. So he looked into her eyes, and her soul failed her. He knew her, [...]