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Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

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Heavenly Haiku by Bette A. Stevens


Celestial sky

Shining, simmering shower

Spectacular Show

—Bette A. Stevens © November 19, 2002

On my 55th birthday after observing the Leonid meteor shower, I  wrote this haiku. The following day, I shared it with my fifth grades students and after some celestial research, the students wrote their own “Heavenly Haiku” poems.

Watch the Leonid Meteor Shower November 16 – 17, 2013  at

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/watchtheskies/leonids-2013-live-ustream.html#.UogHseKLjlc

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Written

on 11/17/2013

Old Man Winter I Am Hibernating


Dusting of snow in the Northeast today. Fire’s ablaze and I’m hibernating for the day… — Bette A. Stevens http://www.4writersandreaders.com

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Who I am's avatarWho I am

white-trees-2.jpgThe weather today

Is full of leaves

Crunching as

Feet walk through them

The ground covered

With wetness

The air filled with musty

All is cozy inside

Without seeing

Or recognizing

The signs of

Old man winter

Is sneaking upon us

The weatherman

Just posted a

Notice to me

Starting Monday

Night a chance of

Six inches plus

Of that white stuff

You know it is called

Snow

Get your shelves

Stocked on toilet paper

And milk, get diapers

And bread, for winter

Has decided whether

I like it or not

To pay me a visit

Wait, what is that?

You want me to come

Back and visit?

I’m sorry friends

I must go for my

Bed covers are

Calling to come

Hibernate until Spring.

Written by,

Terry Shepherd

11/10/2013

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Photography, Poetry

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183. Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? ~Walt Whitman


Need some inspiration? There’s nothing like Nature, a little Walt Whitman and a bit of Shakespeare, too… ~ Bette A. Stevens http://www.4writersandreaders.com

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nataliescarberry's avatarSacred Touches

And this our life,
exempt from public haunt,
finds tongues in trees,
books in running brooks,
sermons in stones,
and good in everything.
~William Shakespeare

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Standing beneath the Shumard Red Oak made me feel like I was standing in a temple of the Most High.  The breeze was ruffling its leaves, and they in turn were prompting sacred tongues to utter incantations of their divine purpose.  For though the leaves face eminent extinction and expulsion from the branches, in their dying they’ll fall and create warm blankets to cover the ground.  In so doing they will protect the life that lies beneath the surface during winter’s cold, cold days.  Even at the close of winter their goodness will not be at an end for as they deteriorate, the remaining bits and pieces will add nutrients to enhance the soil.  Thus goes the circle of life and the interdependency of all…

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Literature, Nature, Photography, Poetry, The Classics

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Peregrine Falcon, New York City, poem by Robert Cording


Inspiration in the midst of day-to-day humdrum! ~ Bette A. Stevens

silverbirchpress's avatarSilver Birch Press

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PEREGRINE FALCON, NEW YORK CITY
By Robert Cording

On the 65th floor where he wrote
Advertising copy, joking about
The erotic thrall of words that had
No purpose other than to make
Far too many buy far too much,
He stood one afternoon face to face
With a falcon that veered on the blade
Of its wings and plummeted, then
Swerved to a halt, wings hovering.
 
An office of computers clicked
Behind him.  Below, the silence
Of the miniature lunch time crowds
And toy-like taxis drifting without
Resolve to the will of others.
This bird’s been brought in, he thought,
To clean up the city’s dirty problems
Of too many pigeons.  It’s a hired beak.
 
Still he remained at the tinted glass
Windows, watching as the falcon
Gave with such purpose its self
To the air that carried it, its sheer falls
Breaking the mirrored self-reflections
Of glass…

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Nature, Photography, Poetry

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Windy Nights, poem by Robert Louis Stevenson


Poem perfect for a windy autumn night! ~ Bette A. Stevens

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silverbirchpress's avatarSilver Birch Press

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WINDY NIGHTS
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Whenever the moon and stars are set,
            Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
            A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
 
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
            And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
            By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again. 

PAINTING: “Windy Night” by Marilyn Jacobson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A fascinating project about Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) is currently in the works — a film about his life in San Francisco, with a screenplay by G.E. Gallas. Find out more at gegallas.wordpress.com.

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ART, Poetry

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Rhapsody on a Windy Night, poem by T.S. Eliot


Love T.S. Eliot. Just right for a windy night… Bette A. Stevens

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silverbirchpress's avatarSilver Birch Press

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RHAPSODY ON A WINDY NIGHT (Excerpt)
by T.S. Eliot

Twelve o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions.
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium…
***
Editor’s Note: “As a madman shakes a dead geranium” — what a stunning line! T.S. Eliot never ceases to amaze…

Read “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” in its entirety at poets.org.

Painting by Mike Grubb, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Find more of the artist’s work at fineartamerica.com.

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ART, Poetry

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Enough time


Poem perfect! Bette A. Stevens

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ART, Photography, Poetry

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Fall, poem by Edward Hirsch


silverbirchpress's avatarSilver Birch Press

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FALL
by Edward Hirsch

Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer’s
Sprawling past and winter’s hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment…

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ART, Poetry

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Dawn Is Coming!


Picture perfect. ~ Bette A. Stevens http://www.4writersandreaders.com

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ART, Photography, Poetry

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Aside

ARTISTRY an autumn poem by Bette A. Stevens


 

Autumm's Artistry

Written

on 10/05/2013

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