Sweet Afton - Robert Burns (1759–1796)

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds thro' the glen,
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear,
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark'd with the courses of clear winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild Ev'ning leaps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides,
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As gathering sweet flowrets she stems thy clear wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream

Robert Burns

Image : Pixabay - DuncanNelson

Wren - Richard Fleming

See
the wren,
resplendent:
her clever eye,
her sweet essence. Deep, let her sleep be deep;
there, let the green hedge be her perfect bed;
the rye, the reed,
be her screen;
shelter
her.

Richard Fleming

Image : Pixabay - Nature-Pix

The Creek-Road - Madison Julius Cawein

Calling, the heron flies athwart the blue
That sleeps above it; reach on rocky reach
Of water sings by sycamore and beech,
In whose warm shade bloom lilies not a few.
It is a page whereon the sun and dew
Scrawl sparkling words in dawn's delicious speech;
A laboratory where the wood-winds teach,
Dissect each scent and analyze each hue.
Not otherwise than beautiful, doth it
Record the happ'nings of each summer day;
Where we may read, as in a catalogue,
When passed a thresher; when a load of hay;
Or when a rabbit; or a bird that lit;
And now a bare-foot truant and his dog.

Madison Julius Cawein


Image : Pixabay - KIMDAEJEUNG

The Cry Of The Cicada - Matsuo Basho

The cry of the cicada
Gives us no sign
That presently it will die.



Matsuo Basho



Image : Pixabay - englishcityceo

Translation : William George Aston

Beyond the Sea and Sky - Ian Duquemin

I walked the rugged cliff paths from the high land to the sea
With only Mother Nature as my welcomed company
Beneath my feet the fallen leaves lay naked on the ground
I sat and breathed the life of air and relished what I'd found
The only sound is silence, I have found some peace at last
It takes away the troubles of a most pathetic past
I think that I will stay awhile and sing with seagulls high
And wonder what's beyond the joining of the sea and the sky

Ian Duquemin

Image : Pixabay - diego_torres

A Jelly-Fish - Marianne Moore

Visible, invisible,
A fluctuating charm,
An amber-colored amethyst
Inhabits it; your arm
Approaches, and
It opens and
It closes;
You have meant
To catch it,
And it shrivels;
You abandon
Your intent—
It opens, and it
Closes and you
Reach for it—
The blue
Surrounding it
Grows cloudy, and
It floats away
From you.

Marianne Moore


Image : Pixabay - sarangib

Kosmos - Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Who includes diversity, and is Nature,
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also,
Who has not look'd forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing;
Who contains believers and disbelievers - Who is the most majestic lover;
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism, and of the aesthetic, or intellectual,
Who, having consider'd the Body, finds all its organs and parts good;
Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body, understands by subtle analogies all other theories,
The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of These States;
Who believes not only in our globe, with its sun and moon, but in other globes, with their suns and moons;
Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day, but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations,
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.

Walt Whitman


Image : Pixabay - LoganArt

Bumble - Tony Gardner

Bumble on  the  Bramble blossom.
Busy, buzzing, bumbling  Bee
Blackbird  fluting from  the  branches
Leads  the pastoral  symphony.
Breezes  brush  their  baby  kisses
On  my  skin  to  pure  delight
And  the  summer  sun  is  warming
All  in  this  sweet  world  is  right.
Dancing  in  and  out  of  memories
Like  the  sunbeams  through  the  trees
From  the  long,  hard  years  I've  weathered
Scenes  return  to  sting  or  tease
Running  barefoot  on  the  shingle
Down  towards  that  crystal  sea
Still  I  taste  the  salty  water
Through  the  years  of  history.
Bumble  on  the  Bramble  blossom
Busy,  buzzing,  bumbling  bee
Taking  me  to  where,  I  wonder
Are  you  happier  than me ?

Tony Gardner


Image : Pixabay - Emphyrio

The Custard Fields - Tony Gardner

The  Custard  fields  are  now  in  bloom
It  must  be  harvested  as  soon
As  we  can  get  the  wet  crop  sold
And  turn  the  yellow  into  gold.
The  neighbours  so  admire  the  sight
And  beg  and  plead  with  all  their  might 
To  let  sunshiney-bright  plants  stay
And  cheer  us  just  one  other  day.

But  if  we  hesitate  we  may
Miss  the  market, lose  our  pay.
The  country's  crying  out  for  this
Sweet  yellow  custard   for  their  dish
Of  rhubarb,  apple  pie  or  prunes 
It   can't  be  a  day  too  soon
Tomorrow  t'will  be  cut  and  canned
And  there'll  be  smiles  throughout  the  land.

Tony Gardner

PS   I  hope  you  know  this  is  a  jape
It's  really  just  a  field  of  Rape.


Image : Pixabay - blickpixel

Ebb And Flow - Marianna Pliakou

The beaches here
never grow old.
Just as the rocks raise
their bulky bodies from the deep,
they are covered
by the next wave.

The islanders
know from children
of the constant flux –
the sands that become seabed
that becomes sands.

They have learnt to gauge
and test themselves against time
as the sea tests
its strength
in swallowing.

Marianna Pliakou


Image : Guernseypoets

Blackbird - Richard Fleming

With catapult, once school was finished,
I went to hunt in woodland, high
above Belfast, in summer light
and heard, among leafed branches spread,
a blackbird, singing like a bell.
I took aim, shot; the missile flew
unerringly, my aim was true.
with awful suddenness it fell,
all broken. Exultation fled,
to be replaced by sickly fright.
I knelt to watch it slowly die.
Within me somewhere, light diminished.

Richard Fleming


Image : Pixabay - Jetiveri

The Leaf - Ian Duquemin

I caught a falling dying leaf
And in that moment felt its grief
The dancing spirits waited by
The breeze it hushed its lullaby
I whispered that I felt its pain
And heard returned the very same
Before it flew away from me
To wander far and free

Ian Duquemin

Image : Pixabay - pixel2013

Stars - Tony Gardner

I'm wondering if all the stars

Are red and ruddy just like Mars

If all shine with a twinkling light

Or some are incandescent white

There may be some we’ve never seen

That glister with soft shades of green

But floating in the Milky Way

They may be forty shades of Grey.

Tony Gardner


Image : Pixabay - GooKingSword

Daddy Long Legs - Stephen A. Roberts

Hey there, Daddio 
clinging to the window  
craning in to see  
where to leave your progeny 
I admire the symmetry  
of your elegant fragility 
with the waning of the sun 
you know your summer’s done 
are our autumns just the same 
staring through the pane? 

Stephen A. Roberts

Image : Stephen A. Roberts

Dark Nectar - Tony Gardner

Through  soft  September's  early  morning  mists
I  sally  forth  in  sturdy  thorn-proof  clothes
To  face  the  prickly  blackthorn  which  resists
My quest  to  reap  her  lovely  blue-black  sloes.
Soon  I'm  homeward bound  with  hard  won  prize
The  sun  breaks  through,  a  bird  sings  merrily.
But  now  it's  time  for  work  and  methods  wise
To  tell  and  mix  the  ancient  recipe;
 
       "Pick  and  prick  the  purple  berries,
       add  the  sugar  and  the  gin.
       Then  the  almonds,  not  too  many,
       seal  it,  let  all  soak  in."
 
For  months  it's left  until  at  Christmas time 
With  carols  sung  and  turkey  eaten,  then
Before  the  fire,  our  glasses  we  all  prime
With  dark  old  nectar  sweet,  -  our  own  Sloe  Gin.

Tony Gardner

Image : Pixabay - LaMaLaMa55

Bee-hind - Tony Gardner

Is there anything lovelier under the sun
Than the wonderful sight of a BumbleBee's Bum ?
Though they can be white or yellow or red
They're a vision of splendour it has to be said
It makes me smile every time that I see
A BumbleBee flashing his backside at me.

Tony Gardner

Image : Pixabay - ekamelev

Cold-Water Swimmer - Oscar Milde

In bobble hat and rubber shoes,
she looked a most unlikely muse
but, seeing her, I scrawled a sonnet
(I had my surfboard. I wrote on it.)
She stood there dripping, shaking cold,
and was a pleasure to behold:
a poem-in-flesh, a fishy tale.
I’d read each verse if she were braille.
She brightened up my day entirely.
Cold-water swimmers do inspire me.

Oscar Milde

Image : Pixabay - Free-Photos

The Old Oak - Tony Gardner

There's a big old tree in the corner
Of the field just along the way
It's the only tree around here
So it's special....well to me anyway

I've known it since I was a nipper
When I used to climb up and sit
On it's branches so strong and sturdy
And contemplate Life for a bit.

I loved to see new leaves in springtime
And the acorns as they grew then fell
Many's the time I would wonder
What stories this old tree could tell.

Did it grow from a careless dropped acorn
By a bird flying so high above
I like to think someone with vision
Planted that acorn with love

Maybe he dreamed it would flourish
And that many years after his time
A boy would climb its strong branches
And be moved to write a small rhyme.

Tony Gardner

Image : Pixabay - mbll

Owl - Richard Fleming

In a green lane in St Peter’s
near midnight, under a full moon,
a pale owl flew across my path, silently,
then low
over dark fields to the tree-line, hunting.
 
I turned
to watch his tireless sweep
over dumb ground, mist spreading like a shroud,
till I lost sight of him,
and coldness, creeping,
turned my leaden footsteps home.
 
In bed, near daybreak,
I jerk awake, heart pounding,
mindful of accelerating time, moments eaten up,
of golden, soundless wings,
that questing eye;
sharp talons reaching for my heart.

Richard Fleming


Image : Pixabay - Comfreak

Blue Woods - Tony Gardner

Blue bells nod their sleepy heads
In old sun-speckled woods
To spring time music of the birds
In glades where once she stood.
Her laughter rang like Fairy bells
In youth when Life was gay
And often we would wander there
Along the blue bell'd way

Today I walk that path alone
But still she's there with me
Her shadow dances soft upon
That old sun-speckled tree
I hear her laugh like Fairy bells
And I'm not sad you know
I can always find her here
Where the Blue Bells grow.

Tony Gardner