Verdant Hymn

There’s a welling up, as of waves,

in me, but also without me –

I am only a member of the swell;

a vessel, uproarious with delight

as the waves pass through me.

 

Sweet energy! Glory! Rebirth!

Laughter and mirth are all we are

in these streaks of redemption!

 

The taste of a silent, still buzz

of electricity fluttering in air,

like the first rays of Spring’s sun;

the quiet hum beneath sparrows’ song.

 

The clear, fragrancy of the beginning

to vernal eternity, telling us – nay!

Crooning to us:

            winter was well worth waiting through.

Beneath Birch Saplings

Blinded as we pull back the curtains.

A sigh from the sill

as we lift the window, caressed

by a breath of outside.

 

The smell of newborn blooms

mingling with the rust

of the screened-in porch.

Warmth.

 

Sight returns. Sunshine.

The floor is agape with it,

the waves of it lapping

against our ankles

while the daffodils on the sill

twist their roots in ecstasy.

 

We lay on the floor,

and grass sprouts

between the tiles,

cracking the boards.

 

We run our fingers through,

and through the blades

as if they were the hair of a lover;

We bury our faces in the scent of it.

“I’ll Alert the Media”

Hey everyone!

This is just a notice to make all of my readers aware that I’ve just made a new blog devoted to deep thoughts in a more prose-friendly environment. I’d love it if you all went and subscribed to that one as well!

It’s wanderinginwonders.wordpress.com.

The Boreal Wilderness of a Content Heart

We must be further North than we thought.

Where, by the maps haunted with sea serpents,

living, exulting, dancing, tremulous mysteries

hold back laughter beneath every leaf.

 

Like a child playing hide and seek,

biting her tongue not to squeal with delight.

 

The cold grips every nerve in every limb with every movement.

The cold reminds us how gloriously alive we are.

The steam of our breath, twisting in an aerial ballet

leaping deeper, and deeper into this forest,

both new and joyously familiar.

Like a lullaby in old age.

 

The blues and grays of the mist, interrupted.

Swords of sunshine lunging from sky to untrodden earth.

Every leaf, swallow’s song and molecule of mist

 

is alive with silent, jovial anticipation.

Like the last breath before a dive into frigid waters.

The First Years

These are simply lines from the first chapter of C.S. Lewis’ “Surprised by Joy” that struck me as particularly beautiful, powerful and strongly poetic. I’ve arranged them in lines and have added and subtracted some punctuation to emphasize the language the way I read it.

 

Once, in those very early days

my brother brought into the nursery

the lid of a biscuit tin, which he had

covered with moss,

garnished with twigs

and flowers so as to make it

a toy garden or toy forest.

 

That was the first beauty I ever knew.

What the real garden had failed to do,

 

the toy garden did.

It made me aware of nature –

not, indeed, as a storehouse of forms and colors,

but as something cool, dewy, fresh, exuberant.

 

As long as I live,

my imagination

of Paradise will

retain something

of my brother’s

 

garden.

The Day Spring Came Early

Golden light sprawls from our feet

like the sun’s roots as we walk in the morning,

while the air is still rubbing sleep from its eyes

and blooming trees push out their leaves

to adjust to the undue brightness.

 

Seedlings of grass burst with joy

from our chest and laugh with us

as they break the permafrost

to spread sunlight through the soil.

 

Glory. O! Glorious exultation is the air

that fills our lungs: fresh cut grass glued

to the skin by sweet smelling sweat

spent for the glory of another.

 

O! how tumultuous is the song of selfless Spring;

sung by sparrows, beeches and our browning skin!