Tag: poem

Sunset, La Jolla

A crowd assembles on the
clifftop each evening to
watch the daily show: the sun’s
light extinguished by the sea.

The horizon is a sharp
line here, unless choppy waves
break up the distant edge, or
foul weathers fill the sky with
clouds or fogs creeping to shore.

The watchers marvel at the
fattening sun, bloated by
atmosphere, an illusion
of bigness as it nears the
boundary at the end of
the earth, where old dragons lived.

The red light is proof. The sky
is on fire, the west in flames.

Then it is done. The sun drops,
taking its light and warmth with
it, leaving the watchers in
twilight, chilled in their camp chairs,
huddled in pairs on blankets,
lonely souls gazing out at
today’s sun’s final fading rays.

And as it goes they signal
appreciation. Like any
good audience they clap, they
rise, they murmur contentment.
“What a beautiful show,” they
say, as if it was put on
just for them. Then they hurry
in the small glow that remains
for the un-applauded lights
of cars, of street lamps, of home.

Thomas Michael Williams, July 2016

Sunset, La Jolla

A crowd assembles on the
clifftop each evening to
watch the daily show: the sun’s
light extinguished by the sea.

The horizon is a sharp
line here, unless choppy waves
break up the distant edge, or
foul weathers fill the sky with
clouds or fogs creeping to shore.

The watchers marvel at the
fattening sun, bloated by
atmosphere, an illusion
of bigness as it nears the
boundary at the end of
the earth, where old dragons lived.

The red light is proof. The sky
is on fire, the west in flames.

Then it is done. The sun drops,
taking its light and warmth with
it, leaving the watchers in
twilight, chilled in their camp chairs,
huddled in pairs on blankets,
lonely souls gazing out at
today’s sun’s final fading rays.

And as it goes they signal
appreciation. Like any
good audience they clap, they
rise, they murmur contentment.
“What a beautiful show,” they
say, as if it was put on
just for them. Then they hurry
in the small glow that remains
for the un-applauded lights
of cars, of street lamps, of home.

Thomas Michael Williams, July 2016

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

By Wendell Berry, in

Collected Poems 1957-1982 (Counterpoint Press, 1985). 

This poem is the latest I’ve memorized and added to the repertoire. 

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

By Wendell Berry, in

Collected Poems 1957-1982 (Counterpoint Press, 1985). 

This poem is the latest I’ve memorized and added to the repertoire. 

The Poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket, by John Keats, 1816.

I am currently reading Mr. Keats’s Major Works and Selected Letters, and coincidentally read this poem today. It reminds me so much of the kinds of poems I had to memorize for elocution lessons in grammar school – an educational practice long forgotten, I’m sure, but it was how we were taught in olden times. I’ve decided to bump it ahead in my to-be-memorized list. If you don’t have such a list I recommend that you start one: Good for the mind, and good for the soul. 

The Poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket, by John Keats, 1816.

I am currently reading Mr. Keats’s Major Works and Selected Letters, and coincidentally read this poem today. It reminds me so much of the kinds of poems I had to memorize for elocution lessons in grammar school – an educational practice long forgotten, I’m sure, but it was how we were taught in olden times. I’ve decided to bump it ahead in my to-be-memorized list. If you don’t have such a list I recommend that you start one: Good for the mind, and good for the soul. 

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter 
To regard the frost and the boughs 
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; 

And have been cold a long time 
To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think 
Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 
In the sound of a few leaves, 

Which is the sound of the land 
Full of the same wind 
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 
And, nothing himself, beholds 
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

1921

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter 
To regard the frost and the boughs 
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; 

And have been cold a long time 
To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think 
Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 
In the sound of a few leaves, 

Which is the sound of the land 
Full of the same wind 
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 
And, nothing himself, beholds 
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

1921

Our annual snowstorm has begun in the gloaming. We are expecting a whopping 2 to 4 inches (or 5 to 10 cm), which will be sufficient to paralyze the city, and more than enough to sate my annual desire for snow.

The image is from a postcard in the collections of the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. The quotation on the card is from a maudlin little poem by James Russell Lowell that you can read here. Have a hanky ready. 

Our annual snowstorm has begun in the gloaming. We are expecting a whopping 2 to 4 inches (or 5 to 10 cm), which will be sufficient to paralyze the city, and more than enough to sate my annual desire for snow.

The image is from a postcard in the collections of the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. The quotation on the card is from a maudlin little poem by James Russell Lowell that you can read here. Have a hanky ready.