The sky is empty
Pale winter blue
A single bar of cloud
Hovers over the western horizon
And as I drive
The sun dips behind it
The edges of the cloud glow silver
The strong beauty almost takes me off the road
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Reposted from a while back, but this happened to me again the other day!
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.
She’s all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
by John Donne
Donne is my favourite poet.
Source of heat and fuel for life
Beautiful at the horizon
Painting clouds and sky
We bask and burn in her glory
And she sits supreme at system centre
Girdled by her planets
Visited by stray comets
Regally burning
Interior electrons impede her light
Rendering our glowing orb opaque
Not that you can see this
It would burn your eyes out
Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond
And the Sun is out
lockdown and panic
had cut my wings
now I fly
but only around the garden
Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Deep in a volcanic sea cave
crimson crabs hang from the ceiling
scuttle along walls, clattering pincers
gather in their hundreds
in affront
as our boat noses in,
engine stilled.
We have raced across open ocean
slamming over waves
to be claustrophobically enclosed
looked down upon by crustaceans
never before have I felt
such an visitor to my own planet
insignificant in the face of the whale and the dolphin
and now these outraged crabs.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Linked to the Earthweal Challenge “The Animal Gaze” :
Dusk wallows in the hill folds
waiting to be let loose,
shadows settle between trees
as birds settle on the branches.
Westwards, the sky is marmalade.
Laced with lemon rays,
horizon hugging clouds obscure
the main event.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
The sky is empty
pale winter blue
a single bar of cloud
hovers over the western horizon
and, as I drive
the sun dips behind it
the edges of the cloud glow silver.
The strong beauty almost takes me off the road
Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Re-blogged from 2016…..
We are a brief bloom
On the fragile skin
Of a molten body
Encircling a massive furnace
We are a blossoming of sentience
With encrusted technologies
Craving wonder, hoping for company
Seeking knowledge and excitement
We truly are stardust
Our bodies built from atoms
Forged in successive stellar explosions
We crave the glories of the Universe
We are Human
Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Re-blogged from last year
I do like poems with an Astronomical bent, and here’s a wonderful one from Paul F. Lenzi:
“Solar Flare” by Dan Oliver
particle storms
shriek at inhuman
inaudible frequency
penetrate matter
lase holes through
the bones of minds
living and dead
mark acutely
the genomes of
all cosmic creatures
yet to be born
with the warning
that even the sun
is disposed to
explosions of rage
From my books Pieces of Wine and Legacies (vol.2)
I would like to share this wonderful poem by Louis Faber with you:
Tomorrow the morning
will arrive as it always does,
eating the last vestiges
of night, painting the sky
in puce and crimson.
It will foretell the rain
that will carry our dreams
down the hill
and into storm sewers,
eventually to wash into the lake.
But in that moment
when the sky is ablaze,
none of that matters,
save the beauty of dawn.
The Cheesesellers Wife 