Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery;
impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains,
sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,
with a little church on top of one. And warehouses,
some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue,
and some tall, uncertain palms. Oh, tourist,
is this how this country is going to answer you
…….
— by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Between the striped walls of the canyon
Burns a crescent of blue water, arresting, poignant:
Jewel-blue,
soul of opals and sapphires;
Feather-blue,
stain of indigo on the peacock’s breast;
Flame-blue,
color that hovers above the copper-saturated drift-
wood in the beach-fire.
And the tall white poppy down the canyon
Sways against the blaze
Like a ship.
— by Grace Hazard Conkling (1878-1958)
Moonlight is sharp until I see
A rabbit sitting quietly.
Then wall and fence and tree and burr
Grow soft and touch the night with fur.
— by Frank Mitalsky
Awakened by some fear, I watch the sky.
Compelled as though by purposes they know,
The stars, in the blue distance, still affirm
The bond of heaven and earth, the ancient way.
This old assurance haunts small creatures, dazed
In icy mud, though cold may freeze them there
And leave them as they are all summer long.
— by Edgar Bowers
The nearsighted child has taken off her glasses
and come downstairs to be kissed goodnight.
She blows on a black windowpane until it’s white.
Over the apple trees a great bear passes
but she puts her own construction on the night.
Two cities, a chemical plant, and clotted cars
breathe our distrust of darkness on the air,
clouding the pane between us and the stars.
But have no fear, or only proper fear:
the bright watchers are still there.
— by William Meredith
Droll and erratic, a jackass rabbit jumps
From form to field, or wallows in the sand
Grotesquely serious, pop-eyed, waggle-eared,
Fit for the prairie, born of it, beloved:
A Yankee critter, sinewy, strong, and tough,
To laugh at, wonder at – but not to catch.
—by Stanley Vestal
(Couldn’t decide which one fits better, :))
Like thousands, I took just pride and more than just,
struck matches that brought my blood to a boil;
I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire—
somehow never wrote something to go back to.
Can I suppose I am finished with wax flowers
and have earned my grass on the minor slopes of Parnassus . . .
No honeycomb is built without a bee
adding circle to circle, cell to cell,
the wax and. honey of a mausoleum— .
this round dome proves its maker is alive;
the corpse of the insect lives embalmed in honey,
prays that its perishable work live long
enough for the sweet-tooth bear to desecrate—
this open book . . . my open coffin.
–by Robert Lowell
It hangs from heaven to earth.
There are trees in it, cities, rivers,
small pigs and moons. In one corner
the snow falling over a charging cavalry,
in another women are planting rice.
You can also see:
a chicken carried off by a fox,
a naked couple on their wedding night,
a column of smoke,
an evil-eyed woman spitting into a pail of milk.
— by Charles Simic
… …
And hate the bright stillness of the noon
without wind, without motion,
the only other living thing
a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended
in the blinding, sunlit blue.
And yet how gentle it seems to someone
raised in a landscape short of rain—
the skyline of a hill broken by no more
trees than one can count, the grass,
the empty sky, the wish for water.
— by Dana Gioia
This this will it always be, and why
To ever argue for: here walking
In its life, or sprawled, or loitering
Down shallow valleys of the lawn:
The trees that are there
The pigeon bobbing through
Its fallowgray ellipse of ground—
The comfort of this ground
Is physical: the sun
Goes through your shirt like liniment,
The tilting
Child in fact now finding
Its first step, the blue balloon, the string
Of ducks drawn through the pond,
The twined twain, the air that hears
The day’s gamegame, and where
Up through the cross-rack oak
Deep gladed lofts of leaf, green
Overtaking green and light and green
Array and hold
Their silent chord,
To where the vergemost
Quibble at clear nothing—there
Is not a purer ledge of opening; nothing
Here is not enough to be without
All need to ever argue for.
— by Alvin Feinman
Unusual Colors - Digital and AI art 