“Places I love come back to me like music—
Mid-ocean, midnight, the waves buzz drowsily;
In the ship's deep churning the #eerie phosphorescence
Is like the souls of people who were drowned at sea,
And I can hear a man's voice, speaking, hushed, insistent,
At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour to me.” #QuotsyOct21
Summer Storm
The panther wind
Leaps out of the night,
The snake of lightning
Is twisting and white,
The lion of thunder
Roars—and we
Sit still and content
Under a tree—
We have met fate together
And love and pain,
#Why should we fear
The wrath of the rain!
#QuotsyMay21
“Thoughts”
When I am all alone
Envy me most,
Then my thoughts flutter round me
In a glimmering host;
Some dressed in #silver,
Some dressed in white,
Each like a taper
Blossoming light;
Most of them merry,
Some of them grave,
Each of them lithe
As willows that wave;
Some bearing violets,
Some bearing bay,
One with a burning rose
Hidden away—
When I am all alone
Envy me then,
For I have better friends
Than women and men.
#QuotsyMay21
The Return
He has come, he is here,
My love has come home,
The minutes are lighter
Than flying foam,
The hours are like dancers
On gold-slippered feet,
The days are young runners
Naked and fleet—
For my love has returned,
He is home, he is here,
In the whole world no other
Is dear as my dear!
#QuotsyApr21 #Arrival
“Dust”
When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,
I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire—
But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.
I almost gave my life long ago for a thing
That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes—
It is strange how often a heart must be broken
Before the years can make it wise.
#Tremor #QuotsyApr21
“Compensation”
I should be glad of loneliness
And hours that go on broken wings,
A thirsty body, a tired heart
And the unchanging ache of things,
If I could make a single song
As lovely and as full of light,
As hushed and brief as a falling star
On a winter night.
#Song #QuotsyMar21
Winter Dusk
I watch the great clear twilight
Veiling the ice-bowed trees;
Their branches tinkle faintly
With crystal melodies.
The larches bend their silver
Over the hush of snow;
One star is lighted in the west,
Two in the zenith #glow.
For a moment I have forgotten
Wars and women who mourn—
I think of the mother who bore me
And thank her that I was born.
#QuotsyFeb21
“Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,
How ashamed I am, and sad
To have pierced your poor disguise?
Secrets rushing without sound
Crying from your hiding places—
Let me go, I cannot bear
The sorrow of the passing faces.
—People in the restless street,
Can it be, oh can it be
In the meeting of our eyes
That you know as much of me?”
from “Faces” #shame #QuotsyJan21
I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled
#swirl #QuotsySept20
Evening: New York
Blue dust of evening over my city,
Over the ocean of roofs and the tall towers
Where the window-lights, myriads and myriads,
Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.
#Evening #QuotsyJuly20
The Garden
My heart is a garden tired with autumn,
Heaped with bending asters and
dahlias heavy and dark,
In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;
Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain—
The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten—
After the stillness, will spring come again?
#Sun #QuotsyMay20
*3/5 of the books I chose for my poem are e-books. I can‘t do a proper #spinepoem so I made a collage of the covers instead.
Flame and shadow
High waving heather
Burning in this midnight dream
Ritual lights the way home
I don‘t know if I‘ll be able to finish reading all of these by the end of the month but I‘m going to try! #575PMRChallenge
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Sara Teasdale, "There Will Come Soft Rains"
Flame and Shadow | 
