Tag: wildlife poem

Animals and the earth, earth, Healing, Poems, sacred earth, Tales of India

The truth of Agni

by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment on The truth of Agni

flight dawn landscape sky
Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com

The truth of Agni;

Fire consumes the illusion.

Trees walk on the black way

To the stars,

Trees who remember,

With the stones,

The earth’s enchanted bones,

The beginning and the ending,

The faces of the stones rise,

Red, gold,

Patterned in scars,

Walls of stone, tall,

Remembering

All

The dragonflies

And the elven folk

Of long ago;

No one believes

In them now

Though

They sang the truth of the stars.

In the ending – skies

Of gray

And white – oppression.

The smoke of time,

The embers

Of existence,

The age of blindness,

Of existential crime,

Treachery,

And war

Going now,

On the winds of time.

Shiva dancing both time and eternity,

In the stark

Winds that clear the smoke

Of being.

Soon, the bough

Of the oak

Will climb

Into the shimmering rain

Of Indra.

There, the face of Shiva

In the gold

Trees – twinkling among the leaves,

In a world so old –

That came before —

Yet shines again –

Now

In the ever-glimmering rain,

In the train

Of flowers,

In the arc

Of ancient powers.

***

Written August 7, 2021

© Sharon St Joan

Animals and the earth, animals in Asia, earth, Poems, sacred earth, Tales of India, Visions

Hanuman, son the wind

by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment on Hanuman, son the wind

shallow focus photography of monkey
Photo by Leonid Danilov on Pexels.com

Hanuman,

Son of the wind,

Forest-eyed,

Sent to free

Entangled innocence from rusted snares,

From the bitter clawhold of Ravana,

To guide the gold-winged butterfly,

The shy, dawn-eyed doe,

The nagalinga tree

Of skylit flower,

The brave host of bears

On the oak-hallowed hill,

The bright-songed messengers, in flight,

The belled, meandering cow,

The redwoods of ancient girth,

The moon-

Finned

Minnows

Of silver gill,

Out from the chasms of desolation

Of a world gone awry

Back to the far, far

Reaches of the beginning – before ever time arose

Back to the shining lake of the mountain height

Hidden unseen in the green land of the star

Where mists of joy run

Like horses on the white river, wide,

Where the spring cactus unfolds gold and red.

A day to bring the innocent out, away

In the boat of the canted bow

That fled

Across the storm-bent sea

In the gale-churned hour.

Do you remember your flaming brand

And the fire that went up to swallow

The iron-souled city of Lanka?

Hanuman,

Savior of the innocent, hero-son

Of earth and star,

There  –  hear the call of the raven chime

From the canyon of ill-kept time.

Soon

Hanuman,

Son of the wind,

Breath of the earth.

© Sharon St Joan

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Animals and the earth, Poems

Where now?

by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment on Where now?

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Where now the dark-circling

 

Wolves?  Where the half-haunting

 

Moon?  Where the swift paws running?

 

Where now the mists

 

That rose above the lake

 

In the early spring?

 

Are the spirits all flown to that far country

 

Beyond the black hills of night

 

The hills of indigo?

 

Where butterflies flicker

 

In bright mythic

 

Forests,

 

Where the great raven

 

Smiles in her cosmic

 

Tree,

 

And ruffles her feathers in the cool air

 

Scattering stars across the open sea below?

 

Written around 2009

© Sharon St Joan

Photo: Rackam | Dreamstime.com

 

Poems

By the wave of the waters

by sharonstjoan5 Comments on By the wave of the waters

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Across the shambled ruins

Of empire,

The wild winds

Of innocence,

Shift the sands

Of bitter bones

And the fragments

Of forgotten footprints.

There by the wave

Of the waters of the great

Sea, the barn owl,

Who, of yore,

Invoked

The falling

Stars, flits in moth-dreamed

Elegance

From cliff to cave

In the silvered night

Where the stands

Of singing pines

Await

The bright

Rising

Of the moon, whose cowl

Of fire

Gleamed

In the time before

Time,

From the mist-cloaked

Hill of haunting

Stones.

 

© Sharon St Joan 2013, written around 2001

 

Photo: © Robert King | Dreamstime.

Animals and the earth, Poems

Heron

by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment on Heron

 

GreatBlue

 

 

Heron of grace, blue buffoon

 

Of elegance

 

Stretching his endless

 

Wings over the moon

 

Wading on spider toes

 

Through still

 

Timeless

 

Water

 

Among glass reeds

 

That glitter in a radiance

 

Of emerald beads,

 

Beyond the hill

 

The world dips

 

Under lace of lavender

 

Into the ringed smoke of cities,

 

Fallen and gone,

 

While, in opalescent flight,

 

The heron slips

 

Upwards through the windows

 

Of many lilies

 

Into the open night

 

Of the rain-winged dawn.

 

Written around 1998

 

Photo: Great blue heron. Photo by Gary Kramer, USFWS / “If an image on one of our sites is not restricted and does not say it is copyrighted, then you can assume it is in the public domain.” – USFWS

Animals and the earth, Old Europe, Poems

Journey of the wolves

by sharonstjoanLeave a Comment on Journey of the wolves

 

From within

 

The immortal

 

Light

 

Of the lily

 

Arise the mists in

 

Which the cathedral

 

Of bright

 

Stone

 

Stands

 

Through

 

All the winters

 

Of destiny,

 

Though the tall firs

 

List against the bone-

 

White hill,

 

Until

 

The call of the moon invite

 

The wind-footed wolves to

 

Return across the night

 

Over the hinterlands

 

Of circled ice

 

Across the crevasse

 

And the mountain

 

To the peace of the timeless dawn.

 

 

Written in 2008

 

Photo: © Alexfiodorov | Dreamstime.com

 

 

 

 

Animals and the earth, Poems, Tales of India

Tiger

by sharonstjoan1 Comment on Tiger

 

Tiger

When the tiger puts his paw into

The rising

Pool of mist by the riverbank,

Then will

The cry

Of all

The worlds be stilled,

While clouds

Of moons dance solemnly

In pale shrouds.

What wild lands have they killed

Now, those hapless hurlers of spears,

Makers

Of cities, and sellers

Of strange, stolen fears,

They who haven’t an eye

That can see?

Yet they too

Live at the behest

Of the mud-churning

Floods that fall

Fast on the dry

Plain.

Who

Is this mythic tiger

Who so gladly drank

Up time and eternity,

Splashing

Still

In the wide water?

Is it time to be done

Now, to follow

Him into the sky-blue

Tall-hilled

Land, to be gone,

Like the vanishing one,

Into the cavernous west

Where the great stones that hallow

The ground,

Shine gray in the singing

Rain,

Where the black paws of the night run

On the rock, with no sound,

Where the winds ever go

Like white-toed moths, wafting

Among the gold cactus of the dawn?

Painting and poem by Sharon St Joan. To see a larger view of the painting, click here.

Poems

The howl of the wind

by sharonstjoan1 Comment on The howl of the wind

Pin up your soul

Then

And sell it too

In the devil’s sale

For a hatful of dollars.

Isn’t that what you’re doing?

And does your soul bleed

Like the trophy

You pinned

Up on the bounty string

While the desert grew

Cold

Wrapped in the pale

Skeleton of the night?

A tale half-told,

Withered on the vine.

Did you kill the moon too?

It looks white

And all dead hung out up there in the sky

To dry

Where the pine

Tree

Rattles in the old

Whine

And the howl

Of the wind.

And the tatter-faced owl

Is watching,

Still watching

From the luminous cliffs, caped all in shadows,

Bending over to read

The bones of her toes.

A lost bell might toll

While she waits for the world to fold

Up into the far, silver sea

Of whales and sails, and coral shale

That will sing once again

In the bright

Waters,

Deeper and blue.

March 12, 2012

 

Photo: © Dgareri / Dreamstime.com / A coyote