The Chameleon

hews the hue from pith and peel
to sublimate the color wheel
refracted in sun-speckle drops
like lemon macaroons.  It sops
up the palate's palette cake
and engineers a prism break
above entablatures of trees
to slip into the backdrop frieze
and coalescent with the light
cleave itself from human sight.





Poem by Walter Ancarrow
Photo by Os Nakayama

Walking

From my view above, walking

the hall with the cat, she slightly leading,

her body sways a little with her stepping,

undulates, not like the track of an old river

seen from an airplane, sharply cut through the land,

nor a snake or earthworm---

which must exaggerate, side to side.

She makes a subtle, graceful sway.

I think of how that wide river of ungulates looks,

The elands, zebras, wildebeests, buffaloes,

seen from the airplane above,

in their Great Migration up the Serengeti.

The head does not sway, remains straightforward,

not so much in the hip or shoulder either,

with soft forward shift one leg to another,

but, living where the ribs are, that swing.

When I see that liquefaction

in my cat or in the hordes on TV,

I stare in wonder at how the four-legged ones

are made, how seen from above,

they move in that way by merely walking,

in a grace not only probably, but is.

                       

Mary Ellen Branan

   Bastrop,TX

Poetry Society of Texas A book of the year 2012 awards

p. 118, Derry Tutt Memorial Award

Daffodils

          I wandered lonely as a cloud
          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
          When all at once I saw a crowd,
          A host, of golden daffodils;
          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

          Continuous as the stars that shine
          And twinkle on the milky way,
          They stretched in never-ending line
          Along the margin of a bay:
          Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
          Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

          The waves beside them danced; but they
          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
          A poet could not but be gay,
          In such a jocund company:
          I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
          What wealth the show to me had brought:

          For oft, when on my couch I lie
          In vacant or in pensive mood,
          They flash upon that inward eye
          Which is the bliss of solitude;
          And then my heart with pleasure fills,
          And dances with the daffodils.


William Wordsworth

Jehovah Tsidkenu

I once was a stranger to grace and to God, 
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load; 
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree, 
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me. 

I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage, 
Isaiah's wild measure and John's simple page; 
But e'en when they pictured the blood sprinkled tree 
Jehovah Tsidkenu seemed nothing to me. 

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll, 
I wept when the waters went over His soul; 
Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree 
Jehovah Tsidkenu - 'twas nothing to me. 

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high, 
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die; 
No refuge, no safety in self could I see-- 
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Savior must be. 

My terrors all vanished before the sweet name; 
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came 
To drink at the fountain, life giving and free-- 
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me. 

Jehovah Tsidkenu! My treasure and boast, 
Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne'er can be lost; 
In Thee I shall conquer by flood and by field 
My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield! 

Even treading the valley, the shadow of death 
This watchword shall rally my faltering breath; 
For while from life's fever my God sets me free 
Jehovah Tsidkenu my death-song shall be. 

by Robert Murray McCheyne 
Scottish Presbyterian Minister 
1813-1843

(Tsidkenu is Hebrew for The Lord our Righteousness) 

Easter Hymn

Praise the Savior now and ever;
Praise Him, all beneath the skies;
Prostrate lying, suff’ring, dying
On the cross, a sacrifice.
Vict’ry gaining, life obtaining,
Now in glory He doth rise.

Man’s work faileth, Christ’s availeth;
He is all our righteousness;
He, our Savior, has forever
Set us free from dire distress.
Through His merit we inherit
Light and peace and happiness.

Sin’s bonds severed, we’re delivered,
Christ has bruised the serpent’s head;
Death no longer is the stronger,
Hell itself is captive led.
Christ has risen from death’s prison,
O’er the tomb He light has shed.

For His favor, praise forever,
Unto God the Father sing;
Praise the Savior, praise Him ever,
Son of God, our Lord and King.
Praise the Spirit, through Christ’s merit,
He doth us salvation bring.

Venantius Fortunatus

cir­ca 530-609

Music: Upp, Min Tun­ga
 Swed­ish Kor­al­bok, 1697

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A.E. Housman
1859 - 1936

Parting with a view

I don't reproach the spring

for starting up again.
I can't blame it
for doing what it must
year after year.

I know that my grief
will not stop the green.
The grass blade may bend
but only in the wind.

It doesn't pain me to see
that clumps of alders above the water
have something to rustle with again.

I take note of the fact
that the shore of a certain lake
is still-as if you were living-
as lovely as before.

I don't resent
the view for its vista
of a sun-dazzled bay.

I am even able to imagine
some, not-us
sitting at this minute
on a fallen birch trunk.

I respect their right
to whisper, laugh,
and lapse into happy silence.

I can even allow
that they are bound by love
and that he holds her
with a living arm.

Something freshly birdish
starts rustling in the reeds.
I sincerely want them
to hear it.

I don't require changes
from the surf,
now diligent, now sluggish,
obeying not me.

I expect nothing
from the depths near the woods,
first emerald,
then sapphire,
then black.

There's one thing I won't agree to:
my own return.
The  privilege of presence-
I give it up.

I survived you by enough,
and only by enough,
to contemplate from afar.

Wislawa Szymborska

 1923 - 2012

 Polish Poet

 1996 Nobel Prize Literature

HT: Carol Bakker

Blogger Friend

Photo Credit: Yours Truly
Gibbs Gardens, Ball Ground GA

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring   -     

   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         

   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         

   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         

   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. –
 Have, get, before it cloy,         

   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         

   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.         

Gerard Manley Hopkins
English Poet
1844 - 1889