Emily Dickinson | D. H. Lawrence | Harry Kemp | Larry Gates
by D.H. Lawrence
I can imagine, in some otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.
Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.
I believe there were no flowers then,
In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.
I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.
Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards, they say, were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.
We look at him through the wrong end of the telescope of Time,
Luckily for us.
Within My Garden, rides a Bird
by Emily Dickinson
Within my Garden, rides a Bird
Upon a single Wheel --
Whose spokes a dizzy Music make
As 'twere a travelling Mill --
He never stops, but slackens
Above the Ripest Rose --
Partakes without alighting
And praises as he goes,
Till every spice is tasted --
And then his Fairy Gig
Reels in remoter atmospheres --
And I rejoin my Dog,
And He and I, perplex us,
If positive, 'twere we --
Or bore the Garden in the Brain
This Curiosity --
But He, the best Logician,
Refers my clumsy eye --
To just vibrating Blossoms!
An Exquisite Reply!
A Route of Evanescence
by Emily Dickinson
A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel --
A Resonance of Emerald --
A Rush of Cochineal --
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head --
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning's Ride --
by Harry Kemp
The sunlight speaks. And it's voice is a bird:
It glitters half-guessed half seen half-heard
Above the flower bed. Over the lawn ...
A flashing dip and it is gone.
And all it lends to the eye is this --
A sunbeam giving the air a kiss.
| awake at dawn darting through strands of mist the flower-seeker
out of heaven still glittering the hummingbird
two fighting hummingbirds rise slowly through leaves not touching
a thousand facets of metallic light turning his head he darkens
soul slips out of my body and chases the hummingbird
another hummingbird darkens and flies off towards the rainbow
sunlit raindrops explode around the hovering hummingbird
a day of dreams the garden and the hummingbird float on my breath
under the vast dome of the sky two hummingbirds are fighting
little bird at my face you make me real
deep summer the hummingbird disappears inside a flower
tiny hummingbird hovering before my nose what is your name?
a thousand nows the busy hummingbird in the garden
time slows as the hummingbird approaches the flower
fully open the red flower accepts the hummingbird
curved space every trajectory ends at a flower
the dueling hummingbirds do not see the rainbow
too many words I sip tea and gaze at the hummingbird
wind and sunlight -- a floating world of hummingbirds in the flower garden
The present moment hovering before a flower
a bell rings the hummingbird selects another flower
dawn wordless flowers waiting
this will save the world a hummingbird chasing flowers in the wind
fuschia from below he lingers as long stamens touch his throat
as we garden on hands and knees a hummingbirds tastes the unplanted flowers
He is Jack and I the giant my face a massive landscape with crevices and outcrops
nothing else matters the hummingbird has become the moving arrow of time
whirring wings as time vanishes before a blue flower
mountains and the quiet smile of my wife a hummingbird darts between us
The hummingbird flies off I sense it is I that is moving backwards and out of control
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