A poem, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, with great dynamism. Short but so effectively expressed. The adjectives are just right. The words, metre, alliteration and rhymes work together to convey the essence of the eagle’s power and majesty.
There Where For you It begins Its encroachment Knowing you will be there To welcome it’s return To follow its path Waiting Watching Until bite by bite Ripple by ripple It will wash your words Across oceans To my shore
Here Where My foot printed Passage Replicates your own And signs itself With love
But in turn That will come For you Too And my own shells Of words Will flow And flood Where your bare feet Choose to follow
There is a beautiful song, composed by the American songwriter, Carl Sigman, called ‘EBB TIDE’. I came across this beautiful and moving rendering of it by my favourite male voice a capella choir, The Westminster Chorus,. i have brought these to your attention in a previous blog. please do listen to their version of ‘Ebb Tide’ at this YouTube link …Click here to watch and listen.
Each day The rising sun chases the moon away To hide its limpid light From the brightness of day. Cowed in its lair Within the darkness Of its sylvan hideaway, Preferring to lie With the leaves And squirrels And, as Clytie, Watch the skies, Following Helios’s chariot, Gazing as he Arcs the heavens, Jealous of his power, Fearful of his revenge Were she ever to show her face In his presence. Ever allowing her nemesis To hold sway Over the new day, Commanding the attention of the world And continuing his journey; The dominant presence In the cerulean sky.
When is the moon not a moon? … When it’s the sun in a circular mirror.
The three photographs are of a reflection in a window of daylight, itself reflected in a circular mirror and back onto the glass of the window. All photographs by me – March 2017 … Roland (WHB)
ancient ice increasingly encircles as we move silently with stealth into the ice fiord hesitantly making a zig-zag passage towards the unstable terminus of the glacier as it erodes into the ocean’s edge
increasingly smotheringly enclosed by walls of white and blue immense ridge-flanked jagged-backed menacingly still a maze through which the miniscule craft threads a passage towards the minotaur the glacier’s lowering face as it crumbles tumbles its fronting phalanx fragmenting with the occasional sudden grinding cracking turmoil of yet another frozen offshoot adding to the welter the crowded pack of new-born creatures as the ice mass breaks and calves to join the myriad of off-spring in the ice ocean
Tu Fu ( or Du Fu), who was born in Gongyi in 712 A.D., was one of the foremost poets of the Chinese Tang dynasty. He and Li Bai, are normally thought of as the greatest of all Chinese poets. He died in Changsha, China, in 770 A.D.
I print below, two of his poems, both, as the majority of his poems, exemplify his intense relationship with nature, wildlife, and with the seasons, even amidst the turmoil of the times in which he lived.
(Both designs are my own pen and wash drawings in an attempt at capturing a Chinese style.)
A Spring View
Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure; And spring comes green again to trees and grasses Where petals have been shed like tears And lonely birds have sung their grief. … After the war-fires of three months, One message from home is worth a ton of gold. … I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin To hold the hairpins any more.
A View of Taishan
What shall I say of the Great Peak? – The ancient dukedoms are everywhere green, Inspired and stirred by the breath of creation, With the Twin Forces balancing day and night. …I bare my breast toward opening clouds, I strain my sight after birds flying home. When shall I reach the top and hold All mountains in a single glance?