I'm a day late and more than a dollar short, but yesterday was a holiday. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
While lazing in the heat of the sun yesterday I found myself thinking remembering the first stanza of a poem from childhood. It's in my very tattered copy of A Child's Garden of Verses. I had to look it up when I got home because I couldn't remember the rest of the poem.
So, your challenge is to write a sun poem. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
While lazing in the heat of the sun yesterday I found myself thinking remembering the first stanza of a poem from childhood. It's in my very tattered copy of A Child's Garden of Verses. I had to look it up when I got home because I couldn't remember the rest of the poem.
Summer SunI also like the poem Warm Summer Sun by Mark Twain. Do you have a favorite sun poem?
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven without repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic, spider-clad,
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.
So, your challenge is to write a sun poem. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Beachcomber
ReplyDeleteBy Steven Withrow
Sitting in the sand,
sifting through her pail
of wonders from the waves,
she whispers to a shell
a secret that the sea-sound
sings back to her.
Her rescued rocks
are round enough for skipping,
and her bits of beach glass,
blues and greens,
shade the shoreline
a shimmering rainbow.
The crown of her cache
is a crab’s claw, freshly
dug from a dune
with a double-headed shovel,
like a buried bone,
a bird’s fossil,
Neptune’s ghost-glove,
or a knight’s gauntlet.
Her tiny bucket
is a treasure box
of human jetsam, too:
a hard-plastic juice cup
cracked at the lip,
a red crayon, the lid
off a popcorn can,
a pearl-toothed comb
a mermaid dropped
among the driftwood
for a girl to find,
a gift of friendship
and a message sent
to make certain
someone will recall
the sacred code.
The gulls, in loops,
fly low over the ground,
hunting for scraps
and screeching hungrily,
angrily, echoing
at every angle
around her head.
She hears their ruckus
only as a murmured
music from the ocean,
a lullaby,
a barnacle’s laugh
as the rising tide
tickles its ribs.
The dappled sun
will soon go down.
Her sieve is full
of falling sand.
©2011 Steven Withrow, all rights reserved
I have two sun-related limericks, one old and a new one I haven't posted on my blog yet. Here's my old one:
ReplyDeleteHealthy, Or Half-Baked?
And here's my new one:
A woman was feeling undone
By years in the hot, baking sun.
Her skin was a fright.
What a rough, wrinkly sight!
And suitors? Alas, she had none.
Mad Kane
Summer has still not arrived in the Pacific Northwest, so the poem below is just wishful thinking!
ReplyDeleteUndone
by sun
today,
I play
and get
all giddy.
Ready,
set, go goofy
on the lawn,
running
so the sun
will see me
and be pleased
as punch -
ooooooo-
eeeeeee,
flying
like a bumble
bee, I buzz
goodbye
to my
rain funk,
today
I'm twirling
on the grass
because I'm sun-
drunk.
Another Grey Day
ReplyDeleteThe Scottish sky is a pearl,
grey and white, full of lustre
with no sign of sun.
Yet the garden pulses green
and flowers lift their dewy faces
in hope towards the sky.
As do I.
As do I.
©2011 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved