Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Tuesday Poetry Stretch - The Sun

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.
Summer Sun
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.
I also like the poem Warm Summer Sun by Mark Twain. Do you have a favorite sun 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.

4 comments:

  1. Beachcomber
    By 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

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  2. 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:

    Healthy, 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

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  3. Summer has still not arrived in the Pacific Northwest, so the poem below is just wishful thinking!

    Undone
    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.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Another Grey Day

    The 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

    ReplyDelete