Poetry Blog No 142 Tree and Stars

TREE AND STARS

We tend to think of the "eternal" as something static but what if it is a growing thing, Perhaps life is so full of meaning that we cannot see it-rather in the manner of the fish trying to grasp the water. This poem is in the form of the ballad stanza- four lines of four iambic feet. Note- the tree in this glorious image is of course not an iron bark.

 

TREE AND STARS

The detailed day has vanished now

Into far vastness of wide night.

Now darkness shows the winter sky-

The glory of more distant light.

The great, sun-wakened world’s at rest,

And silenced is each busy hour-

For every moment flowing on

Must ever pass from present power.

For time, like turning of the earth

Which wheels the stars across the sky,

Will never pause from constant pace,

But must be ever passing by.

Above black hills our southern cross

And pointers flame white in the dark;

Wide Scorpio sweeps overhead,

With bright Antares’ wild, red spark.

On cloudy stream of star-mist shine,

Against far-arching galaxy,

Is spread a mass of lightless leaves-

A tall iron-bark, wide-branching tree.

All of a sudden I see that time

Is not just flow but ever growing;

Like some, vast, universal tree

Spread from these depths where stars are glowing.

The passing moment lives to praise

The lasting of eternity;

There is no waste of living days…

For time is heaven’s spreading tree.