Poetry Blog No 134 Four Short Creature Poems- A Cat Comes By at Night, Tree Frog, The Snail, Tiger

FOUR SHORT CREATURE POEMS- A CAT COMES BY AT NIGHT, TREE FROG,

THE SNAIL, TIGER

These four poems were written to be accessible to younger readers but I hope they can be enjoyed by people of any age. A Cat Comes By at Night was written after feeling the slightly odd sensation of being the thing gazed at.

Green tree frogs, even when quite large, can easily walk up a pane of glass searching for night time moths. Larger than most Australian frogs, the Australian green tree frog reaches 10 cm (4 in) or more in length. Its average lifespan in captivity, about 16 years, is long compared with most frogs. Docile and well suited to living near human dwellings, Australian green tree frogs are often found on window sills or inside houses, eating insects drawn by the light. From Wikipedia.

The Snail was originally published in a small anthology that sold about two copies, I think the poem is self explanatory. Tiger is, I guess, about the difference between image and reality.

Cat from Dark Clan RP Thread

                                 A CAT COMES BY AT NIGHT

A cat comes by at night

On softly padded paws.

A cat comes by at night

To gaze through grey screen doors.

With green and slitted eyes

And white-striped, ginger fur

A cat comes by at night-

And I’ve just noticed her.

Green Tree Frog from Frogs of Australia

                                   TREE FROG

Green frog, tree frog, hopping past,

Will you climb the window glass,

Clinging on with padded toes,

Watching where the white moth goes?

Fat frog, damp frog, will you flop down,

With your big grin like a clown?

Hop to where the puddle lies,

Wet your skin and golden eyes?

Tree frog, green frog, will you hide

In the water-pipe outside;

Leaving my bright window light,

To croak on through the rainy night?

Watching where the white moth goes,

Clinging on with padded toes,

Will you climb the window glass,

Green frog, tree frog, hopping past?

Snail from Daily Telegraph Sydney

                 THE SNAIL

Slowly, so slowly the snail

slides past dripping trees,

leaving a silvery trail,

looking for green leaves.

On soft, long stalks it's two small eyes

                 peer at the damp grass where rain fell;

it's ready, at the first surprise,

to draw into its round, brown shell.

Sliding slowly, slowly on it slimy

body with no bones;

sliding slowly, slowly with its spiralled,

                 thin shell for a home...

so it moves; so slow, so slow.

Nonetheless though, it will go

faster than the green leaves grow.

Tiger from Fotolia

                             TIGER

The tiger that is in the book

Has a most impressive look-

With fur of orange and of white

And dark shapes like the black of night,

And eyes that seem to look up through

The page and gaze right into you.

I’ve seen this face so many times

And read this name in tales or rhymes,

And seen him prowling in the zoo,

On film and television too.

I think I know the tiger well.

But then I wonder- who can tell?

For if I walked in jungle shade,

And every time a shadow played

Across my sight I felt the fear

Of wild and watchful hunters near,

Of unseen stalkers, quiet as dreams,

Well- then I’d know what tiger means.

Poetry Blog No 133 Narrow Roads to Inner Lands Scene Two

NARROW ROADS TO INNER LANDS- SCENE TWO

In the second scene Bashō and Sora set out upon there journey leaving Edo (now Toyko) at a time of significance still in Japan- the time of cherry blossoms.

"Hanami" is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming sakura or ume tree. The custom is said to have started during the Nara Period (710–794) when it was ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning. But by the Heian Period (794–1185), cherry blossoms came to attract more attention and hanami was synonymous with sakura. From then on, in both waka and haiku, "flowers" (hana) meant "cherry blossoms". The custom was originally limited to the elite of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to samurai society and, by the Edo period, to the common people as well. Tokugawa Yoshimune planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this. Under the sakura trees, people had lunch and drank sake in cheerful feasts. From Wikipedia

Mount Fuji and Cherry Blossoms Tokyo (by Hilly Areas of the World)

SCENE TWO

Soft dawn music. A dawn light. Noises and then voices offstage.

VOICE ONE

Farewell, good Bashō.

VOICE TWO

                                           May fortune guide you both.

VOICE THREE

May you return, old friends,

VOICE FOUR

                                                       before next spring.

(Enter Bashō and Sora with packs on their backs and carrying stout walking sticks.)

BASHŌ

It’s strange how all beginnings are like endings,

And how all endings are new-starting ways.

The dawn’s new rays bring birth of living day

But fold up healing night’s deep, restful darkness-

Bright flowers fade to fruit, the fruit to seed,

So all is starting with an ending; so

It seems, indeed, with starting journeys too-

The first, new steps are taken with farewells.

SORA

We’re starting early. Mistiness still lingers:

A hazy darkness dimming morning’s light.

Look, eastwards lies a dying sickle moon:

A white ship on the sea of dawn. On far

The summit of Mount Fuji seems, in this

First sight of day, still like a shadow shape.

BASHŌ

And all spring-flowering crowns of cherry trees

Seem bidding us farewell; farewell to Edo.

Oh, shining blossoms, when shall I see you

Once more? Thoughts linger, making heavy steps.

This passing world’s in sense illusion, yet

Fair images of friends and of the town

Have nearly filled my eyes with foolish tears.

And thus we leave and leave but words behind.

(Bashō pauses, then speaks.)

O, spring departing:

The birds cry and the fishes’

Round eyes are weeping.

With these departing words to mark this moment,

Let’s be upon our way. I’ll not be bound

To some one place, however pleasing, or

A foolish ease of situation, for

As has been said in other, ancient times,

A man attempting not to learn grows old

Just like an ox. His body ages, but

His wisdom does not grow with gathered years.

SORA

Now we have quite a walk before us here -

More than a season’s walk. I think this spring

And coming summer will have passed before

We’ve traced the narrow road up to the north.

BASHŌ

So let us be upon our way and leave

Old lives back here with starting steps. And yet,

As I once wrote and still feel so in part -

My mind made up to fall

A weather-whitened skeleton,

I cannot help the wild, sore wind

Whirling through my heart.

( Music of wind. Bashō and Sora exit. Lights fade.)

Poetry Blog No 132 Three Sonnets on Life and Time- A Tree in the Wind, A Passing Sonnet, A Sonnet on Mutability

THREE SONNETS ON LIFE AND TIME- A TREE IN THE WIND, A PASSING SONNET, A SONNET ON MUTABILITY

The "Shakespearean" sonnet is an interesting form to develop imagery while creating a short "exposition" on a theme. This is partly due to its sectional rhyme scheme as I noted in a previous post - The first four lines (rhymed a,b,a,b) tend to introduce the subject, the next (c,d,c,d) develop the subject, the next four come to a sort of conclusion (e,f,e,f) and the last two lines, a rhyming couplet (g,g) bring it to a final conclusion or suddenly reverse the direction of the rest of the poem.

These three sonnets work this way with themes of life and time. 

 

photo- Mark Scrivener

                                         A TREE IN THE WIND

Against a swept, blue sky a flooded gum

Holds leafy branches to the morning wind,

And whispers, rustling in the breeze-fresh run,

The minute music that air's whirling spins.

There bright, alive in light, its many leaves

All shimmer in sun's white and winter blaze;

And billow, as the breath of heaven breathes,

In changing swirls of gleaming, leafy glaze.

How well it would be growing as a tree,

In time's unfolding from firm being's seed,

To stand in yielding power, firm but free,

Yet grounded in the good and knowing deed-

          A tree of life that time's calm living weaves,

          With strong and branching years and days as leaves.

A PASSING SONNET

Though when dusk sun is driven down to doom,

Its hushed, west passing hastens envious dark,

Though silent-cold, a falling winter's gloom

Will seal flower life to seed's near-sleeping spark,

Though fury, whirled from wind's life-bringing breath,

Is lost, exhausted by its sky-spent climb;

And minutes moving always towards my death

Will twist its change through all my weave of time,

Though when a fire has flickered out its flame,

Its once-awoken, embered burning fades,

And once alive, the now-departed's fame

Will die away to memories' paling shades. . .

     Yet self's unseen and lasting being stays

     And bears the memories of passing days.

SONNET ON MUTABILITY

Is time a ceaseless river ever-flowing?

A wind upon illimitable vastness;

The fleeting moment fleeing, ever-going?

A failing glow pursued by hungry darkness?

Or like the phoenix from the flames new-winged?

Or like the flower that fruits and ripens seed?

The ever-new and ever-gathering,

The metamorphosing, the ever-freed?

And though to outer sense what's passed is past,

There is an endless freeing in time's passing;

But nothing's lost or spent. Deep in the heart

Of all that is there lives the ever-lasting:

           Dark follows day, but day breaks forth from night;

          And living years are pilgrims to the light.