“Dawn” by William Carlos Williams

Ecstatic bird songs pound
the hollow vastness of the sky
with metallic clinkings–
beating color up into it
at a far edge,–beating it, beating it
with rising, triumphant ardor,–
stirring it into warmth,
quickening in it a spreading change,–
bursting wildly against it as
dividing the horizon, a heavy sun
lifts himself–is lifted–
bit by bit above the edge
of things,–runs free at last
out into the open–lumbering
glorified in full release upward–
songs cease.

William Carlos Williams

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“An Evensong for Mama” by Dorothy Logan

In her rubber irrigation boots
Mama would walk the rows
of flooded alfalfa,
content with the work of silent seeds.

Her hearing nearly gone,
she was undisturbed
by roosters at the dawn,
clinging milk pails
and stray dogs
barking along the ditch bank.
Her days were spirited
with smooth, brown eggs,
honey warming on the stove
and flour sacks sewn into pinafores.

At suppertime, the kitchen table
never  smelled of oilcloth
but pickings from her sweetpea fence
or roses coaxed to bloom in winter.
She would talk
of a wobbling Guernsey calf just born
and offer boysenberry pie
dribbled with thick, raw cream.
Faint as a dinner bell
from a farmhouse miles away
were the stories and laughter
given in return.

Yet, she found a way to hear
the worrisome, pneumatic cries
from my bed one very long night.
With her face to my infant chest
she could feel in the darkness
whether I cried or slept,
or breathed.

Now, with the cloister of stars
I sing her an evensong.
I love you, Mama.
The covers are warm
and I sleep.

Dorothy Logan
Child in a Sculptured Bowl (1986)

 

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“The Song of Beren and Lúthien” by J.R.R. Tolkien

The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinúviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.

There Beren came from mountains cold,
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled
He walked alone and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.

Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.

He heard there oft the flying sound
Of feet as light as linden-leaves,
Or music welling underground,
In hidden hollows quavering.
Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,
And one by one with sighing sound
Whispering fell the beachen leaves
In the wintry woodland wavering.

He sought her ever, wandering far
Where leaves of years were thickly strewn,
By light of moon and ray of star
In frosty heavens shivering.
Her mantle glinted in the moon,
As on a hill-top high and far
She danced, and at her feet was strewn
A mist of silver quivering.

When winter passed, she came again,
And her song released the sudden spring,
Like rising lark, and falling rain,
And melting water bubbling.
He saw the elven-flowers spring
About her feet, and healed again
He longed by her to dance and sing
Upon the grass untroubling.

Again she fled, but swift he came.
Tinúviel! Tinúviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she, and a spell
His voice laid on her: Beren came,
And doom fell on Tinúviel
That in his arms lay glistening.

As Beren looked into her eyes
Within the shadows of her hair,
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tinúviel the elven-fair,
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast her shadowy hair
And arms like silver glimmering.

Long was the way that fate them bore,
O’er stony mountains cold and grey,
Through halls of ireon and darkling door,
And woods of nightshade morrowless.
The Sundering Seas between them lay,
And yet at last they met once more,
And long ago they passed away
In the forest singing sorrowless.

J.R.R. Tolkien

 

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