How do you know that the pilgrim track Along the belting zodiac Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds Is traced by now to the Fishes’ bounds And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud, And never as yet a tinct of spring Has shown in the Earth’s apparelling; O vespering bird, how do you know, How do you know? How do you know, deep underground, Hid in your bed from sight and sound, Without a turn in temperature, With weather life can scarce endure, That light has won a fraction’s strength, And day put on some moments’ length, Whereof in merest rote will come, Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb; O crocus root, how do you know, How do you know? --- by Thomas Hardy
Poetry
Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About by Mary Oliver
The cricket doesn’t wonder
if there’s a heaven
or, if there is, if there’s room for him.
It’s fall. Romance is over. Still, he sings.
If we can, he enters a house
through the tiniest crack under the door.
Then the house grows colder.
He sings slower and slower.
Then, nothing.
This must mean something, I don’t know what.
But certainly it doesn’t mean
he hasn’t been an excellent cricket
all his life.
—
by Mary Oliver
Another verse from Contemplations by Anne Bradstreet
[Part 27 of 33 from Bradstreet’s long poem, Contemplations]
Theme in Yellow by Carl Sandburg
From Contemplations by Anne Bradstreet
Pinecone
Short, stout, and grandmotherly.
Blooming tongues,
A spiral staircase for the wee,
Brushed off their shelves by annoyed fairies.
All stay near the light-tipped edges,
Uncertain what the dark core holds.
—
Ken Zufall
when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story
To Daffodils
[in Just-]
Haiku – Herons
I.
sleeping at noon
the body of the blue heron
poised in nobility
(By – Basho; Translated – Earl Miner)
II.
Evening wind;
water laps
the heron’s legs
(By – Yosa Buson; Translated – Robert Hass)
[Great blue herons are a big attraction in my area in the springtime.]