It’s funny how beetles
and creatures like that
can walk upside down
as well as walk flat.
They crawl on a ceiling
and climb on a wall
without any practice
or trouble at all.
While I have been trying
for a year (maybe more)
and still I can’t stand
with my head on the floor.
~~ Aileen Fisher
This old village–
Not a single house
Without persimmon trees.
— Matsuo Basho (Translated by Robert Hass)
Heat waves shimmering
one or two inches
above the dead grass.
— Matsuo Basho (Translated by Robert Hass)
The oak tree:
not interested
in cherry blossoms.
— Matsuo Basho (Translated by Robert Hass)
Moonlight slanting
through the bamboo grove;
a cuckoo crying.
— Matsuo Basho (Translated by Robert Hass)
The dragonfly
can’t quite land
on that blade of grass.
— Matsuo Basho (Translated by Robert Hass)
But for a woodpecker
Tapping at a post, no sound
At all in the house
— Matsuo Basho
With every gust of wind,
The butterfly changes its place
On the willow.
— Matsuo Basho
The banana tree
Blown by winds pours raindrops
Into the bucket
–Matsuo Basho
No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.
It’s flying from somewhere
As fast as it can,
I couldn’t keep up with it,
Not if I ran.
But if I stopped holding
The string of my kite,
It would blow with the wind
For a day and a night.
And then when I found it,
Wherever it blew,
I should know that the wind
Had been going there too.
So then I could tell them
Where the wind goes…
But where the wind comes from
Nobody knows.
— A. A. Milne
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
— William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
The rain comes in sheets
Sweeping the streets,
Here, here, and here,
Umbrellas appear.
Red, blue, yellow, green,
They tilt and they lean,
Like mushrooms, like flowers,
That grow when it showers.
— Elizabeth Coatsworth
Winter garden,
the moon thinned to a thread,
insects singing.
— Matsuo Basho (Translated by Robert Hass)
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
— Robert Frost
Download File: Robert Frost – Winter Poems
I had for my winter evening walk—
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.
Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o’clock of a winter eve.
— Robert Frost
Download File: Robert Frost – Winter Poems
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
— Robert Frost
Download File: Robert Frost – Winter Poems
Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.
It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.
— Robert Frost
Download File: Robert Frost – Winter Poems
