Green Poems
Mandalay
by Rudyard Kipling
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
......
Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan
by Moniza Alvi
They sent me a salwar kameez
&nb sp; peacock-blue,
& nbsp; and another
glistening like an orange split open,
embossed slippers, gold and black
&nbs p; points curling.
Candy-striped glass bangles
&n bsp; snapped, drew blood.
Like at school, fashions changed
&n bsp; in Pakistan -
......
The Creation
by James Weldon Johnson
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely--
I'll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
......
Snowy Morning
by Henry Shukman
When we were nine or ten and used to play
at dying - hands clasped to the chest,
Goodbye, beautiful world, I love you ! -
we didn't believe it could ever really be done.
Say goodbye to everything? A gunshot wound
In 'Alias Smith and Jones' could set us thinking -
please please don't die - or a feathered mess
that had been a pigeon squashed on the road
......
Scotland 1941
by Edwin Muir
We were a tribe, a family, a people.
Wallace and Bruce guard now a painted field,
And all may read the folio of our fable,
Peruse the sword, the sceptre and the shield.
A simple sky roofed in that rustic day,
The busy corn-fields and the haunted holms,
The green road winding up the ferny brae.
But Knox and Melville clapped their preaching palms
And bundled all the harvesters away,
Hoodicrow Peden in the blighted corn
......
On the Verge
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
pastel spring's coming
ushered in by fresh fragrance
lemon blooms sunning
posh pink flowers peep
pearl snowdrops left with the clouds
blue roses still sleep
buttercups, lilacs
green ivy resumes its creep
......
Drowsing in Dreams
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Sleeping in blossoms, plush pillows!
Fleeting dreams, of pink, cloud billows.
Red, orange, purple and golden,
spread over green park, so olden.
Soft, the sighs, as hummingbird flies,
Oft' plagued by purple martin cries.
Falling through petals ~ deep, downy.
Crawling time, scented and drowsy.
First Close Encounter
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Out alone at last
Seven, and rapt in lush green
Seeds of verse were sown
Yellow butterflies, hued blooms
On our new street of fireflies
Garden of Grace
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Sunday church garden
of lime green blooms, reds and creams-
Luxuriousness!
Gracefulness and scented smiles
greet butterflies in hued styles.
Orange, yellows, pinks
in the sweet whirlwind of days!
Gathered together.
To the silence, bluebirds sing
......
The Wild Places
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Smiles on all faces
when roaming green, green spaces.
Mauve populations
and redbird expectations
thrill in butterfly nations!
Color imposes
Wild horses and red roses.
Singing lilac breeze
greets yon heather honeybees
......
