Sometimes when night falls
it drifts gently to the ground silently
the way dandelions or bubbles do
a blanket over sleeping children
Other times
It falls like fine china from shelves
weakened over years
or bricks dropped off of skyscrapers
&
Sometimes when people fall
they fall like love
Into and out of
Head and heels
and such
Other times
they fall like prey
or victim
to knees
from grace
Copyright © 2017 by Andru Defeye. From Ilicit (2017). Used with the permission of the poet.
Into the air like dandelion seed
Or like the spiral of lark into the light
Or fountain into sun. All former sight
From hill or mountain was a mere hint of this.
We gain a new dimension. What had been
Our prison, where we crawled and clung like ants,
We spurn, and vision lying far beneath us.
O naked shape of earth! What green mammelles,
Arteries of gold and silver, turquoise flanks,
Plush jungles now are patterned! As we bank,
The earth tilts; we are level and aloof,
And it spins on and on among the stars.
We poise in air, hang motionless, and see
The planet turns with slow grace of a dancer.
From Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall, edited by Melba Joyce Boyd © 2009 by Dudley Randall. Reprinted with permission of the editor.
My love must be as free
As is the eagle’s wing,
Hovering o’er land and sea
And everything
I must not dim my eye
In thy saloon,
I must not leave my sky
And nightly moon
Be not the fowler’s net
Which stays my flight,
And craftily is set
T’ allure the sight
But be the favoring gale
That bears me on,
And still doth fill my sail
When thou art gone
I cannot leave my sky
For thy caprice,
True love would soar as high
As heaven is
The eagle would not brook
Her mate thus won,
Who trained his eye to look
Beneath the sun
This poem is in the public domain.
Upon the silent sea-swept land
The dreams of night fall soft and gray,
The waves fade on the jeweled sand
Like some lost hope of yesterday.
The dreams of night fall soft and gray
Upon the summer-colored seas,
Like some lost hope of yesterday,
The sea-mew’s song is on the breeze.
Upon the summer-colored seas
Sails gleam and glimmer ghostly white,
The sea-mew’s song is on the breeze
Lost in the monotone of night.
Sails gleam and glimmer ghostly white,
They come and slowly drift away,
Lost in the monotone of night,
Like visions of a summer-day.
They shift and slowly drift away
Like lovers’ lays that wax and wane,
The visions of a summer-day
Whose dreams we ne’er will dream again.
Like lovers’ lays wax and wane
The star dawn shifts from sail to sail,
Like dreams we ne’er will dream again;
The sea-mews follow on their trail.
The star dawn shifts from sail to sail,
As they drift to the dim unknown,
The sea-mews follow on their trail
In quest of some dreamland zone.
In quest of some far dreamland zone,
Of some far silent sea-swept land,
They are lost in the dim unknown,
Where waves fade on jeweled sand
And dreams of night fall soft and gray,
Like some lost hope of yesterday.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on May 14, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.