Winter light dwindles to a pale sunset.
Sycamore bark peels in patches.
Ever on sentry duty, an eye on the horizon,
Glowing like a desert landscape,
The silent tree watches for
Spring, as winter melts away.
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Tag Archives: sunset
Sunsets Burning
I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.
— Pablo Neruda, from Clenched Soul
Black-fingered trees
Yearn to touch the sky’s palette
Aglow with sunset
Icy winter dormancy
Kindled by sunset passion
This Tanka poem was inspired by Valentine’s Day, sunsets and Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Merely Day by Day. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Happy Solstice!
Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.
— Hans Christian Anderson
Bare
Trees yearn.
Setting sun
Whispers farewell.
Fall sleeps and winter stirs.
Winter Solstice parties
Shine fairy lights on all who dance
And sing.
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This poem is a concrete poem. The poem takes a shape related to its subject matter. The Christmas Tree tradition is a lovely way to celebrate the longest night, with lots of twinkling lights, inside and out. Historically, pagans and pre-Christians decorated at midwinter with evergreen boughs. Decorating a tree became a popular Christian tradition in Germany in the 1800’s. Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert, later made tree decorating popular throughout the world.
The Winter Solstice in my neck of the woods is Sunday, December 21, 2014, 6:03 p.m. EST. North of the arctic, you get no sun at all, and south of the Antarctic Circle, they have the Midnight Sun, or 24 hours of sunlight. Either place is too cold for me. I’ll take my 4 p.m. sunset.
Sunset Charm
A magic charm,
A balm for the soul —
Just add one sunset to
The first star of the night,
Throw in a child’s laugh,
And a heart-felt wish.
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This sunset was in West Dennis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. I may not have had internet connectivity on my mini-break, but I had connections to the clouds, sunsets and stars. 🙂 I got home, and my internet connection is spotty, and loading webpages nearly impossible. I will try to visit you when we have solved this new problem. Have a wonderful week ahead, my friends.
In-Between Weekend
Salty breezes lift away cares.
Color spills across the water,
Too intense for the sky to contain.
Horseshoe crabs dance a blurry ballet,
Twisting and turning in the gentle waves.
Seabirds swim quietly, at peace.
Twilight wanes, in-between day and night.
Summer is ending; school is about to begin.
In-between holds powerful magic.
Tomorrow seems far away,
Yesterday, a pleasant, hazy memory.
The right-now is a time of beauty.
Fleeting, but all the more precious for it.
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: Happy Labor Day Weekend! This sunset was photographed on the West Dennis Beach, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Sunset and the Bee
Bees gather nectar, frantic to finish tonight,
Before the ending day’s golden twilight
Has turned into black, stormy night.
The first spring blooms are key
For life of tree
And bee.
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: My poem has six lines, with the rhyming pattern, AAABBB, and 12 syllables in the first line, and then decreasing by two syllables per line, until the last line, which has 2 syllables (or: 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2). I wanted to use a diminishing syllable count to parallel the dwindling of bees from colony collapse disorder. This poem is similar to a nonet, but the nonet has nine lines, with 9 syllables on the first line, and then it decreases by one syllable per line until the last line, which has one syllable.
The In-Between
It’s in the in-between
that the real magic happens.
The seeds are planted,
the roots take hold…
and we blossom into who
we were meant to be.
~ Kristen Jongen
Twilight is an in-between:
Familiar shapes become strange,
Small things fly past and depart unseen.
Even colors seem to change.
Night swirls her midnight cloak;
Her crimson gloves leaves smudges
Of rosy beauty for all commuter folk
To brighten evening trudges.
I throw off my worries of the day,
Set all the heavy burdens down,
Ponder curves rounded on my way
And turn problems upside-down.
This is the right time to plan:
In between the days, one fading,
Streetlights glowing cyan,
Morning’s possibilities parading.
Tomorrow is soon enough
To take all my troubles up,
Even when the pressure is rough,
I embrace this magic time to sup.
Sips of sunset’s beauty rare
Behind black bare-branched trees.
Sweet robin has a song to share.
There in twilight I find ease.
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Thanks to Theresa at Soul Gatherings, who first used the above quote and renewed my interest in the in-between.
Reference: http://www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-id/bto-bird-id-nightingale-and-other-night-singers
Traveling Haiku
Newark layover
pacing, dreaming of palm trees
sun sets slowly
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
The Best Evening Look
A look that never goes out of style: the classic sunset.
Each tree takes her time dressing,
Wrapping herself in an ermine stole for a winter fete,
Mother Nature extends each a blessing.
Sun Setting on Autumn Haiku
stormswept hillside bare
autumn sun setting due west
limbs touch namaste
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Urban Cobweb Haiku
trolley spider-bus
crawls into the sunset
leaving cobweb tracks
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Friendly Fairy Tales 