Beyond Thule

Queen Asa and her slave girl sail

On a dragon ship

The steering paddle starboard

Guides the noiseless ship

The long low Viking ship.

Only yesterday they passed cave bear

Elk and reindeer carved into

Rock faces along Norway’s coast—

Then human figures, horned and dancing

Then Bronze Age sun wheels, trumpets

And phallic weapons of war.

Iron hammers, magic runes

Stone grave yards shaped

Like ships with treasures in their holds:

Rich brooches and silver vessels—

Then she passed an age of gold--

Entwined dragons

Set with precious stones

Ornaments for people and horses.

Now ahead see Queen Asa’s dragon ship

Flowing like water that purls below.

An ancient world dragon

Hisses under her keel

The water clear and the air pure

As she passes over beyond Thule.

                                                                                            --Barbara Spring

Hunters' Moon

Hunters’ Moon

Clear sky: full moon

wearing her ivory wedding dress

she rises on the east

above black filigrees of trees--

her veils cover the night.

Moonlight glances through crystal on

my window sill

and her light strikes the glasses

of a hunter who drags a kill.

A small eclipse tonight --

 many elk spirits hang between

Earth and full moon.

Hunters sleep on the mountain

while elk herds browse all around.

 --Barbara Spring

Summer Nights in Michigan

Moon flowers open

Cicadas and crickets sing

As a barred owl hoots in the dark--

Flies on silent wings

Hides in a white pine.

The moon shines bright tonight

Mars blinks red over the lake

And Venus shines her light

And Lake Michigan reflects it back.

Orion strides with his bright belt

as his hunting dog tags behind.

I delight in these sights and sounds

On August nights in Michigan.

A Lunar Event

A Lunar Event

Full moon moves over the horizon

Boom boom boom boom

The moon a big bass drum

My beating heart follows

In sync it prances dances

Over lilacs and lakes

                                                        White tail deer tip toe

In the moon beams

A fawn cries to its mother

Maa maa maa

And I dance with the lilacs

And the moon glazed deer

In my dreams.

The Monarchs' Wedding

The Monarchs’ Wedding

Flying through blue air two

monarch butterflies joined together

bright orange veined with black—

one winging above

the other folded

and  upside down below.

In wild  joy they taste each other

 with their feet: six above and six below

higher and still higher on velvety wings

silken bodies dotted with white

monarchs on their nuptial flight.

--Barbara Spring

Butterfly Lovely at Ox Bow

Butterfly Lovely At Ox Bow

Mossy ash and maple

Spruce and sassafras

Willow and pine

Open forest where butterflies play.

Butterfly lovely today

The air exhales butterflies

And blue damsel flies

A jay complains.

Crickets sing

Grasshoppers open their wings

Yellow tiger swallow tails flutter

Then bend slender stems as they

Land on  pink flowers

Their spiral tongues suck nectar

From the sun

They fan their wings in dappled shade

Taste flowers with bushy black feet.

Now a green caterpillar marches up my sleeve

On dozens of feet.

                                         ---Barbara Spring

Spirit Bears

Sun bear sleeps in mountain flowers

Moon bear wades a rushing stream

Dark bear dances in my dreams

Light bear flies in icy air—

Sun bear deep in mountain thyme

Black bear strides with moon glazed hair

White bear swims the green salt sea—

                                      All and ever spirit bears.

My bears dance with me everywhere.

You may not see them but you will know

My midnight dark and noon delight.

 My white hot, my ice blue cold

In forests, meadows, streams and seas

My spirit bears strong and bold.

Vetch

                                                                            Vetch

Hardy as upright pioneer women

Wearing hot pink sun bonnets

Rambling over sea side banks

Sending out tangled shoots

Like green tatting.

I Will Stay

Bats spiral on slip streams

Slick spotted silver salmon leap cascades

 Monarch butterflies orange and black

 Fly south along the blue lakeshore

 Brave hummingbirds leave the north.

 Red and gold leaves swirl in airstreams

 Catch in the fur of a brown bear

The hair of red foxes

 And in my shaggy white hair.

 Migrations flow by but I will stay right here

 With the foxes and bears.  

Poems of Mine

A Galapagos Lad

Rafael whistles a vermilion flycatcher to us

bright scarlet male

ascending green branch by green branch.

Rafael grew up on these strange islands

learned the language of its birds

and of undersea creatures.

He speaks to sea lions

imitates their comical walk

swims in their wake.

He knows the caves of sharks—

The Galapagos lad inhabits

 These wild volcanic wastes

Rafael at home in this wild place.

       

                 

Air Earth Fire Water

A misty drizzle falls over Puget Sound—

enters every living thing

thimble berries I pick from the roadside—

berries red, soft, tender

stain my fingers red

flood my tongue with tang.

Water seeps into leaves, grass, me.

I’m as damp as the black crenulated slug

crossing the forest path with deliberate gravity.

Under a lush green cedar bough I lean

on its stout rough trunk—

I feel the qi in flowing through every living thing

and in water, minerals, earth and from

sun cupped golden marsh marigolds.

A sweetness breathes from pink rose hedges,

chicory stands sentinel for my blue longings.

Ferns breathe green ideas

From graceful filigrees.

Mist falls on an unseen singer haunting

the forest canopy with an unearthly scales of notes.

Imbued, baptized networks of roots under

my boots know I am here—the news

travels all the way down to the salty Sound.

Octopus, seals, sea otters hear the news.

They know my love of them and the gray whale

I greeted in the Baja last winter breaches

Its great body as it looks shoreward.

We are all joined in this joy.       

  

 Ancient Lyres

Solar winds tuned ancient lyres—

Bright fires burned in the eyes of wolves

As their tremolos entered hidden waters

Where little brown bats dipped over secret lakes.

Lunar mists in a minor key hid them all from sight.

I thought I heard those ancient lyres

As I wandered the woods last night.

Butterfly Lovely

Buckeyes, red admirals,

 Black swallowtails

And orange monarchs

Fan their wings

Then float away.

Dragonflies

With compound eyes

Breeze by—

Sunny day

Honey bees

 Bumble bees

Buzz In yellow poppies. 

Out in the Country

Out in the Country

 

Among oaks, hickories  and apple trees

silver songs of bobolinks, meadow larks and wrens ring

through blue air and whirling dragonflies pursue

small insects over fields of

white daisies and yellow tansies.

Tall grasses exhale clouds of pollen

For after all, it’s June.

 

                                         --Barbara Spring

 

water color by Barbara Spring

Pent Water

Pent Water


Pent water trembled at the dam

                                                                          Moonlight shivered at its lip

                                        By the dam I watched all night

                                                              And wore my starry cape.

                                                                     I watched the brown bats slip

                                                                                                  Under dawn’s skirt and escape

                                                                         All their hunting done.

                                                 Pent water dimpled at brink

                                                            The dam shrugged its shoulders

                                                                         Hurling beams, cattle, barns

                                                                                              Cars and all in its wake.

                                                                                 --Barbara Spring

Grand Haven Pier

Barbara Spring's Podcast  Begins March 26, 27 2016

                  

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Books by Barbara Spring