Bluebird and Cardinal 17th September 2024
Poetry
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  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Cardinal bird sitting on a tree branch overlooking a valley and a river at sunset

                                  I 
Thou winged symbol of the quiet mind,  
Thou straying violet, flying flower of spring,  
Heaven-hued and heaven-hearted! Thou dost sing  
As thou some sweet remembered thought didst find,  
And, counseling with thyself in musing kind,  
Didst softly say it over. Thy swift wing  
Knows but a quiet rhythm; thou a thing  
Of peace, to passion innocently blind. 

Thy russet breast means married love, long hope,  
Sheltered experience, small and sweet and sure.  
All of the brown earth’s natural purity;  
But something heavenly, beyond our scope,  
Steeped thy blue wing in color strange and pure,  
Intense and holy as the mirrored sky. 
                                  II 
Pulse of the gorgeous world, jubilant, strong,—
Thy song a whistled splendor, and thy coat  
A fiery song! From thy triumphant throat  
How I have heard it pouring, loud and long.  
Whipping the air as with a scarlet thong—  
The joyous lashing of thy triple note  
Which all the tamer noonday noises smote  
And clove a royal pathway through the throng! 

Thou singest joy of battle, joy of fame.  
Glory, and love of woman; joy of strife 
With life’s wild fates; and scorn’st, with jocund breath  
For prudence’ sake to dim thy feathered flame—  
Thou heart of fire, epitome of life,  
Full-throated flouter of vindictive death! 
                                  III 
And lo, among the leafy, hidden groves  
Within my heart, they both do flit and nest,  
Saintly blue wing and vaunting scarlet crest,  
Yea, all of life and all its myriad loves.  
Even as Nature holds them, sifts and proves  
And balances, so shall my soul find rest  
In Her large tolerance, which without rest  
Or lagging, toward some wide conclusion moves. 

So, though I weary sometimes of the stress,  
Leave me not, little lovers of the air.  
Dearest of Nature’s fine antitheses!  
Thou of the musing voice and heavenly dress.  
Thou, royal firebrand,—neither could I spare.  
My scarlet Passion, nor my winged Peace!
 

Karle Wilson Baker (1878 – 1960) was An American writer.

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