Valerie Ceres comes to us from Manchester in the UK. Her screenname on Allpoetry.com is Elfin,

and she can be found here:

http://allpoetry.com/Elfin

And now, to the poem:

Scottish Springtime

Betwixt windswept moor and meadow

‘neath a vast and changing sky,

rise austere primeval mountains

where the golden eagles fly. 

From his shelter in a thicket

wanders forth a noble stag,

over viewing his wild kingdom

from a high and fearful crag.

Wind whips through the glens and valleys

rustles o’er the new sprung blades,

and it bites like spiny bramble

swift and keenly it pervades.

As the changing of the daylight

passes o’er the glassy loch

it reflects the rugged grandeur

of the cold grey glinting rock.

How these unforgiving Highlands

stir the souls of Celtic men,

as they gaze on savage mountain

or on sprouting vernal glen.

While the skirl of pipes entwine with

plaintive strains of ghostly lutes;

through archaic and ruined dwellings

spirits call me to my roots.

Be sure to check her out.

Next up: David Grace, from California, for a cheery Easter morning.

His screenname on Allpoetry.com is Roaddog Wolf, and he can be found here:

http://allpoetry.com/Roaddog%20Wolf

Those of you who rise early for Easter breakfast might appreciate this fine poem:

Reaching for the Breakfast Fork

Words are the syrup of writing's pancakes;
buttered syrup is the economy of words 
for writing waffles of eloquent qualities,
and expressive brevity.

Battered butter syrup instant waffle mix
are the non-existent written words of elloquence;
the expressive quality readers want for breakfast
and everyone looks for a chef to create.

Life is the abode of culinary arts 
the art of writing is life's culinary kitchen 
of creative inventions and breakfast pancakes.
Molasses anyone?

Come check him out.

For Easter, we have Rupert Brooke, with an inimitable and matchless ...

poem, and sadly, the only for which he is remembered today:

V. The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

On April 4, 1915, Dean Inge of St. Paul's Cathedral read a sonnet from the pulpit as part of his Easter Sunday sermon. The sermon was published in The Times the next day, and the sonnet therein became, as George Parfitt describes, "an important document of national preparation for war." Originally entitled 'The Recruit', Rupert Brooke's sonnet 'The Soldier' was the last in a sonnet sequence entitled '1914'. The five numbered sonnets, preceded by an unnumbered sonnet were first published in the periodical New Numbers (number 4) in January of 1915:

The Treasure, I. Peace, II. Safety, III. The Dead, IV. The Dead, V. The Soldier

Today we have Serge Charles Frechette from Canada.

He is known as capricornpoet on Allpoetry.com.  He can be found here:

http://allpoetry.com/capricornpoet

This is the link to his book reference, "Poems For All Seasons":

www.redleadbooks.com/

Now, on to his beautiful poem:

A Painter's Weave

Phtalo blue he brushed before all eyes;

And the sky appeared flawless and still

Soft yellow on the horizon, a sun's hue,

touched by cadmium white breath strokes,

over prussian blues and alizarins

Mingle of yellows and ochres, greens and vandyke brown,

giant fir trees and misty forests on mountains;

and the earth was filled onto the canvas;

there flowed prussian blue water and 

liquid white contours, the pond quiet now;

The painter's dream and weave done....

Check him out.

Now, from Australia, comes Ron Wiseman, with wisdom

for us today, about life and growing old.   Known as Lyndon on Allpoetry.com,  he can be found here:

http://allpoetry.com/Lyndon

A winter god

 

I look to one side of the living room and see a jungle of treeferns dripping with mist.
On the other, I see fogs curl along valleys far below, slow as glaciers.
A pale moon hangs among clouds, points to the western sun.

I have just showered and it’s winter outside, Australian winter, cool
and bleak but I am warm in front of a log fire pouring carbon footprints
one by one into the still air above, mounting to the stratosphere or

somewhere near it, and so I ponder forgetting I look like a sculpture
of David, if somewhat flabby and old, still completely male,
a flushed image of God, in our little cottage mounted upon a cliff-face

in defiance of gravity, winter, the whole of creation including the stars,
all dimensions of everything undiscovered as yet and, for a nanosecond,
I am a god, powerful, invulnerable and then I wake up, wide-eyed to

hear my wife say, “Are you all right, dear?”
I am as strong as I can hope to be and hide nakedness
not out of prudery; more, a sense of disappointment

 

emanating from a hallway mirror, reflecting whey milk of sunshine

left dissected, a heart rendered unsure, and a black cloud

hovering over coastal hills, sullen and unmoving. 

Check him out.

Wanda Lea Brayton makes her appearance, from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA,

too deeply rooted to be blown away by any hurricanes or dust storms.

She can be found here:

http://allpoetry.com/Night%20Hope

or here:

www.myspace.com/105007070

Within the Glistening

I have been wounded

& warped

by words falling errant

upon the page,

yet, healed by quiet murmurs,

the gentle rustle

of hands reaching out for me

in silence.

I have danced

beyond dawn's coming gleam,

unable to lay down my pen

& sleep,

taut with fiery imagination.

I have wished for moment's return

when I couldn't clarify my clouded emotions

& regretted the steel trap's closing

when I lashed out in anger.

I have whispered tender endearments

under moonlight's caress

 

& wept beyond reparation

when the world seemed too far away

to hold me.

I have been a Poet

every instant of my life,

even when language fails...

All visitors welcome.  Check her out.

Rob Ganson, known as Just Rob on Allpoetry.com comes to us from Wisconsin, USA:

His inimitable writings can be found here:

http://allpoetry.com/Just%20Rob

A Stream flows from the Loon Lake of my mind

 

 

 

 

 

 

                              {For Pat Dinnen}

 

 

 

A stream flows from the loon lake of my mind:

 

It requires no particular place to flow,

no respect from the land it feeds,

no song of itself for ungrateful ears.

It cannot be damned by merchant

or scoundrel, by grasping claws

of those who cannot inherit

the magic of the moon, the clarity,

the wisdom of water tumbling

over the smooth stone of time.

 

 

The paintings I sing,

the vistas of poetry I paint,

the story that tells me, line the banks

like wildflowers that usurp a neglected park.

All seasons reside along this rhythmic

ribbon of thought, This Stream

of consciousness.

 

 

If you listen, you can hear your spirit

sing like my loon, my coyote, my

laughter and tears.

There is a bend on this chromium path,

where sunrise kisses each mourning

with a hopeful mouth, hungry for you,

where a forever stone creates an eddy

that defines peace with silent song.

 

 

Can you hear the ripples, from the stone

I have tossed for you?

This is the place light goes to play

with water  and time is not.

 

 

This morning, I built you a bench there.

It is not an ordinary bench.

It will take you to your own stream,

lift you from unwanted time, place, and company.

 

 

This bench can fly.

Rob is an amazing writer.   Check him out.