Michael Shindler Poems

We walk on the forest floor, you and I,
Beyond the bounds of lined fields and firelight,
Seeing only shapes of the wild and sky,
So that all the world seems one woodland-sight,
...

'My daughter, my only daughter,
What a strange crown you wear
Here on this lonesome riverbank
In the cold morning air.
...

Sing now child in the valley-glade.
Fret not over the blind judgment
Of hyacinths bright and fragrant
Or high pines yielding welcome shade.
...

Before first-frost enfolds the woodland glade,
Compelling fowl and foliage to flight,
Anoint the earth with balm of prayers prayed.
...

Before night climbs over the barricade,
And impels men to hoist-up flags of white,
Enshroud the silence in a serenade.
...

Ash and asphodels hang in the morning air
And white is the color of my true love's hair.

Above in the high blue sky a black bird flies
...

Go and gather me flowers from afar:
From the land where shines yet a blue-black star.

When the days are cold, when the nights are warm,
...

Yet the fruit of a fallen tree
Still tastes now as ever the same,
Though it grew far across the sea
In a garden guarded by flame.
...

We had heard them in the clouds overhead
Above the sun that had begun to fall
And the field where flicker the fallen dead:
Above you and me, but not above all.
...

While the wilds of the world whirl by,
Fairies sing the hours into song,
Each seeming a history long,
And history itself a sigh,
...