Still More Poems that Strike me

July Mountain

We live in a constellation

Of patches and of pitches,

Not in a single world,

In things said well in music,

On the piano, and in speech,

As in a page of poetry –

Thinkers without final thoughts

In an always incipient cosmos,

The way, when we climb a mountain,

Vermont throws itself together.

~ Wallace Stevens

Aura

All day the mountain

flared in blue

September air.

The valley lay stunned 

by color.

autumn's maple-brightness.

Now twilight comes;

not dark but a moments 

clarity, so that brute

wonder drains

from my eyes, relieved 

by the evening star,

there, calm, over 

the horizon, a lucidity.

lucency. That light, far

lavender, restores

distance 

and measure,

and inside my skull I rise

tall and free again.

Then

the mountain, free too

in its subduing,

intercedes, a new presence now,

a sense given beyond 

color, around and surrounding-

Is it shadow, is it

a blue myth coming to be?

Ah, wonder gone, how 

lovely this welcoming! I see,

see the new dimension, form 

wavering into essence 

and shimmering-oh!

so slightly!-back to 

new form, while

the mountain looks at me.

~ Hayden Carruth

Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain

The birds have vanished down the sky.

Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains.

Li Po/ Li Bai (Hamill, translator) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Going out in stormy weather

Cold Mountain

I am sometimes asked the way to the Cold Mountain;

There is no path that goes all the way.

Even in summer the ice never melts;

Far into the morning the mists gather thick.

How, you may ask, did I manage to get here?

My heart is not like your heart.

If only your heart were like mine

You too would be living where I live now.

Han-shan

Translated by Arthur Waley

Dream in the Summer of my Seventy-third Year 

I am behind a funeral cortege on a mountain road 

And decide to pass it, but it seems to go on forever 

And I'm completely exposed in the oncoming lane 

And the only way out is to merge into the caravan 

Of mourners. It is getting dark and a thick snow 

Begins to fall in a sudden flurry and then stops 

Abruptly, which gives the world an expectant air, 

Though, really, nothing in particular happens 

After a snowfall, except for the intense stillness 

In the pine forest the road is winding through.

Robert Haas

[Traveler, your footprints]

Traveler, your footprints 

are the only road, nothing else.

Traveler, there is no road;

you make your own path as you walk.

As you walk, you make your own road,

and when you look back

you see the path 

you will never travel again.

Traveler, there is no road;

only a ship's wake on the sea.

-Antonio Machado

To See It

We need to separate

to see the life we’ve made,

to leave our house

where someone waits, patiently,

warm beneath the sheets;

to don layers of armor,

sweater, coat, mittens, scarf,

to stride down the frozen road,

putting distance between us,

this cold winter morning,

to look back and see,

on the hilltop, our life,

lit from inside.

~ Laura Foley

Let my snow-tracks lead 

on, on. Let them, where they stop, 

stop. There, in mid-field.

~ Hayden Carruth

Kono michi ya / yuku hito nashi ni / aki no kure

this road

with no traveler

autumn evening

~ Basho

“The truth is, of course, that there is no journey.

We are arriving and departing all at the same time.”

― David Bowie

A Book of the Seasons: The Cricket in July

I came here to live . . .

 Always there was the sound of 

the morning cricket. 

Henry Thoreau, July 5, 1845 

*****

July 5.  Saturday. Walden. - Yesterday I came here to live . . . Always there was the sound of the morning cricket. July 5, 1845 

July 7. It is a mark of serenity and health of mind when a person hears the sound of the cricket. Be ever so little distracted, your thoughts so little confused, your engagements so few, your attention so free, your existence so mundane, that in all places and in all hours you can hear the sound of crickets in those seasons when they are to be heard.  July 7, 1851

July 9. The crickets appear to have received a reinforcement during the sultry night. July 9, 1852

July 14. The creaking of the crickets seems at the very foundation of all sound. At last I cannot tell it from a ringing in my ears. It is a sound from within, not without. You cannot dispose of it by listening to it. In proportion as I am stilled I hear it. It reminds me that I am a denizen of the earth. July 14, 1851

July 15. The robin sings still, but the goldfinch twitters over oftener, and I hear the link link of the bobolink, and the crickets creak more as in the fall. All these sounds dispose our minds to serenity. July 15, 1854

July 16. The earliest corn begins to tassel out. The lark sings in the meadow; the very essence of the afternoon is in his strain. This is a New England sound, but the cricket is heard under all sounds. July 16, 1851

July 16. Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season. Instead of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood thrush, there is the whip-poor-will;. . . Instead of singing birds, the croaking of frogs and the intenser dream of crickets  .July 16, 1860

July 19. Beyond the bridge there is a goldenrod partially blossomed. First came the St. John's-wort and now the goldenrod to admonish us. I hear, too, a cricket amid these stones under the blackberry vines, singing as in the fall. Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then?  July 19, 1851

July 19. I hear now that very fine pittering sound of a locust or cricket in the grass. July 19, 1860

July 20. The light of the moon is a cold, almost frosty light, white on the ground. There are a few fireflies about. Green, their light looks sometimes, and crickets are heard. You are pretty sure also to hear some human music, vocal or instrumental, far or near. July 20, 1853

July 21. There are few sounds but the slight twittering of swallows, and the springy note of the sparrow in the grass or trees, and a lark in the meadow (now at 8 A.M.), and the cricket under all to ally the hour to night. Day is, in fact, about as still as night. July 21, 1851

July 24. The corn now forms solid phalanxes, though the ears have not set, and, the sun going down, the shadows, even of corn-fields, fall long over the meadows, and a sweetness comes up from the shaven grass, and the crickets creak more loud in the new-springing grass. July 24, 1852

July 24.  I hear incessantly a cricket or locust, inspired by the damp, cool shade, telling of autumn. July 24, 1853

July 26. Dog-days, - sultry, sticky weather, - now when the corn is topped out. Clouds without rain. Rains when it will. Old spring and summer signs fail . . . I mark again, about this time when the first asters open, the sound of crickets or locusts that makes you fruitfully meditative, helps condense your thoughts, like the mel dews in the afternoon. This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent! July 26, 1853 

July 27. New creaking or shrilling from crickets (?) for a long time past, more fine and piercing than the other. July 27, 1852

July 28. Last evening it was much cooler, and I heard a decided fall sound of crickets. July 28, 1854

July 29. The sight of the small rough sunflower about a dry ditch bank and hedge advances me at once further toward autumn. At the same time I hear a dry, ripe, autumnal chirp of a cricket. It is the next step to the first goldenrod. July 29, 1853

July 31. Returning home last evening, I heard that exceedingly fine z-ing or creaking of crickets (?), low in the grass in the meadows. You might think it was a confused ringing in your head, it is so fine. Heard it again toward evening. Autumnalish. July 31, 1859

See also:

July Days

July Moods

The Cricket in Spring

The Cricket in August

Locust Days, Dogdayish Days

The Cricket in November (Listening for the last cricket)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in July

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-julycricket

A Book of the Seasons: July Days

A year is made up of 

a certain series and number 

of sensations and thoughts 

which have their language in nature.

Henry Thoreau, June 6, 1857

July 1

A late breeze rises

wood thrush and tanager sing

sparkling the river.  

July 1, 1854

July 2

Fine silvery light

reflecting from the blades of

miles of waving grass.

July 2, 1851

July 3

Wintergreen blossom,

pretty little chandelier,

adorns forest floor.

July 3, 1852

 July 4

Waves of light and shade

over the breadth of the land

sweeping the landscape.

July 4, 1860

July 5

Shadows of pine stems

fall across the small wood path

red with pine-needles.

July 5, 1851

July 6

June grasses are past.

Now the grass turns to hay as

flowers turn to fruits.

July 6, 1851

July 7

Lilies surprise me.

Now the flowering season

has reached its height.

July 7, 1852

July 8

The moon reflected

from the rippled surface like

a stream of dollars.

July 8, 1854

July 9

Busy hummingbird

unmindful of the shower,

struck by a big drop.

July 9, 1860

July 10

Aboriginal

bream over its sandy nest

poised on waving fin.

July 10, 1853

July 11

Waving in the wind

this grass gives a purple sheen

over the meadow.

July 11, 1860

July 12

The upland plover

hovers on quivering wing –

 alights by steep dive.

July 12, 1855

July 13

Hayers rest at noon

and resume after sunset.

The Haymaker’s moon.

July 13, 1851

July 14

A fine misty rain

lies on reddish tops of grass

like morning cobwebs.

July 14, 1854

July 15

Thoughts driven inward –

clouds and trees reflected in 

the still, smooth water.

July 15, 1854

July 16

Dark-blue winding stripe,

green meadow, dark-green forest,

blue dark and white sky.

July 16, 1851

July 17

Flying shore to shore,

yellowish devil's-needles

cross their Atlantic.

July 17, 1854

 July 18

I first hear the locust sing 

so dry and piercing

by the side of the pine woods 

in the heat of the day.  

July 18, 1851

July 18

With midsummer heats

asters and goldenrods come –

children of the sun.

July 18, 1854

July 19

The more smothering

furnace-like heats are begun –

and the locust days.

July 19, 1854

July 20

We see the first star 

and know not if we might have

seen it earlier.

July 20, 1852

July 21

Sun warm on my back

I turn round and shade my face -

a beautiful life.

July 21, 1853

July 22

Our fairest days born

in a fog, the season of

morning fogs arrived.

July 22, 1851

July 23

Along the river

the memory of roses -

late rose now in prime.

July 23, 1860

July 24

In low Flint's Pond Path 

goldenrod makes a thicket 

higher than my head. 

July 24, 1856

July 25

Fog rises highest

over the river and ponds

which are thus revealed.

July 25, 1852

July 26

Sun's disk round and red

seen well above horizon

through thick atmosphere.

July 26, 1856

July 27

The voice of the loon 

in the middle of the night

far over the lake.

July 27, 1857

July 28

Goldenrod, asters

grasshoppers now abundant -

cooler breezy air.

July 28, 1852

July 29

Kindred red color

of skies in the evening and

fruits in the harvest.

July 29, 1852

July 30

Grand sound of the rain

on the leaves of the forest

distant, approaching.

July 30, 1852

July 31

Thoughts of autumn and

the memory of past years

occupy my mind.

July 31, 1856

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A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July Days

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2025