Category: Nature

Observe the jaybird’s startling blue
Etched on new-down snow;
And watch the cardinal’s bold splash
Eclipse the sunset show.

It’s Nature in the role of
A frantic landscape-tinter.
Painting hard to compensate
For lack of leaves in winter.

by Ray Romine Saturday, November 5, 1949

Abandoned now, the bluebirds’ home,
Snow upon its faded roof,
Stands as a forgotten home
Somehow saddened and aloof.

Its sprightly tenants, distant now,
Splash some southern garden scene
Riotously, yet somehow
Harmonizing blue with green!

Here north, the gardener, kicking snow,
Aches for a flash of sky-hued wing;
And later, by the fireplace glow,
He dreams of bluebirds, sun, and spring.

by Ray Romine Monday, December 19, 1949

The Mums and the Asters are just at their height,
And the Ootober landsoape will soon be alight
With improbable colors so gaudy they seem
To be something conceived in an art-student’s dream.
No designer or artist would risk such abuses
Of contrasting values as Dame Nature uses.

by Ray Romine Thursday, September 11, 1947

In spring, all summer, and through the fall,
The woods to me is a clarion call–
What are the woods to you?

The woods to me is a catbird’s song
That trickles and trips as it skips along;
A dogwood’s blossoms beneath the moon;
A flash of butterfly gone too soon–
What are the woods to you?

The woods to me are the flowers of spring
That brave the snows while winter is King;
The smell of the dawning bathed with dew;
An indigo bunting’s startling hue–
What are the woods to you?

The woods to me means a pa,th under trees;
The lazy sunshine; ambitious bees.
When life is flat and the pleasures pall,
The woods weave a melody over it all–
What are the woods to you?

The woods to me is a living book
Whose pages open when I just look;
However often observed before,
What I first see is discovered once more.
The woods, to me, is a ringing call
In spring, all summer, and through the fall–
What are the woods to you?
….

by Ray Romine Monday, April 8, 1946

I saw an oriole in a tree;
I heard his golden melody.
He winged away reluctantly: —
The sunlight drew away from me.

by Ray Romine Sunday, May 13, 1945

The red, hot sunset of July;
The gray of winter’s dawning;
The scared pure white the fearful high
Crest of the wave is spawning;

The green along the river’s bank
That dares the water’s blueness;
The silver of a blazing star
High in black midnight’s newness;

The polished face of autumn’s gold;
The purple of the aster–
The world’s a warm, effective bold
Painting by the Master.

And man is that two-legged crab
Who criticizes it as “drab” …

by Ray Romine Monday, February 26, 1951

The copperheads weaved round and stared,
Reposing on their stump-beds.
Why should they not? What snakes have scared
A finer bunch of lunk-heads?

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 24, 1946

On those too-rare occasions when I pause
And see and listen just beyond the whirl
Of dollar-chasing, or “amusement’s” hectic swirl,
I know that our philosophers have cause
To feel we are descending to the jaws
Of utter crassness. It makes my hair curl
The way we cannot grasp the splendid pearl
Of melody–this earth, despite its flaws.

God, make me look, and let me, looking, love
The smallest flower to bloom in early spring;
The star that flickers winter nights above
Me; fireflies that summer evenings bring.
When I can’t find the time to learn the song,
God grant me strength at least, to hum along.

by Ray Romine Monday, January 7, 1952

Safely here, within four walls
Of livine green, I have the sun
Upon a tree, and when it palls ,
The shadows quiet leaves have spun.

A butterfly heeds some alarm
And skips to settle on my arm;
A trusting wren is here to greet
Me, breakfasting beneath my feet.

Riches are not of one kind.
Each must choose. So, like the bee,
Within my walls of green I find
A peace that great men envy me!

by Ray Romine Sunday, March 26, 1950

The clouds are non-existent in the blue September sky;
The Goldenrod is waving at the Goldfinch on the sly;
The creek is calling faintly as it bubbles slowly by–
But the call of duty, stronger, forces me to live a lie.

I cannot heed the inner urge I feel in every pore
To throw the weight of worry off, and slam a mental door;
And, like the Butterfly, just flit away from things that bore
To feed on Nature’s choicer nectar, now and evermore.

by Ray Romine Sunday, September 14, 1947