576. Time-honored, beautiful, solemn and wise – noble, sacred and ancient – trees reach the highest heavens and penetrate the deepest secrets of the earth. ~Author Unknown

by

21

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt,
finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
sermons in stones, and good in everything.
~William Shakespeare

Screen shot 2014-12-12 at 3.28.54 PM

Owl in the Black Oaks

If a lynx, that plush fellow,
climbed down a
tree and left behind
his face, his thick neck,

and, most of all, the lamps of his eyes,
there you would have it—
the owl,
the very owl

who haunts these trees,
choosing from the swash of branches
the slight perches and ledges
of his acrobatics.

Almost every day
I spy him out
among the knots and the burls,
looking down

at his huge feet,
at the path curving through the trees,
at whatever is coming up the hill
toward him,

and, though I’m never ready—
though something unspeakably cold
always drops through my heart—
it is a moment

as lavish as is fearful—
there is such pomp
in the gown of feathers
and the lit silk of the eyes—

surely he is one of the mighty kings
of this world.
Sometimes, as I keep coming,
he simply flies away—

and sometimes the whole body
tilts forward, and the beak opens,
clean and wonderful,
like a cup of gold.

~by Mary Oliver

The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. ~Psalm 19:7   ✝

** Image via Pinterest

21 thoughts on “576. Time-honored, beautiful, solemn and wise – noble, sacred and ancient – trees reach the highest heavens and penetrate the deepest secrets of the earth. ~Author Unknown”

      • You’re welcome Natalie. I’ve only seen a couple of owls in the wild, one was a huge barn owl and the other one flew into my windscreen one night. Yikes.
        Hugs’n Love
        Laurence

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  6. Every evening while we’re eating supper we hear the call of the owl that lives in the great cottonwood tree in our neighborhood–I will think of the owl in this poem and wonder about the one so close to us. Fun! Blessings ~ Laura

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  8. I always enjoyed William Shakespeare poems from classroom texts to poetry’s on News Papers … beauty can never be just defined enough, it just can’t be enough to praise, you brought tit bits of it in poem today, Marvelous to read those honored, beautiful, solemn and wise…words in well rhymed in those lines…thank you dear Natalie for sharing this ….you made my saturday even more interesting …:-) have a wonderful afternoon!

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