poetry on wandering

39 Awe-Striking Poems About Wandering

Here are my favorite poems about wandering categorized:

• Short poems about wandering
• Famous poems about wandering

So if you want the best poems about wandering, then you’re in the right place.

Let’s get right to it!

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Awe-Striking Poems About Wandering

Embark on a captivating journey through a carefully curated selection of poems about wandering.

From mesmerizing short verses that capture the essence of exploration to renowned masterpieces that have stood the test of time, this collection offers the best of wandering poetry in a single captivating realm.

Lose yourself in the wanderer’s footsteps as you traverse the pages, discovering the profound beauty, introspection, and infinite possibilities that lie within the realm of wandering.

Prepare to be enchanted by the lyrical melodies that evoke a sense of wonder and ignite the longing for adventure that dwells within us all.

Let’s get started!

My #1 Favorite Poem About Wandering

“Wanderlieder” by John Milton Hay

I stand at the break of day In the Champs Elysees. The tremulous shafts of dawning, As they shoot o’er the Tuileries early, Strike Luxor’s cold grey spire, And wild in the light of the morning With their marble manes on fire, Ramp the white Horses of Marly.

But the Place of Concord lies Dead hushed ‘neath the ashy skies. And the Cities sit in council With sleep in their wide stone eyes. I see the mystic plain Where the army of spectres slain In the Emperor’s life-long war March on with unsounding tread To trumpets whose voice is dead. Their spectral chief still leads them, – The ghostly flash of his sword Like a comet through mist shines far, – And the noiseless host is poured, For the gendarme never heeds them, Up the long dim road where thundered The army of Italy onward Through the great pale Arch of the Star!

The spectre army fades Far up the glimmering hill, But, vaguely lingering still, A group of shuddering shades Infects the pallid air, Growing dimmer as day invades The hush of the dusky square. There is one that seems a King, As if the ghost of a Crown Still shadowed his jail-bleached hair; I can hear the guillotine ring, As its regicide note rang there, When he laid his tired life down And grew brave in his last despair. And a woman frail and fair Who weeps at leaving a world Of love and revel and sin In the vast Unknown to be hurled; (For life was wicked and sweet With kings at her small white feet!) And one, every inch a Queen, In life and in death a Queen, Whose blood baptized the place, In the days of madness and fear, – Her shade has never a peer In majesty and grace.

Murdered and murderers swarm; Slayers that slew and were slain, Till the drenched place smoked with the rain That poured in a torrent warm, – Till red as the Riders of Edom Were splashed the white garments of Freedom With the wash of the horrible storm!

And Liberty’s hands were not clean In the day of her pride unchained, Her royal hands were stained With the life of a King and Queen; And darker than that with the blood Of the nameless brave and good Whose blood in witness clings More damning than Queens’ and Kings’.

Has she not paid it dearly? Chained, watching her chosen nation Grinding late and early In the mills of usurpation? Have not her holy tears, Flowing through shameful years, Washed the stains from her tortured hands? We thought so when God’s fresh breeze, Blowing over the sleeping lands, In ‘Forty-Eight waked the world, And the Burgher-King was hurled From that palace behind the trees.

As Freedom with eyes aglow Smiled glad through her childbirth pain, How was the mother to know That her woe and travail were vain? A smirking servant smiled When she gave him her child to keep; Did she know he would strangle the child As it lay in his arms asleep?

Liberty’s cruellest shame! She is stunned and speechless yet, In her grief and bloody sweat Shall we make her trust her blame? The treasure of ‘Forty-Eight A lurking jail-bird stole, She can but watch and wait As the swift sure seasons roll.

And when in God’s good hour Comes the time of the brave and true, Freedom again shall rise With a blaze in her awful eyes That shall wither this robber-power As the sun now dries the dew. This Place shall roar with the voice Of the glad triumphant people, And the heavens be gay with the chimes Ringing with jubilant noise From every clamorous steeple The coming of better times. And the dawn of Freedom waking Shall fling its splendours far Like the day which now is breaking On the great pale Arch of the Star, And back o’er the town shall fly, While the joy-bells wild are ringing, To crown the Glory springing From the Column of July!

Short Poems About Wandering

“The Wanderer” by John Frederick Freeman

Over the pool of sleep The night mists creep, Then faint thin light and then clear day, Noontide, and lingering afternoon; Then that Wanderer, the Moon Wandering her old wild way. How many spirits follow Her in that dark hollow! Like a lost lamb she roams on high Through the cold and soundless sky, And stares down into her deep Reflection in the pool of sleep. How many follow Her in that lone hollow! She sees them not nor would she hear Though both shape and sound were clear, But stares, stares into the pool Of her fear and beauty full. Far in strange gay skies She pales and dies, Forgetting that bright transitory Reflection of astonished glory, Nor heeds the spirits that follow Her into day’s bright hollow.

“The Wanderer” by Eugene Field

Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell.

How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless hand, Or whether there cast when Ocean swept the Land, Ere the Eternal had ordained the Day?

Strange, was it not? Far from its native deep, One song it sang,– Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide, Sang of the misty sea, profound and wide,– Ever with echoes of the ocean rang.

And as the shell upon the mountain height Sings of the sea, So do I ever, leagues and leagues away,– So do I ever, wandering where I may,– Sing, O my home! sing, O my home! of thee.

“The Wanderer” by Sir Henry John Newbolt

To Youth there comes a whisper out of the west: “O loiterer, hasten where there waits for thee A life to build, a love therein to nest, And a man’s work, serving the age to be.”

Peace, peace awhile! Before his tireless feet Hill beyond hill the road in sunlight goes; He breathes the breath of morning, clear and sweet, And his eyes love the high eternal snows.

“Wanderers” by Walter De La Mare

Wide are the meadows of night, And daisies are shining there, Tossing their lovely dews, Lustrous and fair; And through these sweet fields go, Wanderers amid the stars – Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.

‘Tired in their silver, they move, And circling, whisper and say, Fair are the blossoming meads of delight Through which we stray.

“A Wanderer’s Song” by John Masefield

A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels, I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels; I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limit of the land, Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street, To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet; To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride, Oh I’l be going, going, until I meet the tide.

And first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls, The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls, The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out, And then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.

Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick, For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick; And I’ll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels, For a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.

“The World’s Wanderers” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light Speed thee in thy fiery flight, In what cavern of the night Will thy pinions close now?

II Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey Pilgrim of heaven’s homeless way, In what depth of night or day Seekest thou repose now?

III Weary wind, who wanderest Like the world’s rejected guest, Hast thou still some secret nest On the tree or billow?

“London” by William Blake

I wander thro’ each charter’d street, Near where the charter’d Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man, In every Infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry Every blackning Church appalls; And the hapless Soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot’s curse Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

“A Day for Wandering” by Clinton Scollard

I set apart a day for wandering; I heard the woodlands ring, The hidden white-throat sing, And the harmonic West, Beyond a far hill-crest, Touch its Aeolian string. Remote from all the brawl and bruit of men, The iron tongue of Trade, I followed the clear calling of a wren Deep to the bosom of a sheltered glade, Where interwoven branches spread a shade Of soft cool beryl like the evening seas Unruffled by the breeze. And there—and there— I watched the maiden-hair, The pale blue iris-grass, The water-spider in its pause and pass Upon a pool that like a mirror was. I took for confidant The diligent ant Threading the clover and the sorrel aisles; For me were all the smiles Of the sequestered blossoms there abloom— Chalice and crown and plume; I drank the ripe rich attars blurred and blent, And won—Content!

“Like Clouds or Streams We Wandered on at Will” by Alexander Smith

Like clouds or streams we wandered on at will, Three glorious days, till, near our journey’s end, As down the moorland road we straight did wend, To Wordsworth’s “Inversneyd,” talking to kill The cold and cheerless drizzle in the air, ’Bove me I saw, at pointing of my friend, An old Fort like a ghost upon the hill, Stare in blank misery through the blinding rain, So human-like it seemed in its despair— So stunned with grief—long gazed at it we twain. Weary and damp we reached our poor abode, I, warmly seated in the chimney-nook, Still saw that old Fort o’er the moorland road Stare through the rain with strange woe-wildered look.

“As Some Mysterious Wanderer of the Skies” by Henry Jerome Stockard

As some mysterious wanderer of the skies, Emerging from the deeps of outer dark, Traces for once in human ken the arc Of its stupendous curve, then swiftly flies Out through some orbit veiled in space, which lies Where no imagination may embark,— Some onward-reaching track that God did mark For all eternity beneath his eyes,— So comes the soul forth from Creation’s vast; So clothed with mystery moves through mortal sight; Then sinks away into the Great Unknown. What systems it hath seen in all the past, What worlds shall blaze upon its future flight Thou knowest, eternal God, and thou alone!

“The Happy Wanderer” by Percy Addleshaw

He is the happy wanderer, who goes Singing upon his way, with eyes awake To every scene, with ears alert to take The sweetness of all sounds; who loves and knows The secrets of the highway, and the rose Holds fairer for the wounds the briars make; Who welcomes rain, that he his thirst may slake,— The sun, because it dries his dripping clothes; Treasures experience beyond all store, Careless if pain or pleasure he shall win, So that his knowledge widens more and more Ready each hour to worship or to sin; Until tired, wise, content, he halts before The sign o’ the Grave, a cool and quiet inn.

“A Farewell” by Langston Hughes

With gypsies and sailors, Wanderers of the hills and seas, I go to seek my fortune. With pious folk and fair I must have a parting. But you will not miss me,–– You who live between the hills And have never seen the seas.

“The Wanderer” by Sara Teasdale

I saw the sunset-colored sands, The Nile like flowing fire between, Where Rameses stares forth serene, And Ammon’s heavy temple stands.

I saw the rocks where long ago, Above the sea that cries and breaks, Swift Perseus with Medusa’s snakes Set free the maiden white like snow.

And many skies have covered me, And many winds have blown me forth, And I have loved the green, bright north, And I have loved the cold, sweet sea.

But what to me are north and south, And what the lure of many lands, Since you have leaned to catch my hands And lay a kiss upon my mouth.

“Wanderers” by George Sylvester Viereck

Sweet is the highroad when the skylarks call, When we and Love go rambling through the land. But shall we still walk gayly, hand in hand, At the road’s turning and the twilight’s fall? Then darkness shall divide us like a wall, And uncouth evil nightbirds flap their wings; The solitude of all created things

Will creep upon us shuddering like a pall. This is the knowledge I have wrung from pain: We, yea, all lovers, are not one, but twain, Each by strange wisps to strange abysses drawn; But through the black immensity of night Love’s little lantern, like a glowworm’s, bright, May lead our steps to some stupendous dawn.

“Wanderer in the Evening” by Alfred Lichtenstein

Kuno Kohn sings: Dusty Sunday Lies burned to pieces. Charred coolness Mothers the land. Dissolute longing Gapes once again. Dreams and tears Stream upward.

“As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods” by Walt Whitman

As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods, To the music of rustling leaves kick’d by my feet, (for ’twas autumn,) I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier; Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all could understand,) The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose–yet this sign left, On a tablet scrawl’d and nail’d on the tree by the grave, Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade. Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering, Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life, Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or in the crowded street, Comes before me the unknown soldier’s grave, comes the inscription rude in Virginia’s woods, Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

“Fragment: A Wanderer” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

He wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.

“He Hears the Cry of the Sedge” by William Butler Yeats

I wander by the edge Of this desolate lake Where wind cries in the sedge: i(Until the axle break That keeps the stars in their round, And hands hurl in the deep The banners of East and West, And the girdle of light is unhound, Your breast will not lie by the breast Of your beloved in sleep.)

“The Discovery” by Thomas Hardy

I wandered to a crude coast Like a ghost; Upon the hills I saw fires – Funeral pyres Seemingly and heard breaking Waves like distant cannonades that set the land shaking.

And so I never once guessed A Love-nest, Bowered and candle-lit, lay In my way, Till I found a hid hollow, Where I burst on her my heart could not but follow.

Famous Poems About Wandering

“Wandered” by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

The wind blows shrill along the hill, — Black is the night and cold– The sky hangs low with its weight of snow, And the drifts are deep on the wold. But what care I for wind or snow? And what care I for the cold? Oh … where is my lamb– My one ewe lamb– That strayed from the fold?

The beasts are safely gathered in, –Black is the night and cold– They are snug and warm, and safe from harm, In stall and byre and fold. And the dogs and I, by the blazing fire, Care nought for the snow and the cold. Oh … where is my lamb– My one ewe lamb– That strayed from the fold?

The barns are bursting with their store Of grain like yellow gold; A full, fat year has brought good cheer, — Black is the night and cold.– But … What care I for teeming barns? And what care I for gold? Oh … where is my lamb– My one ewe lamb– That strayed from the fold?

In the great kitchen, maids and men, — Black is the night and cold– Laugh loud and long, with jest and song, And merry revel hold. Let them laugh and sing, let them have their fling, But for me–I am growing old. Oh … where is my lamb– My one ewe lamb– That strayed from the fold?

The old house moans, and sighs and groans, –Black is the night and cold– We have seen brave times, you and I, old friend, But now–we are growing old. We have stood foursquare to many a storm, But now–we are growing old. Oh … where is my lamb– My one ewe lamb– That strayed from the fold?

Her mother sleeps on the hill out there, –Black is the night and cold,– She is free from care, she is happier there, Beneath the warm brown mould. And I’ve sometimes hoped they may have met, And the end of the tale be told. Ah … where is our lamb– Our one ewe lamb– That strayed from the fold?

Was that a branch that shed its load? –Black is the night and cold,– Or–was it a footstep in the snow– A timid footstep–halting, slow? Ah me! I am getting old! Is that a tapping–soft and low? Can it be … I thought I heard … but no, ‘ Twas only a branch that shed its snow, — God’s truth! I am getting old! For I thought … maybe It was my lamb Come home again to the fold.

Dear Lord! a hand at the frozen pane! –White on the night’s black cold– O my lamb! my lamb! are you come again? My dear lost lamb, are you come again? Are you come again to the fold? It is!… It is!… Now I thank Thee, Lord, For Thy Mercies manifold! She is come again! She is home again! My lamb that strayed from the fold!

“The Wander-Lovers.” by Bliss Carman

Down the world with Marna! That’s the life for me! Wandering with the wandering wind, Vagabond and unconfined! Roving with the roving rain Its unboundaried domain! Kith and kin of wander-kind, Children of the sea!

Petrels of the sea-drift! Swallows of the lea! Arabs of the whole wide girth Of the wind-encircled earth! In all climes we pitch our tents, Cronies of the elements, With the secret lords of birth Intimate and free.

All the seaboard knows us From Fundy to the Keys; Every bend and every creek Of abundant Chesapeake; Ardise hills and Newport coves And the far-off orange groves, Where Floridian oceans break, Tropic tiger seas.

Down the world with Marna, Tarrying there and here! Just as much at home in Spain As in Tangier or Touraine! Shakespeare’s Avon knows us well, And the crags of Neufchâtel; And the ancient Nile is fain Of our coming near.

Down the world with Marna, Daughter of the air! Marna of the subtle grace, And the vision in her face! Moving in the measures trod By the angels before God! With her sky-blue eyes amaze And her sea-blue hair!

Marna with the trees’ life In her veins a-stir! Marna of the aspen heart Where the sudden quivers start! Quick-responsive, subtle, wild! Artless as an artless child, Spite of all her reach of art! Oh, to roam with her!

Marna with the wind’s will, Daughter of the sea! Marna of the quick disdain, Starting at the dream of stain! At a smile with love aglow, At a frown a statued woe, Standing pinnacled in pain Till a kiss sets free!

Down the world with Marna, Daughter of the fire! Marna of the deathless hope, Still alert to win new scope Where the wings of life may spread For a flight unhazarded! Dreaming of the speech to cope With the heart’s desire!

Marna of the far quest After the divine! Striving ever for some goal Past the blunder-god’s control! Dreaming of potential years When no day shall dawn in fears! That’s the Marna of my soul, Wander-bride of mine!

“The Wanderer” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The gleam of household sunshine ends, And here no longer can I rest; Farewell! – You will not speak, my friends, Unfriendly of your parted guest.

O well for him that finds a friend, Or makes a friend where’er he come, And loves the world from end to end, And wanders on from home to home!

O happy he, and fit to live, On whom a happy home has power To make him trust his life, and give His fealty to the halcyon hour!

I count you kind, I hold you true; But what may follow who can tell? Give me a hand-and you-and you- And deem me grateful, and farewell!

“The Wanderer” by Madison Julius Cawein

Between the death of day and birth of night, By War’s red light, I met with one in trailing sorrows clad, Whose features had The look of Him who died to set men right. Around him many horrors, like great worms, Terrific forms, Crawled, helmed like hippogriff and rosmarine, Gaunt and obscene, Urged on to battle with a thousand arms. Columns of steel, and iron belching flame, Before them came: And cities crumbled; and amid them trod Havoc, their god, With Desolation that no tongue may name. And out of Heaven came a burning breath, And on it Death, Riding: before him, huge and bellowing herds Of beasts, like birds, Bat-winged and demon, nothing conquereth. Hag-lights went by, and Fear that shrieks and dies; And mouths, with cries Of famine; and the madness of Despair; And everywhere Curses, like kings, with ever-burning eyes. And, lo! the shadow shook and cried a name, That grew a flame Above the world, and said, “Give heed! give heed! See how they bleed! My wounds! my wounds! Was it for this I came? “Where is the love for which I shed my blood? And where the good I preached and died for? Lo! ye have denied And crucified Me here again, who swore me brotherhood!” Then overhead the vault of night was rent: The firmament Winged thunder over of aerial craft; And Battle laughed Titanic laughter as its way it went.

“The Wanderer” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

‘Twas in the shadowy gloaming Of a cold and wet March day, That a wanderer came roaming From countries far away.

Scant raiment had he round him, Nor purse, nor worldly gear, Hungry and faint we found him, And bade him welcome here.

His weary frame bent double, His eyes were old and dim, His face was writhed with trouble Which none might share with him.

His speech was strange and broken, And none could understand, Such words as might be spoken In some far distant land.

We guessed not whence he hailed from, Nor knew what far-off quay His roving bark had sailed from Before he came to me.

But there he was, so slender, So helpless and so pale, That my wife’s heart grew tender For one who seemed so frail.

She cried, “But you must bide here! You shall no further roam. Grow stronger by our side here, Within our moorland home!”

She laid her best before him, Homely and simple fare, And to his couch she bore him The raiment he should wear.

To mine he had been welcome, My suit of russet brown, But she had dressed our weary guest In a loose and easy gown.

And long in peace he lay there, Brooding and still and weak, Smiling from day to day there At thoughts he would not speak.

The months flowed on, but ever Our guest would still remain, Nor made the least endeavour To leave our home again.

He heeded not for grammar, Nor did we care to teach, But soon he learned to stammer Some words of English speech.

With these our guest would tell us The things that he liked best, And order and compel us To follow his behest.

He ruled us without malice, But as if he owned us all, A sultan in his palace With his servants at his call.

Those calls came fast and faster, Our service still we gave, Till I who had been master Had grown to be his slave.

He claimed with grasping gestures Each thing of price he saw, Watches and rings and vestures, His will the only law.

In vain had I commanded, In vain I struggled still, Servants and wife were banded To do the stranger’s will.

And then in deep dejection It came to me one day, That my own wife’s affection Had been beguiled away.

Our love had known no danger, So certain had it been! And now to think a stranger Should dare to step between.

I saw him lie and harken To the little songs she sung, And when the shadows darken I could hear his lisping tongue.

They would sit in chambers shady, When the light was growing dim, Ah, my fickle-hearted lady! With your arm embracing him.

So, at last, lest he divide us, I would put them to the test. There was no one there beside us, Save this interloping guest.

So I took my stand before them, Very silent and erect, My accusing glance passed o’er them, Though with no observed effect.

But the lamp light shone upon her, And I saw each tell-tale feature, As I cried, “Now, on your honour, Do or don’t you love the creature?”

But her answer seemed evasive, It was “Ducky-doodle-doo! If his mummy loves um babby, Doesn’t daddums love um too?”

“The Wanderer” by Thomas Hardy

There is nobody on the road But I, And no beseeming abode I can try For shelter, so abroad I must lie.

The stars feel not far up, And to be The lights by which I sup Glimmeringly, Set out in a hollow cup Over me.

They wag as though they were Panting for joy Where they shine, above all care, And annoy, And demons of despair – Life’s alloy.

Sometimes outside the fence Feet swing past, Clock-like, and then go hence, Till at last There is a silence, dense, Deep, and vast.

A wanderer, witch-drawn To and fro, To-morrow, at the dawn, On I go, And where I rest anon Do not know!

Yet it’s meet this bed of hay And roofless plight; For there’s a house of clay, My own, quite, To roof me soon, all day And all night.

“The Wanderer” by Alan Seeger

To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves, Back of old-storied spires and architraves To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,

And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day Flooded with gold some domed metropolis, Between new towers to waken and new bliss Spread on his pillow in a wondrous way:

These were his joys. Oft under bulging crates, Coming to market with his morning load, The peasant found him early on his road To greet the sunrise at the city-gates, –

There where the meadows waken in its rays, Golden with mist, and the great roads commence, And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense, Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.

White dunes that breaking show a strip of sea, A plowman and his team against the blue, Swiss pastures musical with cowbells, too, And poplar-lined canals in Picardie,

And coast-towns where the vultures back and forth Sail in the clear depths of the tropic sky, And swallows in the sunset where they fly Over gray Gothic cities in the north,

And the wine-cellar and the chorus there, The dance-hall and a face among the crowd, – Were all delights that made him sing aloud For joy to sojourn in a world so fair.

Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fell Range after range; ahead blue hills emerged. Before him tireless to applaud it surged The sweet interminable spectacle.

And like the west behind a sundown sea Shone the past joys his memory retraced, And bright as the blue east he always faced Beckoned the loves and joys that were to be.

From every branch a blossom for his brow He gathered, singing down Life’s flower-lined road, And youth impelled his spirit as he strode Like winged Victory on the galley’s prow.

That Loveliness whose being sun and star, Green Earth and dawn and amber evening robe, That lamp whereof the opalescent globe The season’s emulative splendors are,

That veiled divinity whose beams transpire From every pore of universal space, As the fair soul illumes the lovely face – That was his guest, his passion, his desire.

His heart the love of Beauty held as hides One gem most pure a casket of pure gold. It was too rich a lesser thing to hold; It was not large enough for aught besides.

“Wanderers” by James Hebblethwaite

As I rode in the early dawn, While stars were fading white, I saw upon a grassy slope A camp-fire burning bright; With tent behind and blaze before, Three loggers in a row Sang all together joyously Pull up the stakes and go!

As I rode on by Eagle Hawk, The wide blue deep of air, The wind through the glittering leaves, The flowers so sweet and fair, The thunder of the rude salt waves, The creek’s soft overflow, All joined in chorus to the words Pull up the stakes and go!

Now by the tent on forest skirt, By odour of the earth, By sight and scent of morning smoke, By evening camp-fire’s mirth, By deep-sea call and foaming green, By new stars’ gleam and glow, By summer trails in antique lands Pull up the stakes and go!

The world is wide, and we are young, And sounding marches beat, And passion pipes her sweetest call In lane and field and street; So rouse the chorus, brothers all, We’ll something have to show When Death comes round and strikes our tent Pull up the stakes and go!

“The Wandering Bard” by Thomas Moore

What life like that of the bard can be– The wandering bard, who roams as free As the mountain lark that o’er him sings, And, like that lark, a music brings Within him, where’er he comes or goes,– A fount that for ever flows! The world’s to him like some playground, Where fairies dance their moonlight round;– If dimmed the turf where late they trod, The elves but seek some greener sod; So, when less bright his scene of glee, To another away flies he!

Oh, what would have been young Beauty’s doom, Without a bard to fix her bloom? They tell us, in the moon’s bright round, Things lost in this dark world are found; So charms, on earth long past and gone, In the poet’s lay live on.– Would ye have smiles that ne’er grow dim? You’ve only to give them all to him. Who, with but a touch of Fancy’s wand, Can lend them life, this life beyond, And fix them high, in Poesy’s sky,– Young stars that never die!

Then, welcome the bard where’er he comes,– For, tho’ he hath countless airy homes, To which his wing excursive roves, Yet still, from time to time, he loves To light upon earth and find such cheer As brightens our banquet here. No matter how far, how fleet he flies, You’ve only to light up kind young eyes, Such signal-fires as here are given,– And down he’ll drop from Fancy’s heaven, The minute such call to love or mirth Proclaims he’s wanting on earth!

“The Wanderlust” by Robert William Service

The Wanderlust has lured me to the seven lonely seas, Has dumped me on the tailing-piles of dearth; The Wanderlust has haled me from the morris chairs of ease, Has hurled me to the ends of all the earth. How bitterly I’ve cursed it, oh, the Painted Desert knows, The wraithlike heights that hug the pallid plain, The all-but-fluid silence, – yet the longing grows and grows, And I’ve got to glut the Wanderlust again.

Soldier, sailor, in what a plight I’ve been! Tinker, tailor, oh what a sight I’ve seen! And I’m hitting the trail in the morning, boys, And you won’t see my heels for dust; For it’s “all day” with you When you answer the cue Of the Wan-der-lust.

The Wanderlust has got me . . . by the belly-aching fire, By the fever and the freezing and the pain; By the darkness that just drowns you, by the wail of home desire, I’ve tried to break the spell of it – in vain. Life might have been a feast for me, now there are only crumbs; In rags and tatters, beggar-wise I sit; Yet there’s no rest or peace for me, imperious it drums, The Wanderlust, and I must follow it.

Highway, by-way, many a mile I’ve done; Rare way, fair way, many a height I’ve won; But I’m pulling my freight in the morning, boys, And it’s over the hills or bust; For there’s never a cure When you list to the lure Of the Wan-der-lust.

The Wanderlust has taught me . . . it has whispered to my heart Things all you stay-at-homes will never know. The white man and the savage are but three short days apart, Three days of cursing, crawling, doubt and woe. Then it’s down to chewing muclucs, to the water you can EAT, To fish you bolt with nose held in your hand. When you get right down to cases, it’s King’s Grub that rules the races, And the Wanderlust will help you understand.

Haunting, taunting, that is the spell of it; Mocking, baulking, that is the hell of it; But I’ll shoulder my pack in the morning, boys, And I’m going because I must; For it’s so-long to all When you answer the call Of the Wan-der-lust.

The Wanderlust has blest me . . . in a ragged blanket curled, I’ve watched the gulf of Heaven foam with stars; I’ve walked with eyes wide open to the wonder of the world, I’ve seen God’s flood of glory burst its bars. I’ve seen the gold a-blinding in the riffles of the sky, Till I fancied me a bloated plutocrat; But I’m freedom’s happy bond-slave, and I will be till I die, And I’ve got to thank the Wanderlust for that.

Wild heart, child heart, all of the world your home. Glad heart, mad heart, what can you do but roam? Oh, I’ll beat it once more in the morning, boys, With a pinch of tea and a crust; For you cannot deny When you hark to the cry Of the Wan-der-lust.

The Wanderlust will claim me at the finish for its own. I’ll turn my back on men and face the Pole. Beyond the Arctic outposts I will venture all alone; Some Never-never Land will be my goal. Thank God! there’s none will miss me, for I’ve been a bird of flight; And in my moccasins I’ll take my call; For the Wanderlust has ruled me, And the Wanderlust has schooled me, And I’m ready for the darkest trail of all.

Grim land, dim land, oh, how the vastness calls! Far land, star land, oh, how the stillness falls! For you never can tell if it’s heaven or hell, And I’m taking the trail on trust; But I haven’t a doubt That my soul will leap out On its Wan-der-lust.

“The Wanderer” by Ameen Rihani

I wander among the hills of alien lands Where Nature her prerogative resigns To Man; where Comfort in her shack reclines And all the arts and sciences commands. But in my soul The eastern billows roll— I hear the voices of my native strands.

My lingering eyes, a lonely hemlock fills With grace and splendor rising manifold; Beneath her boughs the maples spread their gold And at her feet, the silver of rills. But in my heart A peasant void of art Echoes the voices of my native hills.

On every height a studied art confines All human joy in social pulchritude; The boxwood frowns where beckoning birches stood, And where the thrushes caroled Fashion dines. But through the spreading cheer The shepherd’s reed I hear Beneath my Lebanon terebinths and pines.

And though no voices here are heard of toil, Nor accents least of sorrow, nor the din Of multitudes, nor even at the Inn The City is permitted aught to spoil, Yet in my breast, A shack at best, Laments the mother of my native soil.

Even where the sumptuous solitudes deny A shelter to a bird or butterfly, As in the humblest dwelling of the dale A gracious welcome’s shown the passer-by; But evermore clear Allwhere I hear The calling of my native hut and sky.

Land of my birth! a handful of thy sod Resuscitates the flower of my faith; For whatsoever the seer of science sayth, Thou art the cradle and the tomb of God; And forever I behold A vision old Of Beauty weeping where He once hath trod.

“Wanderlust” by Paul Cameron Brown

Who administers to my needs?

Is it the dandelion, so ant-encrusted, that yellow pollen dangles from a shiny abdomen suggestive of some actor’s smeared and garish make-up?

Or the cicada’s song, difficult to describe, laundering thick summer heat?

Perhaps, then, the Red Admiral butterfly especially active at the close of day and drawn to wooden lawn-furniture or the exposed human limb?

If none of these breathes vigour or tonic through my nostrils, what of tubs of fresh water?

Take pea-pods for crude, rudimentary boats and children as make-shift sailors, then they both shall spy the secrets of seas. Bold harbours will be their cues, astrolabes their hatchets in which to chart many a perilous adventure.

A volume of Tom Swift and his Motorboat tames the haggard breast, soothes the savage beast.

A trip to the fruit-cellar beaded with moisture and clammy with imaginary threat, chastens the cobweb from the dusty ledge and sees a privet-hedge hawk-moth trapped against the window-pane (a dark spot pressed much like a pirate’s patch against both time & space).

If meandering and nearing journey’s end, think twice. Better red than dead. Brooding MacIntosh apples stain a slippery floor but the door to the orchard is always ajar.

By night, an “I And The Village” Chagall painting draws a lad (and landscape) to stare and stare. Thickets of wild-grape, strawberry tendrils, two hares boxing in the meadow, a Winterspoon or Whip-Poor-Will towering above groves of walnut, lilac. Night air is fragrant (and lush) through a peep-hole and gate-way to the stars.

Barns with ricks contain pitchforks like a mis-shapen mask protruding ever so faintly sinister in silhouette through a visionary sky.

Remnants of ferret skin, lie interrupted, upon entering the chicken-coop.

The soldier drinks, his tea and egg-cup abandoned.

I don’t have to go anywhere. Dark and moody, there is an arsenal of thought with stout marshal batons in my knapsack.

The power to be led (and lead) stiff memory in rum kegs and wine casks. The brooding entrance to another world, if not in the palm of my hand, then very nearly a shout and stone’s throw away.

“Song of Oktahutche” by Alexander Posey

Far, far, far are my silver waters drawn; The hills embrace me loth to let me go; The maidens think me fair to look upon, And trees lean over glad to hear me flow. Thro’ field and valley, green because of me, I wander, wander to the distant sea.

Thro’ lonely places and thro’ crowded ways; Thro’ noise of strife and thro’ the solitude, And on thro’ cloudy days and sunny days, I journey till I meet, in sisterhood, The broad Canadian, red with the sunset, Now calm, now raging in a mighty fret!

On either hand, in a grand colonnade, The cottonwoods rise in the azure sky, And purple mountains cast a purple shade As I, now grave, now laughing, pass them by; And birds of air dip bright wings in my tide, In sunny reaches where I noiseless glide.

O’er shoals of mossy rocks and mussel shells, Blue over spacious beds of amber sand, By cliffs and coves and glens where Echo dwells— Elusive spirit of the shadow-land— Forever blest and blessing, do I go, A wid’ning in the morning’s roseate glow.

Though I sing my song in a minor key, Broad lands and fair attest the good I do; Though I carry no white sails to the sea, Towns nestle in the vales I wander thro’; And quails are whistling in the waving grain, And herds are scattered o’er the verdant plain.

“The Wanderers” by Robert Browning

Over the sea our galleys went, With cleaving prows in order brave To a speeding wind and a bounding wave— A gallant armament: Each bark built out of a forest-tree Left leafy and rough as first it grew, And nail’d all over the gaping sides, Within and without, with black bull-hides, Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, To bear the playful billows’ game; So, each good ship was rude to see, Rude and bare to the outward view, But each upbore a stately tent Where cedar pales in scented row Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine, And an awning droop’d the mast below, In fold on fold of the purple fine, That neither noontide nor star-shine Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, Might pierce the regal tenement. When the sun dawn’d, O, gay and glad We set the sail and plied the oar; But when the night-wind blew like breath, For joy of one day’s voyage more, We sang together on the wide sea, Like men at peace on a peaceful shore; Each sail was loosed to the wind so free, Each helm made sure by the twilight star, And in a sleep as calm as death, We, the voyagers from afar, Lay stretch’d along, each weary crew In a circle round its wondrous tent Whence gleam’d soft light and curl’d rich scent, And with light and perfume, music too: So the stars wheel’d round, and the darkness pass’d, And at morn we started beside the mast, And still each ship was sailing fast!

Now, one morn, land appear’d—a speck Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky— ‘Avoid it,’ cried our pilot, ‘check The shout, restrain the eager eye!’ But the heaving sea was black behind For many a night and many a day, And land, though but a rock, drew nigh; So we broke the cedar pales away, Let the purple awning flap in the wind, And a statue bright was on every deck! We shouted, every man of us, And steer’d right into the harbour thus, With pomp and pæan glorious.

A hundred shapes of lucid stone! All day we built its shrine for each, A shrine of rock for every one, Nor paused till in the westering sun We sat together on the beach To sing because our task was done; When lo! what shouts and merry songs! What laughter all the distance stirs! A loaded raft with happy throngs Of gentle islanders! ‘Our isles are just at hand,’ they cried, ‘ Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping; Our temple-gates are open’d wide, Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping For these majestic forms’—they cried. O, then we awoke with sudden start From our deep dream, and knew, too late, How bare the rock, how desolate, Which had received our precious freight: Yet we call’d out—‘Depart! Our gifts, once given, must here abide: Our work is done; we have no heart To mar our work,’—we cried.

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a Cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden Daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:— A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company; I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the Daffodils.

“Forgotten Among the Lilies” by Augusta Theodosia Drane

Through the dark night I wander on alone, And, as one blinded, grope my weary way, Without a lamp to shed its guiding ray; I wander on unseen, and seeing none, And caring to behold but only One

I see not, yet my heart will give me light, And safer than the noonday sun will guide To where the Bridegroom waiteth for the Bride; So walking on in faith and not by sight, I cannot fear but He will guide me right.…

Forgotten ’mid the lilies; for I feel Their gentle blossoms wave above my head; I breathe the magic perfume which they shed, As though my bleeding wounds they fain would heal, And from my heart its aching sorrow steal.

A sad, sweet lot—I needs must call it sweet; My cares, like withered buds, I cast aside, And reck but little what may next betide; The days and years fly past on pinions fleet, Amid these lilies crushed beneath His feet.

Forgotten and abandoned;—yet withal Leaning my heart upon my only Love: Nay, raise me not, I do not care to move; Soon I shall hear His gentle footstep fall, And lift my eyes, and answer to His call.

Till then among the lilies let me lie; See, I have cast my idle cares away: Howe’er it be, I am content to stay Until once more the Bridegroom passes by, And hither turns His gracious, pitying eye.

Blame not my folly, for I know full well My words can nought but idle babbling seem, The madness of a fond and foolish dream: Bear with my folly, for the thoughts that swell This burning heart, I cannot, dare not tell.

Know only this—I suffer, yet I rest; For all my cares and fears are cast away, And more than this I know not how to say; Forgotten though I be, I own it best And ’mid the lilies lie in perfect rest.

“The Brook-Side” by Richard Monckton

I wander’d by the brook-side, I wander’d by the mill; I could not hear the brook flow, The noisy wheel was still; There was no burr of grasshopper, No chirp of any bird, But the beating of my own heart Was all the sound I heard.

I sat beneath the elm-tree; I watch’d the long, long shade, And, as it grew still longer, I did not feel afraid; For I listen’d for a footfall, I listen’d for a word, But the beating of my own heart Was all the sound I heard.

He came not,—no, he came not— The night came on alone, The little stars sat, one by one, Each on his golden throne; The evening wind pass’d by my cheek, The leaves above were stirr’d, But the beating of my own heart Was all the sound I heard.

Fast silent tears were flowing, When something stood behind; A hand was on my shoulder, I knew its touch was kind: It drew me nearer—nearer, We did not speak one word, For the beating of our own hearts Was all the sound we heard.

10 of the Best Poems about Walking

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘I like long walks,’ Noel Coward is said to have once quipped, ‘especially when they’re taken by people I dislike.’ The Romans had a phrase: Solvitur ambulando , meaning ‘it is solved by walking’. The Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough used it as the epigraph for his long epistolary poem, Amours de Voyage . There is a long-standing and deep-rooted relationship between walking and poetry, as these classic poems demonstrate.

1. Thomas Traherne, ‘ Walking ’.

To walk abroad is, not with eyes, But thoughts, the fields to see and prize; Else may the silent feet, Like logs of wood, Move up and down, and see no good Nor joy nor glory meet.

In terms of having the longest wait for a posthumous poetic reputation to begin, the seventeenth-century poet Thomas Traherne (c. 1637-74) may take first prize. Over a century before Romanticism, Traherne describes how walking amongst nature can provide us with an appreciation of the beauty all around us.

2. Charlotte Smith, ‘ Sonnet on being Cautioned against Walking on a Headland ’.

Is there a solitary wretch who hies To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow, And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes Its distance from the waves that chide below …

This poem is that rarest of things: a Gothic sonnet. This needn’t surprise when we bear in mind that the sonnet’s author, Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806) was associated with English Romanticism and was also a key figure in the revival of the English sonnet.

3. William Wordsworth, ‘ Sweet Was the Walk ’.

Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane At noon, the bank and hedge-rows all the way Shagged with wild pale green tufts of fragrant hay, Caught by the hawthorns from the loaded wain, Which Age with many a slow stoop strove to gain …

According to Thomas de Quincey, Wordsworth clocked up an estimated 180,000 miles during his lifetime, walking around his beloved Lake District (to say nothing of the Quantocks, where he lived near Coleridge during the 1790s).

In this sonnet, Wordsworth recalls a walk he took along a narrow lane at noon, and reflects on how the intervening years between childhood and adulthood have changed his view of the scene as he remembers it.

4. Thomas Hardy, ‘ The Walk ’.

You did not walk with me Of late to the hill-top tree By the gated ways, As in earlier days; You were weak and lame, So you never came, And I went alone, and I did not mind, Not thinking of you as left behind …

This is one of Hardy’s acclaimed ‘Poems of 1912-13’, written in the wake of the death of Hardy’s first wife, Emma. Hardy contrasts the days ‘of late’ with the ‘earlier days’ he spent with Emma: late in life, she was ‘weak and lame’ and so couldn’t accompany him on his walks, as she had when she was younger.

5. A. E. Housman, ‘ White in the Moon the Long Road Lies ’.

White in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love …

Although this poem doesn’t explicitly mention walking, it does mention trudging , and let’s face it, sometimes walking isn’t the pleasurable experience Wordsworth painted it as. In this poem, the king of lugubrious English verse writes about leaving his beloved, with the road lying ahead of him that ‘leads me from my love’. And although he trusts that the same road will eventually lead him back to his love, first he must travel far, far away.

6. Robert Frost, ‘ Acquainted with the Night ’.

This sonnet begins and ends with the same line, which also provides the poem with its title: ‘I have been one acquainted with the night’. This is another poem about walking and despairing: the poet wanders the city at night, and finds little to comfort him among the dark streets. A fine poem about urban isolation, and one of Frost’s best (and most accessible) poems.

7. Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘ A Walk ’.

‘So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp’, as the English translation of this wonderful short poem has it. Rilke, who also wrote one of the most wonderful experimental novels about walking around Paris , here salutes the value of walking as an act which transforms us in ways that are almost spiritual.

8. T. E. Hulme, ‘ Autumn ’.

Arguably the first modernist poem written in English, this short poem from 1908 begins with Hulme (pictured left) sketching out the poem’s autumn setting and telling us how he ‘walked abroad’ into the countryside, where he notices the moon and is inspired to make an unlikely comparison…

9. Dylan Thomas, ‘ Poem in October ’.

This poem was written in 1944 when Thomas turned 30. The poem celebrates his walks in Laugharne, a small Welsh town where Thomas and his wife settled following their marriage in 1937. Listen to a 1945 recording of Thomas reading ‘Poem in October’  here .

10. Sylvia Plath, ‘ The Snowman on the Moor ’.

A number of the poems of Sylvia Plath (1932-63) contain Gothic elements and tropes, and ‘The Snowman on the Moor’ makes our top ten pick of great Halloween poems because it’s got more than its fair share of them. It’s about a woman who walks out on her husband in order to wander the moors, only to be hunted down by him and brought back home.

The likening of the woman to a ghost, and the description of the ‘giant’ husband as ‘corpse-like’ – and the collection of women’s skulls he carries in his belt – make for a suitably Gothic poem.

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3 thoughts on “10 of the Best Poems about Walking”

Beautiful. Wordsworth’s poem is an old favourite, Hardy’s the most haunting. I read The Snowman on the Moor for the first time today. Thank you.

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Wonder as Wander

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At dusk, on those evenings she does not go out, my mother potters around her house. Her daily helpers are gone, there is no one there, no one to tell what to do, she wanders, sometimes she talks to herself, fondly scolding, sometimes she suddenly throws out her arms and screams—high notes lying here and there on the carpets like bodies touched by a downed wire, she journeys, she quests, she marco-polos through the gilded gleamy loot-rooms, who is she. I feel, now, that I do not know her, and for all my staring, I have not seen her —like the song she sang, when we were small, I wonder as I wander, out under the sky, how Jesus, the Savior, was born for, to die, for poor lonely people, like you, and like I —on the slow evenings alone, when she delays and delays her supper, walking the familiar halls past the mirrors and night windows, I wonder if my mother is tasting a life beyond this life—not heaven, her late beloved is absent, her father absent, and her staff is absent, maybe this is earth alone, as she had not experienced it, as if she is one of the poor lonely people, as if she is born to die. I hold fast to the thought of her, wandering in her house, a luna moth in a chambered cage. Fifty years ago, I'd squat in her garden, with her Red Queens, and try to sense the flyways of the fairies as they kept the pollen flowing on its local paths, and our breaths on their course of puffs—they kept our eyes wide with seeing what we could see, and not seeing what we could not see

Copyright © 2012. Used by permission of the poet.

More by this poet

Not once—not when I toppled, rigid, a 5'7" pine felled, stiff as a board, a five and a half foot plank, 16 x 32, and not while I wallowed on the rug among his oxygen tubes and my cane and his 8 wheelchair wheels, and not when I sat by his hospice bed, chirping I’m fine!,

The Task of Naming Me

I don’t think the task of naming me fell to my father because they thought the sex of the child was decided by the sperm— I don’t think they knew that. They thought that giving a name was a big deal, so it should be a man who did it—and my mother was grieving, her Father in heaven had given her

Song to Gabriel Hirsch

We first met in your home. Outside, summer fire. Inside, Texas summer ice, I was wiped out by travel and illness, lying on a couch, which made me a good height for you to talk to. That I had a son with the same name as you, struck you with wonder—me, too— one name, one label, two beings. We said,

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Outlaws, Outrages and Outright Lies

Wandering Soul Blog

Wandering Poems

L. D. Thill

I write sappy poems, some of which rhyme.

[email protected]

I draw inspiration from the High desert. it’s a place where outlaws and Indians once roamed. The vistas can be breathtaking. Here is Carr Peak in Cochise County, Arizona.

Wanderin’ Poems

Ride the High Lonesome – https://azrockdodger.com/2024/04/20/ride-the-high-lonesome/

-Retina- https://azrockdodger.com/2024/04/13/retina/

-A Bird Softly Soars- https://azrockdodger.com/2024/04/07/a-bird-softly-soars/

-Tomorrow at Breakfast- https://azrockdodger.com/2024/03/30/tomorrow-at-breakfast/

-Southwind- https://azrockdodger.com/2024/03/31/southwind/

-River Rat- https://azrockdodger.com/river-rat/

-Cabin Fever- https://azrockdodger.com/2024/02/10/cabin-fever/

-The Lass in the Glass- https://azrockdodger.com/2024/01/16/the-lass-in-the-glass/

-Mule Pass- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/12/11/mule-pass/

-Gene Vincent Show- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/12/09/gene-vincent-show/

-Urban Coyote- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/12/01/urban-coyote/

-Route 1, Box 36- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/10/14/route-1-box-36/

-Coffee and a Kiss- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/10/07/coffee-and-a-kiss/

-Ensenada- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/08/19/ensenada/

-With Jesus, Bud and Blue- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/08/13/with-jesus-bud-and-blue/

-Heatwave- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/07/24/heatwave/

-Wisdom from a Barstool- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/05/13/wisdom-from-a-stool/

-Unclimbed Mountains- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/04/29/unclimbed-mountains/

-Bullhook Blues- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/04/12/bullhook-blues/

-Half A Mile From Lone Pine- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/03/11/half-a-mile-from-lone-pine/

-The World Might End Tomorrow- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/02/25/the-world-might-end-tomorrow/

-Border Run- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/02/03/border-run/

-Magoo- https://azrockdodger.com/2023/01/15/magoo/

-Radio Waves- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/12/31/radio-waves/

-Library Rat- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/12/10/library-rat/

-Riverwalk- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/12/03/riverwalk/

-Sam’s Place- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/11/26/sams-place/

-Headed off to Texas- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/10/16/headed-off-to-texas/

-Pacific- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/09/25/pacific/

-Fly- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/08/19/fly/

-Highway to Lonesome- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/07/30/highway-to-lonesome/

-Sundance- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/07/17/sundance/

-Carr Peak – https://azrockdodger.com/2022/07/16/carr-peak/

-Alberta Clipper- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/05/07/alberta-clipper/

-Little Town Blues- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/04/24/little-town-blues/

-Blessed- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/04/23/blessed/

-Crosses- https://wordpress.com/post/azrockdodger.com/2664

-Teardrops in the Snow- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/02/02/teardrops-in-the-snow/

-A Village Called Kin – a poem- https://azrockdodger.com/2021/12/26/a-village-called-kin/

-Markle Man- https://azrockdodger.com/2021/11/19/markle-man/

-River Trip – https://azrockdodger.com/2021/11/14/river-trip/

-Runaway https://azrockdodger.com/2021/10/17/runaway/

-Boxcar Bill https://azrockdodger.com/2021/10/16/boxcar-bill/

-Hi-Line Highway https://azrockdodger.com/2021/10/02/hi-line-highway/

-Captain John of the Thunderhead: https://azrockdodger.com/2021/09/30/captain-john/

-Monsoon (Poem) https://azrockdodger.com/2021/07/31/monsoon/

-Laguna https://azrockdodger.com/2021/08/22/laguna/

-La Sal Junction

-Milk River

-1962 https://azrockdodger.com/2021/09/24/1962/

-Skeeters https://wordpress.com/post/azrockdodger.com/1991

-The Clickin’ and the Clack https://azrockdodger.com/2021/07/18/the-clickin-and-the-clack/

-Black Coffee

-The Devil’s Road It Was

-Singin’ on a Post

-Across the Great Divide

-Winnemucca

-Burns Junction

-D-Y Junction

-Wrong Side of the Track

-The Comet and the UFO

-With Demons in the Wash

-Baja Arizona

-Mission Lounge Angel (A poem) https://azrockdodger.com/2021/08/18/angel-at-the-mission/

La Sal Junction

Just south of Moab Utah is a junction called La Sal,

Sittin’ ‘neath the red rocks, it’s a beautiful locale.

Sure to take your breath away each time that you pass,

Where sits a lonesome station that used to pump the gas.

Once it was a truck stop, the diesels they rolled in,

Double-clutchin’ up the grade, patience growin’ thin.

A place where every trucker knew he had to stop,

And get some fuel or service in the little shop.

Run by Vic and Irene, had everything you need,

With Dayla in the café, a’  fixin’ up y’er feed.

One time I drove up in a broken-down old car,

Next thing that I knew they had me tendin’ bar.

And Steve’ll fix yer flivver if it should malfunction,

No, you won’t get stranded, this is La Sal Junction.

Runnin’ out of hours, the log book calls for rest,

You can tie up at LaSalle, it is the very best.

A trailer with a shower, a bunk that isn’t bad,

A night away from sleepin’ in that damn old cab.

But if you go in business, pick yer partners well,

They can take yer dream and run it straight to hell.

Just a lonesome junction, somewhere in the past,

I’m gonna’ shed a tear, ‘cause it didn’t last.        

Apr 30, ‘21

I grew up near the Milk River at Glasgow, Montana.

Barefoot boy sittin’ on the bank,

Starin’ at a bobber waitin’ fer a yank.

Beaver makes a splash, slaps his tail,

Gone outta’ sight, he left no trail.

Rope swing hangin’ from a branch,

Only the bravest take that chance.

Bare Butt Beach, no girls allowed,

 First swim across makes you proud.

White-tail deer hidden in the brush,

Take yer time, there ain’t no rush.

In the Summer the cotton flies,

Gets in yer mouth and yer eyes.

Winter freeze, break out the skates,

Beer can hockey, no goal or gates.

Winter ends, comes the thaw,

Ice breaks up, oh such awe!

Place a stake as water’s rise,

Seek higher ground if yer wise.

Skippin’ school to fight the flood,

Settin’ sandbags in the mud.

A river kid is like a wild rose,

All scratched up, bloody nose.

Don’t get much better, boy and a dog,

Milky old river, sittin’ on a log.

LDT April 22, ’21

The Milk is the little river that could. It steals much of its water from the Saint Mary’s Siphon near Glacier National Park. It uses the valley that the Missouri ran through before the last ice age. Fort Peck Lake filters the water of the “Big Muddy”, but the Milk soon befouls it.

Black Coffee

I’m  needin’ some more coffee, better make it black,

Last night I had a bender, but I ain’t lookin’ back.

The bars were all lit up, the cards were playin’ good,

Drawin’ fer an inside straight, I knew I never should.

Now I’m sick and sober, down to my last dime,

I’m thinkin’ that I might have had one hell of a time.

Sippin’ on black coffee, my head I gotta’ clear,

Wonderin’ where the hell I’m gonna’ go from here.

LDT   Apr 20, ‘21

The Devil’s Road it Was

Highway Six Sixty-Six, the Devil’s road it was,

First time that I took it was mostly just because.

Windin’ up from Clifton, Morenci mine you pass,

You can say farewell to cities, towns and gas.

As you crack the throttle, hangin’ on the bars,

Surely to be thankful there ain’t a lot of cars.

Leanin’ in the wind, the twisties never end,

Climbin’ to the top, what’s beyond the bend?

The desert will retreat, the chaparral is neat,

Feel the air get cooler, piney smell so sweet.

The gear you need is second, you ain’t goin’ very fast,

Lean into a turn, you’ll be seein’ what you passed.

Ride up to the heavens, the Devil ain’t in sight,

Knees and elbows shiftin’ , first the left and then the right.

There’s endless blue vistas for as far as you can see,

Could this be the place the Devil sets you free?

Up above the clouds, the grey wolf surely knows,

This is where you go to forget about your woes.

A meadow full of Camas, bloomin’ soft and blue,

Where the elk will bugle for his love so true.

You finally hit the spot where the Aspens quake,

This route is the best that anyone can take.

The tall pines whisper softly waftin’ in the wind,

It’s like you never strayed, like you never sinned.

If the Devil’s road should take you to Heaven’s pearly gate,

Maybe just remember, the One who wipes y’er slate.

LDT Apr 2, ‘21

Singin’ on a Post

He sits atop a post and sings his song of love,

his warble has to be, blessed from up above.

And all the prairie knows the only sign of Spring,

is when you hear the Meadowlark open up to sing.

Days are getting’ longer, grass is turnin’ green,

that little speckled bird is searchin’ for his queen.

And if she ever hears him, she’ll fall in love for sure,

he’ll proudly stand beside her, with a love that’s pure.

So next time when ye’r ridin’ out upon the open range,

A song of love is all it takes, a lonesome heart to change.

LDT Mar ‘21

Across the Great Divide

The old cowpoke he rode on up to the Great Divide,

‘Cuz he always wondered about the other side.

He gazed upon the heavens and the canyon down below,

and suddenly he asked, “Lord, which way should I go?”

At first, he got no answer, as dark clouds rolled above,

had he somehow faltered and lost his Father’s love?

Because it was his habit to drink and cuss and chew,

And never was he spotted a’ sittin’ in a pew.

Then in a bolt of fire the thunder did unfold,

he shivered in his soul and didn’t feel so bold.

“Lord, I took a windin’ path, veerin’ from the right,

pretty sure y’er thinkin’ that I’m an awful sight.

The sinnin’ that I’ve done was mostly just for fun,

But now I’m thinkin’ I’ve got my demons on the run.

Either way I’ve gotta’ say You gave me a hell of a ride,

So are Ya’ gonna take me across the Great Divide?”

                           Winnemucca

Spent some time in Winnemucca when I was just a lad,

And lately I been thinkin’ ‘bout all the fun I had.

High up in the desert, before the Humboldt sinks,

Stop on by for romance or maybe for some drinks.

It’s where the Wild Bunch robbed’ the First National,

Thirty Thousand Dollars made their job more rational.

Hide out like Claude Dallas, or gamble at the Palace,

Whether you just drove in, hopped a freight or rode the bus.

Joe Mackie owns the town, locked it up for sure,

Build some more casinos, those tourists will he lure.

Somewhere there’s a red light and an ol’ green door,

Guy sneaks up a dim lit alley leadin’ to amour.

Two Pacific Railroads are runnin’ through the town,

And someday that new Interstate will simply go around.

The U.P. is for those haughty folks on the Overland,

The W.P. is just for hoboes, a satchel in their hand.

Dapper stranger looking sharp, at the poker table sits,

Three days later he’s a mess, shaking with the fits.

Waitress name of Rita will bring up one more drink,

“No Sir, I ain’t whatever you might think.”

Comic cracks his jokes, buckaroo will grin,

 Then a drunken miner takes a swipe at him.

The battle it is taken, the tables they will fall,

Lucky that the bouncer is Paiute, proud and tall.

Barmaid runs for Sherriff, her platform seems alright,

Just sleep by day and party completely through the night.

A Basque herder climbs up on a stool, breakin’ forth in song,

The words they sound so pretty, but the language don’t belong.

Open Jeep burnin’ rubber, driver quaffs his beer,

Oh it’s probably illegal, any place but here.

Cars a’ speedin’ into town get slowed down by the cop,

There ain’t no limit on the road, but this is where to stop.

The Sun is slowly risin’, the party it ain’t done,

Come along ans join in, if you want some fun.

LDT Nov. ‘20

Burns Junction

        At a lonesome junction standin’ with my thumb,

        Just let me hitch a ride, I really ain’t no bum.

        Left the Interstate, where it’s hard to catch a ride,

        For in Highway Ninety-Five, a shorter route I spied.

        Standin’ in the dust, just waitin’ for a car

        Still a ways to go, but I’ve lately come so far.

        No, I ain’t no hero, just made the wires talk,

        Now I need a ride, it’s too damn far to walk.

        Just yesterday I passed ‘neath that Golden Gate,

        Gazin’ at the “World”, my fate to contemplate.

        Shoes are lookin’ dusty, my uniform’s a mess,

        I’m a pretty sorry Jarhead, if you even have to guess.

        Girlfriend up and married, maybe shoulda’ wrote.

        A million other G.I.s have been in that same boat.

Shoulda’ stuffed my seabag with the comely Michiko,

Girl in every port, or so the stories go.

The sun is beatin’ down, the cars ain’t comin’ by.

Never knew these parts could be so hot and dry.

I shake my head and wonder, future all a blur,

Is the path I’ve chosen really just a spur?

Orders in my pocket, thirty days to think,

Twenty-one years old, I’ve had a legal drink.

No, I ain’t broke nor runnin’ from the law,

Just headin’ home to see my Mama and my Pa.

Then it’s off to Cali to serve this noble land,

Beach bum at Laguna, sunin’ in the sand.

At a lonesome junction, standin’ with my thumb,

Got the world before me, shouldn’t be this glum.

LDT Nov. ’20

Burns Junction, Oregon is about 130 miles north of Winnemucca, Nevada.

D-Y Junction

There’s a place called D-Y Junction, a hundred miles from home,

Up above the Missouri Breaks, where the bison used to roam.

They say the Corps of Discovery passed along this way,

Draggin’ boats by the cordelle, eight miles in a day.

Trappers, traders settin’ forth, fortunes for to seek,

It wern’t no life for slackers, the timid or the meek.

Miles chasin’ Joseph, the Nez Perce made their run,

Battle of the Bear Paws, they knew that they were done.

Steamboats freightin’ cargo, at Benton they tie up,

The ranchers and the miners, fillin’ up their cup.

Still the land of Gros Ventres, Chippewa and Cree,

Add to that a motley band of people called Métis.

Then they finally found it, the Little Rockies gold,

Came the time of outlaws, their stories to unfold.

One named Harvey Curry, or Logan if you like,

Rode into Landusky and shot a man called “Pike”.

Now a wanted man, Kid Curry hit the trail,

Robbed a bank in Deadwood, ended up in jail.

Ridin’ with the Wild Bunch, he’s gonna’ make a mark,

With men like Butch and Sundance it really ain’t a lark.

Then the train at Wagner, he made his biggest score,

Forty thousand dollars, or maybe it was more.

Hidin’ out in the Breaks, or maybe at Thornhill’s,

Posse never finds him, too bad they’re unsigned bills.

Siringo comes a lookin’, that outlaw he must find,

Six months in the mountains, no trail left behind.

Then Curry’s caught in Knoxville, in an awful fight,

Thornhill gets him lawyers, though it just ain’t right.

Curry gets the max, his sentence for to serve,‘

’til he chokes the jailer, showin’ all his verve.

Hidin’ from the law, he’s mighty good at that,

Slinkin’ back to Harlem, like an old Pole Cat.

Maybe it was Colorado, where he met his fatal end,

Or he’s lurkin’ up ahead, beyond some railroad bend.

When you hit the D-Y, you’re a hundred miles from home,

Don’t you follow Curry, no matter where you roam.

LDT Nov ’20

The D-Y Junction sits at the foot of the Little Rockies Mountains, about 50 miles south of Malta, Montana.

Wrong Side of the Tracks

The Wrong Side of the Track

Grew up in a railroad town, wrong side of the track,

and tho I kinda’ miss it, I ain’t never goin’ back.

West Des Moines or Winnemucca, they’re really all the same,

what side of town you live in, sullies up your name.

My dad he was the Engineer, ‘a runnin’ that ol’ train,

that divided up our little town, ‘a sittin’ on the plain.

And Momma she would sing along, while packin’ his lunch pail,

“Keep your hand upon the throttle, and your eye upon the rail.” *

I watched that train ‘a pullin’ out and wondered where it went,

no ticket to some far off place, my money’s all been spent.

And the tallest thing I ever saw was fillin’ up with grain,

the farmers in their overalls were talkin’ crops and rain.

On a cold and dreary day, I offered up a thumb,

and by the time I got a ride my toes were gettin’ numb.

Then one by one, all my friends were doin’ just the same,

in leavin’ from a railroad town, there really is no shame.

Now nuthin’ in my life since then has ever set me back,

grew up in a railroad town, wrong side of the track.

*”Life is Like a Mountain Railroad,” Charles Tillman (music) and M.E. Abbey (lyrics). 1890.

The Comet and the UFO

One time I bought a Comet, blacker than the night,

And while I’m drivin’ in it, I took my greatest fright.

In the state of Utah, a Junction called La Sal,

Got a call from Chi-town, gotta’ weld the rail.

Got a job a’ waitin’ in that Colorado land,

Workin’ for Mister Muncie and his merry band.

Gotta’ load the Comet somehow stuff my bike,

In the trunk I place it, ‘fore headin’ down the Pike.“

This car is overloaded,” my Uncle shakes his head,

“better you be careful, than windin’ up all dead.”

I head out on the highway, at Cortez I turn north,

My overloaded Comet is swayin’ back and forth.

Darkness falls, the road grows deadly silent,

Six pack sits beside me, blackness out in front.

Not a car in sight as I travel through the night,

I look up at the mirror to see an awful sight.

My eyes get big as saucers, I think I’m turnin’ white.

There’s a flyin’ object in my mirror, givin’ me a fright.

Yellow oval chasin’ me, so shiny and so bright,

Never believed in UFO’s before that fateful night.

I mash that throttle through the Comet’s floor,

Hopin’ that the little Six will finally start to roar.

Alas, I cannot shake it, it’s hangin’ on my tail,

Tiny engine strivin’ hard , but it’s sure to fail.

Carvin’ up a canyon, I slide around a curve,

Lord, I think I lost it, buildin’ up my nerve.

Canyon’s full of twisties, I round another turn,

And there it is behind me, ridin’ on my stern.

The miles they’re tickin’ by, just like a turtle race,

I try to steel my nerve, the demon I must face.

A lonely hour passes, my blood is flowin’ slow,

I’m thinkin’ ‘bout my fate, there’s no place left to go.

I cannot even fathom this thing that’s chasin’ me,

Rollin’ through the night tryin’ hard to flee.

Then I spot a tiny light ‘a shinin’ up ahead,

Maybe it’s a town I say, fightin’ off the dread.

I slide into a station, spewin’ gravel to and fro,

Attendant starin’ at me as he hollers, “Whoa!”

I bolt the door to tell him about the UFO,

Then it finally hits me to my mortal woe.

That object in my mirror isn’t what I thunk,

Reflection of the moon, shinin’ off my trunk!

LDT Nov ’20

We loaded up the Hudson,

When I was just lad.

We three kids in the back,

Up front were Mom and Dad.

On our way to Wolf Point,

Just to watch the show.

Or maybe it was Dodson,

Old Hudson ridin’ low.

The Levis weren’t enough,

We had to wear our boots.

Take our place upon the rail,

Watchin’ cowboys in the chutes.

Billingsley would loop his calf,

In damn near record time.

And Hagen on a bull so bad,

Eight seconds seemed like nine.

But when it came the time for broncs,

Our Dad he would buck out.

He’s ridin’ like the devil

Is chasin’ him about.

Barrel racin’ brings the cowgirls fair,

Big ol’ Stetson upon their hair.

Comes the end, time for clowns,

To go fightin’ with the bull.

El’ Toro pawin’ in the dirt,

‘til it’s flyin’ by the shovel full.

We laugh, the tension broken,

The Matador will play.

And then it’s time to load the Hudson,

‘Cause tonight there’ll be no pay.

Drivin’ ninety miles an hour,

We roll down Highway Two,

And one by one we nod off,

The rodeo is through.

        LDT Oct ‘20

With Demons in the Wash

He lives within the wash, his demons by his side,

no one knows what drove him there, just a place to hide.

He sees an urban coyote skulking for a meal,

and wonders why they share such a lonesome deal.

His days are long and hot, the nights alone and cold.

here he makes his home, his tent he did unfold.

His sign says, “Can you help me? Anything will do”,

with luck he’ll make a buck before the day is through.

And on the busy street, the shiny cars roll by,

do they ever ponder the wherefore or the why?

LDT Feb ’20

Baja Arizona

We call it Baja Arizona, the land beneath the Gila,

Could we be so lucky someday that we’ll see ya’?

Mountains, deserts, our verdant valleys bloom,

No matter where you go, Baja has the room.

Aspens quake above the clouds, golden in the sun,

Take a hike, ride a horse, ya’ gotta have some fun.

Of course, I’m gonna tell ya’ my corner is the best,

But I really cannot fault the desert to the West.

If you want a shootout, Tombstone heeds your call,

You can even stop and visit Trumpy’s stupid Wall.

The Spanish had a Presidio, Apaches drove them out,

Even then they knew what freedom’s all about.

Where Dragoons never found the wily old Cochise,

‘til Jeffords brought in Howard to finally make the peace.

Where Mowry mined for gold and gave the Rebels lead,

While other lonesome miners just ended up quite dead.

The Chiricahua break out, their reservation gone,

Stolen by the Gringo, their vengeance it will spawn.

Where Warren bet his claim, a footrace with a horse,

If you guessed he lost it, yer surely right of course.

Where once they moiled for silver, now copper is their gold,

They dug a pit in Bisbee, it’s earthy treasures to unfold.

Meanwhile from Sonora, Geronimo will raid,

Keeping all of Baja holed up and afraid.

The Earps and the Clantons are feudin’ in the street,

Thirty seconds later, there’ll be blood beneath their feet.

A quarter of the Army is chasin’ hostiles down,

Without Apache scouts, they simply can’t be found.

High in the Sierra Madre, they find the hidden camp,

They parlay with Gatewood, their breakout he will tamp.

Then Miles takes the credit, the Apaches are exiled,

Never will they raid or roam, never more be wild.

Where all you ever need are nachos and tequila.

LDT Jan 1.’21

Return of Kid Curry

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April is National Poetry Month, though at Harvard every month could be. This book of poems is signed by T.S. Eliot, who graduated from Harvard in 1909. Photo by Thomas Earle

File photo by Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

Poetic wandering

Georgia Bellas and Sarah Sweeney

Harvard Staff

Walking tour highlights the sights and sounds of literary Harvard

April is National Poetry Month , though at Harvard every month could be. The University’s poetic legacy dates back hundreds of years and has helped shape the world’s literary canon. E.E. Cummings, John Ashbery, and Wallace Stevens are among the University’s well-known poetic alumni, while Maxine Kumin and Adrienne Rich attended Radcliffe.

Today, contemporary poets like Kevin Young ’92 and Pulitzer Prize-winning Tracy K. Smith ’94 are building on the tradition before them, and who knows how many poets-in-waiting are in Harvard’s classes right now, verses just simmering.

Lauded poet Jorie Graham serves as Harvard’s Boylston Professor, and the University’s literati also include poet and critic Stephen Burt and literary critic Helen Vendler, to name only a few. But poets are found outside of the English Department, too, as with the Medical School’s Rafael Campo — an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the author of several award-winning collections of poetry.

The Gazette invites you to explore Harvard by foot and ear. This walking tour of campus can be completed in a lunch hour or less, and pairs classic Harvard landmarks with a sampling of the poets connected to the University. Using recordings housed at the Woodberry Poetry Room as well as new recordings, the tour also commemorates the April 13 birth of Seamus Heaney, a Nobel Prize winner and Harvard’s one-time Boylston Professor and poet-in-residence. Heaney died on Aug. 30, 2013, but his mark on Harvard is indelible.

— Sarah Sweeney

To download a printable pdf of the map, click here .

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Harvard poetry walking tour: stop 1, john harvard statue, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 2, science center plaza, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 3, annenberg hall, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 4, memorial hall, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 5, sever hall courtyard, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 6, the memorial church, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 7, tercentenary theatre, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 8, widener library, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 9, woodberry poetry room, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 10, lowell house, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 11, weld boathouse, harvard poetry walking tour: stop 12, you might like.

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• The Joy of Playing Outside: Poems that Celebrate Nature and Adventure

There is something truly magical about playing outside . It is a chance to connect with nature, let our imaginations run wild, and experience the exhilaration of adventure. In this article, we will explore a collection of poems that beautifully capture the essence of playing outside, from the gentle rustle of leaves to the boundless freedom of running through open fields. These poems not only evoke nostalgia for childhood memories but also serve as a gentle reminder for us all to step outside and embrace the wonders of the natural world.

1. "The Great Unknown" by Sarah Thompson

2. "beneath the sun" by robert anderson, 3. "whispers of the wind" by emily collins, 1. "the song of the river" by samuel hughes, 2. "dancing leaves" by lily parker, 3. "in the shade of the oak" by benjamin green, 1. "the secret hideaway" by emma turner, 2. "footprints in the sand" by james peterson, 3. "the swing set" by olivia adams, poems about exploring the outdoors.

In the vastness of the unknown, we find ourselves , A world waiting to be discovered, a treasure to be held. Through tangled forests and uncharted streams, We embark on a journey, filled with endless dreams.

Underneath the sun's warm embrace, We chase our shadows, in an endless race. Through golden meadows, we skip and play, As the sun casts our cares away.

Listen closely to the whispers of the wind , As it tells tales of adventures yet to begin. In open fields, where wildflowers dance, We find solace in nature's sweet romance.

Poems about the Wonders of Nature

The river's melody, a symphony so grand , It carries us away to a distant land. With pebbles as our companions, we explore, And let the river's rhythm guide us once more.

Leaves twirl and spin in a whimsical dance , As we skip and jump, giving them a chance. To paint the sky with vibrant shades of gold, And embrace the wonders that nature holds.

Beneath the oak's majestic reach , We find shelter, solace, and a lesson to teach. In nature's classroom, we learn and grow, As whispers of wisdom the oak tree bestows.

Poems about Childhood Adventures

In the heart of the woods, we build a fort , A secret hideaway, our own magical resort. With sticks and stones, we create a world, Where imagination unfurls and dreams are unfurled.

Running freely along the sandy shore , Our footprints imprint, forevermore. With the ocean's chorus as our symphony, We embrace the vastness of youthful glee.

Up and down, we soar through the air , On a swing set, without a single care. As we reach for the sky, our spirits ignite, With each sway, our worries take flight.

Playing outside is a timeless joy that holds a special place in our hearts . These poems capture the essence of those carefree moments spent exploring, embracing nature's beauty, and reveling in childhood adventures. Through the power of poetry, we are reminded of the importance of connecting with the natural world and allowing ourselves to be captivated by its wonders. So go outside, immerse yourself in the magic of nature, and let the spirit of these poems inspire you to play, explore, and create memories that will last a lifetime.

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The whole star is a moving skin (It is the star to every wandering bark)

April 27, 2024, 8:00 am – May 5, 2024, 5:00 pm

ACT Student Gallery MIT E15, Lower Level Wiesner Building 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA

In this exhibition, the three artists explore relationships with our temporal and spatial environments through the lens of yearning and loss. The title is a line taken from a machine-aided translation of Shakespeare’s famous love sonnet 116 by Rena J. Mosteirin. In the book, the machine, moving through various languages – including code – rends new expressions and skeins of meaning, mapping an unexpected idiom. The exhibition aims to delve into the matter of our relationship with animate and inanimate ​worlds by paying close attention to intimate and transcorporeal minglings. Aubrie’s portals explore the desire to connect to somewhere while feeling as if nowhere; Luca’s somatic translations of her psychic life contend with her compulsion to find the edges of her interior; Zhanyi’s rain poems examine how mourning persists in the natural and constructed environments around us.

Each work invites visitors to confront and rethink their perception of reality, aligning with Mario Perniola’s vision of becoming “things that feel,” and forging an alliance between senses and inorganic entities. They take what can feel large and foreign and find their intimacies.

Opening celebrations on Friday, April 26 from 6-9pm. Refreshments served.

The gallery will be open during the following times: Saturday, April 27: 12-6pm Sunday, April 28: 12-6pm Tuesday, April 30: 12-6pm Wednesday, May 1: 12-7pm Thursday, May 2: 12-6pm Friday, May 3: 12-6pm Saturday, May 4: 12-6pm Sunday, May 5: 12-6pm

Luca E. Lum

Aubrie James

Zhanyi Chen