Tinily Yet Endlessly across Millions of Years

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Skylarks go soaring,

Stepping on clouds and breathing

Eons’ mist and haze.

~ Shiki [Englished by Phillip Whidden;

Shiki’s poem does not include the sense of time]

The skylark sings and sings.   The skylark soars

And soars.  It settles in the air and then

Re-soars and sings.  It opens up the doors

Of heaven and it opens hearts of men.

For epochs humans have not thought about

György Ligeti: Lux Aeterna [⇐ click on this]

It sang and sang, and still it soars and sings.

Its loveliness is long and long drawn out.

Millennia have known and seen its wings

And heard its melodies.  Before a quill

First noted down existence of its song,

The lark was singing upward ever, still

Among us now, still singing ever strong.

  It never thinks of good or evil, God

    Or Satan.  It refuses to be awed.