Melissa enjoys writing poetry to express herself, and loves learning about new styles and experimenting with different patterns.
Nature is a rich subject for poetry. There are so many different images you can create and microcosms you can explore. Here I present 17 poems that I wrote about different aspects of nature and human interactions with the natural world, including a piece about Dr. Stephen Hawking, the late physicist who helped inspire me to pursue a career in science. I wanted to reflect the beauty and harshness of nature, and how quickly it can change from one or the other. I also wanted to show how we react to natural disasters and how we sometimes miss out on nature's smaller wonders in the rush of modern life. Please enjoy my poems about nature; I hope that they will make you think about how we fit into the world around us.
Between every two pines, there is a doorway to a new world.
— John Muir
Clouds
Marshmallow outside
A raging tempest inside
Clouds have hidden depths
Passing By
When I walk through the park on my own
I see more than others' eyes are shown
So many people just pass by the rows
Of tulips in multicolored clothes
I see more than others' eyes are shown
Birds parked in formation, a plethora
Of tulips in multicolored clothes
Butterflies using grass for springboards
Birds parked in formation, a plethora
Benches hawk their wares: perfect resting place
Butterflies using grass for springboards
But nobody sees this spark of activity
Benches hawk their wares: perfect resting place
When I walk through the park on my own
But nobody sees this spark of activity
So many people just pass by the rows
The Song Of Eternity
You see a rock
Just a cold dead thing
What value could there be
in things that cannot speak?
I see an ancient soul
softly whispering its story
so few notice the wisdom
embossed silver on its surface
It speaks of its birth in fire
roiling magma spewing from the ground
blazing across the land leaving traces
of youth, wild and bright as the sun
This was before life itself
before amino acids were thrown together
in nature's tantrum, a fit of lightning
This soul has seen it all
It supports the world above
relishes in the triumphs of proud oak patriarchs
listens to the wind's confidential sighs
cries with the pouring rain
Remnants of epochs long gone sing in its grains
memories of the fantastical creatures it used to know
a leaf transformed in carbon, a legacy
of friends found and lost to time stepping forward
It has gone through intense changes
Pressure and heat would meld it into strange forms
sometimes it would resurface not knowing itself
but it always retained its essence in marks of fire
Sometimes it would languish near the beach
drawn by the inevitable pull of ebb and flow
It quietly fell to pieces battered by salty air
some would come back, some lost forever in the deep
Billions of sunrises giving way to sunsets
pages in a book, flickering by
We make a period, an ephemeral dot
but this soul will still be there in revelation
watching and observing time ever turning
living every joy and sorrow and love and death
You say it is just a rock
You are deaf to the song of eternity
The Old Tree
Old man bent over
An arch of gnarled limbs
Bleeding tannin on the ground
Holding the weight of the sky
On knotted shoulders
His leafy hair
Shedding on the path
Is made trivial by
Holding the weight of the sky
On knotted shoulders
His face bowed down
A lonely god, broken
Into bark, defeated by
Holding the weight of the sky
On knotted shoulders
Rooted firm still
Stubborn as he’s old
Protecting precious saplings by
Holding the weight of the sky
On knotted shoulders
Ocean Is A Tapestry
Ocean is a tapestry
Stitches switching from danger to beauty
Ultramarine swathes dabbed across the thread
Turning, obverting, to the horizon
Ever expanding beyond the eye to eternity
Just on the surface sits a ship
An agile, flimsy piece of driftwood
Waves toss the boat in a tantrum
Yawing and pitching in the storm
Violent in their voyage
Into the water, a stream of bubbles
Below the surface is magic itself
Golden beams of light illuminate the fish
Xanthic and violet flecks flashing by
Flying over kelp forests
Corals, a coat of many colors
Ziggurats rising on the reef
Prodigious populations of pelagic fish
Quickly and quietly hiding from
Krakens who lurk in these waters
Deeper and deeper into the abyss
Rolling rhythmic waves become calmer
Meandering currents guiding the way for
Leviathans in calm lethargy
Navigating alongside skeletal sailors
Heading deeper still, to the darkest heaven
July
July is camping
Underneath a star-strewn sky
Listening to stories around a fire
You lit for yourself
July is swimming
Underwater like a fish
Listening to the sound of bubbles
You blow for yourself
July is buggy
Understanding cicada calls
Hearing the hum of fireflies
You caught for yourself
July is freedom
Under a sunlit sky
Leaving down a winding road
You picked for yourself
Fire
Gaze into the burning glow of fire
Perhaps you’ll find the thing you seek
Many nuances of color to admire
The movement of the flames will dance and speak
Of ancient times before when its power was dire
Curling and winding in a manner so sleek
It may be beautiful but beware, it’s a liar
Even the strongest man will be wrought weak
In the face of their own funeral pyre
The brightness of the fire
Also speaks of its ire
Mischief
The rambunctious flame
Dances off his candle post
To greet the curtains
The Deer
Here’s a forest
Here’s a deer
Deer is clumsy
Deer, oh dear
Dear and sweet
Dear and stumbling
Stumbling hooves
Stumbling right over
Over rivers
Over bridges
Bridges that are near
Bridges that are far
Far away
Far like mother
Mother is lost
Mother is gone
Gone with men
Gone away
Away from home
Away from trees
Trees so dark
Trees so tall
Tall and looming
Taller than small
Small legs running
Small and scared
Scared of trees
Scared of men
Men are big
Men have guns
Guns are loud
Guns took mother away
Away from home
Away from her little one
One foot in front of another
One always running alone
Alone in the forest
Alone, melting into trees
Trees so silent
Trees too quiet
Quiet becomes shouting
Quiet is no more
More running from trees
More running from men
Men with snarling faces
Men with heartless guns
Gun is raised to fire
Gun has perfect aim
Aim
Fire
Confetti
Fate’s fingers stroke the land indiscriminately
When the twister roars its way through town
We are starting over with confetti in our hands
The broken body of a cow lying in the road
A farmer crying for more than spilled milk
Fate’s fingers stroke the land indiscriminately
Shredded threads of wood splintering the field
Lying among heaps of clothing, food, and furniture
We are starting over with confetti in our hands
A mother leaning against her overturned car
Hoping her call will reach the school
Fate’s fingers stroke the land indiscriminately
A tiny patch of day lilies and violets
Miraculously intact though faintly dusted
We are starting over with confetti in our hands
Fate’s fingers stroke the land indiscriminately
But there are some spots they missed
We will start over with confetti in our hands
Not all was tossed by the winds
Soil
Dirt warmed by the sun
Dark and loamy, but homey
To small pink earthworms
Fossil
Will I leave a trace on some time-distant beach?
Eggshell bones peeking out of the sand
Reborn and placed in a child’s hand
With friends on a white shelf she can reach
She grows up and tires of curiosities
What was once creature and now is thing
Sold, replaced with a diamond ring
Left in a box where I can’t feel the breeze
They examine me haughtily as scientists do
Turning and prodding and poking and writing
If I were alive, then I would be fighting
They try to classify me but they don’t have a clue
Years stretch by in filaments of gray
They heft me into a cheap plastic coffin
Without a care I am clumsily tossed in
Left in a landfill with no one to say
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Water Haiku
Leap
Brave little raindrop
Wants to see the outside world
Takes a leap of faith
Muddled
A puddle muddles
In thought about how he got
To spill on the ground
Gossip
The gossiping brook
Bubbles and babbles away
To chat with the stream
Wanderer
River meanders
Through meadows and tall mountains
Looking for a home
Mystery
The unknown deep sea
Dark caverns that hide secrets
Mysteries abound
The Desert
Deserts are harsh or so they say
Sand will blow in its lonely way
Nothing growing but desert heat
It weakens, leads you to defeat
Deadly snakes waiting for a meal
Your soft flesh holds juicy appeal
Don’t fall victim to a mirage
Walking through the dunes? Self sabotage!
From the desert there’s much to learn
Sand shifting slow in winding patterns
Whitest clouds in an endless sky
Melodies in coyote cries
Painted colors swirl from the earth
Sunsets and mesas have their worth
So much is hidden in the sand
The desert is a mystic land
The desert is the raven’s call
Harsh and yet beautiful in its coarse form
Raw and gleaming with weathered edges
Shimmering through waves of heat
Becoming a vision of mystery
Grains
Grains spiral through a mighty river
Turbid and whirling, dancing, unfurling
Varied in size and shape but together all the same
All hurtling towards waters unknown
Some float delicately at the top
Fine and silty with perfectly round edges
Never knowing or caring for what lies beneath
Some drag heavy on the bottom
Tumbling numbly to their fates
Having lost themselves long ago
I want to be the grain that bounces
Gravity and currents may drag it down
But it always rises into suspension again
Not perfectly round or perfectly flat
Imperfectly beautiful all the same
It knows highs and it knows lows
It knows it is going somewhere
With serene acceptance in a turbulent current
The grain drifts quietly to waters unknown
Silence In The Mist
Silence in the mist
It is just before dawn
The earth breathes deep
Through blue and green marshes
It is just before dawn
The frog begins his deep bass hum
Through blue and green marshes
Stained glass dragonflies drift
The frog begins his deep bass hum
The sun stretches his rays
Stained glass dragonflies drift
Lotus opens, a gentle flutter
The sun stretches his rays
The earth breathes deep
Eyes open, an awakening
Silence in the mist
In Memory of Stephen Hawking
Even if you were confined to a chair
You could still use your eyes
To see across the stars
To defy all the odds and exist
You led mankind across the universe
Traversing through ages of equations and speculations
From stardust you came
and to the stardust you will go
Your time here was brief
But you gave us infinity
In the depths of black holes
You were born on Galileo's death
And died on Einstein's birth
Life is punctuated by the birth and loss of brilliant thoughts
You once said you wanted to know the mind of God
To learn why we are here, why we exist
Maybe we exist to question
Maybe we exist to explore
Maybe we're all time travelers at your party
Even if we can only dance in one direction
Maybe we exist to connect to others
To make life a constellation full of bright shining stars
To forever shape and change them with our gravity
Maybe we're just a happy accident
In a factory run by no one
Spilling dreams into the emptiness
Making meaning out of nothingness
Maybe we exist simply to enjoy our brief flashes of light
In the darkness of spacetime
I am glad you helped us wonder
I am glad you helped us wander
I am glad you existed
Thank you, Dr. Hawking
More of my Poetry
- Legend of the Minotaur
This narrative poem is an exciting retelling of the myth of the minotaur, a terrifying monster with the head of the bull and the body of a man, stalking through a labyrinth on the Isle of Crete for his human sacrificial prey. - 11 Poems About Love for Valentine's Day
Falling in love is a magical feeling. Each of these poems gives a snapshot of different love stories, capturing that feeling and bringing it to life. - 7 Poems About Breakups
This is a collection of poems about the end of a relationship and all of the mixed emotions that can come with it. - 12 Horror Poems Perfect for Halloween
This is a collection of dark spooky poems I wrote that would be perfect for Halloween.
© 2018 Melissa Clason
