Author: Teresa Pelka

Linguist, specialized in American English and psycholinguistics; inventor of Language Mapping, a generative grammar method; author and translator; a poet and painter a bit.

I Asked No Other Thing

I ASKED no other thing,
No other was denied.
I offered Being for it;
The mighty merchant smiled. More→

Exclusion

THE soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more. More→

The Secret

SOME things that fly there be —
Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:
Of these no elegy.

Some things that stay there be —
Grief, hills, eternity:
Nor this behooveth me. More→

The Lonely House

I KNOW some lonely houses off the road
A robber ’d like the look of —
Wooden barred,
And windows hanging low,
Inviting to
A portico,
Where two could creep:
One hand the tools,
The other peep
To make sure all’s asleep.
Old-fashioned eyes,
Not easy to surprise! More→

To Fight Aloud

TO fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe.

Who win, and nations do not see,
Who fall, and none observe,
Whose dying eyes no country
Regards with patriot love. More→

Dawn

WHEN night is almost done,
And sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the spaces,
It’s time to smooth the hair,
And get the dimples ready... More→

The Book of Martyrs

READ, sweet, how others strove,
Till we are stouter;
What they renounced,
Till we are less afraid;
How many times they bore
The faithful witness,
Till we are helped,
As if a kingdom cared! More→

The Mystery of Pain

PAIN has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not. More→

I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed

ITASTE taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue. More→

A Book

HE ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust. More→

I Had No Time to Hate

I HAD no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity. More→

Unreturning

’TWAS such a little, little boat
That toddled down the bay!
’T was such a gallant, gallant sea
That beckoned it away! More→

Whether My Bark Went Down at Sea

WHETHER my bark went down at sea,
Whether she met with gales,
Whether to isles enchanted
She bent her docile sails... More→

Belshazzar Had a Letter

BELSHAZZAR had a letter —
He never had but one;
Belshazzar’s correspondent
Concluded — and begun
In that immortal copy... More→

The Brain Within Its Groove

THE brain within its groove
Runs evenly and true;
But let a splinter swerve
’T were easier for you... More→

Index, Love

LINKS to poems in first print order,
Mine, Bequest, Alter? More→


Mine

MINE by the right of the white election!
Mine by the royal seal!
Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison
Bars cannot conceal! More→

Bequest

YOU left me sweet, two legacies, —
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of... More→


Alter?

ALTER? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one. More→

Suspense

E LYSIUM is as far as to
The very nearest room,
If in that room a friend await
Felicity or doom. More→

Surrender

DOUBT me, my dim companion!
Why, God would be content
With but a fraction of the love
Poured thee without a stint.
The whole of me, forever,
What more the woman can, —
Say quick, that I may dower thee
With last delight I own! More→

If You Were Coming in the Fall

IF you were coming in the fall,
I’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land. More→

With a Flower

IHIDE myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too —
And angels know the rest. More→

Proof

T HAT I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not love enough. More→

Have You Got a Brook

HAVE you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?

And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there;
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there. More→

Transplanted

AS if some little Arctic flower,
Upon the polar hem,
Went wandering down the latitudes,
Until it puzzled came
To continents of summer... More→

The Outlet

MY river runs to thee:
Blue sea, wilt welcome me?
My river waits reply.
Oh, sea, look graciously! More→

In Vain

ICANNOT live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf
The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life — his
porcelain,
Like a cup
Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack. More→

Cornhuskers, Prairie

I was born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.Here between … Continue reading Cornhuskers, Prairie →

Renunciation

THERE came a day at summer’s full
Entirely for me;
I thought that such were for the saints,
Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new. More→

Love’s Baptism

I'M ceded, I’ve stopped being theirs;
The name they dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church,
Is finished using now,
And they can put it with my dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools
I’ve finished threading, too.

Baptized before without the choice,
But this time consciously, of grace
Unto supremest name,
Called to my full, the crescent dropped,
Existence’s whole arc filled up
With one small diadem. More→

Resurrection

IT was a long parting, but the time
For interview had come;
Before the judgment-seat of God,
The last and second time
These fleshless lovers met,
A heaven in a gaze,
A heaven of heavens, the privilege
Of one another’s eyes. More→

Apocalypse

I'M wife; I’ve finished that,
That other state;
I’m Czar, I’m woman now:
It’s safer so. More→

The Wife

SHE to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work
Of woman and of wife. More→

Apotheosis

COME slowly, Eden!
Lips unused to thee;
Bashful, sip thy jasmines... More→

Index, Nature

Links to poems in first print order, New Feet within My Garden Go, May-Flower, Why? More→

New Feet within My Garden Go

NEW feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude. More→

May-Flower

PINK, small, and punctual,
Aromatic, low,
Covert in April,
Candid in May,
Dear to the moss,
Known by the knoll... More→

Why?

THE murmur of a bee
A witchcraft yieldeth me.
If any ask me why,
’T were easier to die
Than tell. More→

Perhaps You’d Like to Buy a Flower

PERHAPS you’d like to buy a flower?
But I could never sell.
If you would like to borrow
Until the daffodil
Unties her yellow bonnet... More→

The Pedigree of Honey

THE pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee... More→

A Service of Song

SOME keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome. More→

The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me

THE bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially. More→

Summer’s Armies

SOME rainbow coming from the fair!
Some vision of the world Cashmere
I confidently see!
Or else, a peacock’s purple train,
Feather by feather, on the plain
Fritters itself away!

The dreamy butterflies bestir,
Lethargic pools resume the whir
Of last year’s sundered tune.

From some old fortress on the sun
Baronial bees march, one by one,
In murmuring platoon! More→

The Grass

THE grass so little has to do —
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain;

And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything... More→

A Little Road Not Made of Man

ALITTLE road not made of man,
Enabled of the eye,
Accessible to thill of bee,
Or cart of butterfly. More→

Summer Shower

ADROP fell on the apple tree,
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be! More→

Psalm of the Day

ASOMETHING in a summer’s day,
As slow her flambeaux burn away,
Which solemnizes me;

A something in a summer’s noon —
An azure depth, a wordless tune,
Transcending ecstasy;

And still within a summer’s night
A something so transporting bright,
I clap my hands to see;

Then veil my too inspecting face,
Lest such a subtle, shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me. More→

The Sea of Sunset

THIS is the land the sunset washes,
These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;
Where it rose, or whither it rushes,
These are the western mystery! More→

Purple Clover

THERE is a flower that bees prefer,
And butterflies desire;
To gain the purple democrat
The humming-birds aspire;
And whatsoever insect pass,
A honey bears away
Proportioned to his several dearth
And her capacity. More→