‘The Poet’s Purpose’ and Other Poetry by Gleb Zavlanov

The Poet’s Purpose

A poet praises all of nature’s treasures,
He seeks to find the pathway to her core,
To laud the rarest beauty in spring’s pleasures
And marvel at the waves that kiss the shore.
He sees a butterfly amid some roses,
An adder hid within a leafy plot,
And with such sudden sense, the world discloses
All of her secrets to the poet’s thought:
The ladybug asleep upon the leaf,
The nightingale hid in her monastery,
The weeping clouds that lave in nature’s grief,
The smile that tinges both the rose and cherry,
All in one stream of wisdom’s source united,
All in one mingled essence swiftly pour.
The poet drinks it all and thus delighted,
He shows us nature just a tad bit more.

The Evening

The evening twines her beaming hair,
Her braids around the eyes of day.
The sun retreats into his lair,
Paving with red his solemn way.
The clouds meander with no aim,
Bright aerial spires careen the streams,
And look, the pyramids of flame
Puff out and fade like minute dreams.
The sky stands with her hair untwined,
Clothing herself with Heaven’s hues.
The twilit calm assures the mind
And flirts and lures the cautious muse.
And tangled with God’s sundry blooms,
Breathing their spells and potent charms,
I sit and rest while pleasure grooms
My heart’s worn strings with graceful arms.
No music but the mill-wheel’s whir
And breezes playing in the stalks.
All lifeless save the trilling stir
Of bugs and worms beneath the rocks.
The quiet holds me captive there,
Tugged in oblivious solitude.
Upon the sinking sun I stare,
Content forever there to brood.

To the Cricket

They mock you for your minute form and hue
Of muddy pallor. Still, small insect, don’t
Despair for there’s no other creature who
Continues the earth’s songs when the earth won’t.
Oh cricket, bard of parting noon, whose cry
Pulses along the trembling lute of night.
When murk-corrupted twilights wane and die,
I rest and hear your ditty with delight.
How passioned its soft trembles glide and fade
In timeless numbers from the leaf and thorn,
And drift across the moonlit shore and glade
Before they vanish in the coming morn.
But still when noontide fades, and stars unearth
Your voice continues with a greater mirth.

Gleb Zavlanov is a high school senior who occupies himself with literature, language and music. His poetry has appeared in The Phoenix, the literary magazine of the prestigious Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, New York.