Robert J. Tiess
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Robert J. Tiess
@robertjtiess.bsky.social
880 followers 990 following 820 posts
Published poet/author/writer
Poetry/nature/library/education advocate
Musician artist philosopher
Career in libraries
Married to Sandra Sprague

Books:
+ Gracious Nature
+ May We Learn from the Earth
+ The Humbling & Other Poems

robertjtiess.wordpress.com
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Robert J. Tiess @robertjtiess.bsky.social · Nov 28
My poetry collections:

Gracious Nature:
Poems on Earth and Life

May We Learn from the Earth:
Nature Poems and Reflections
on the Environment

The Humbling and Other Poems

Books include essays.

More Info + Book Reviews:
robertjtiess.wordpress.com

#booksky #poetry #books #poetrycommunity #reading
The image contains five areas: three book covers, a small photo of the author, and an area of text that says: About the Poet: Recognized for crafting clear, creative, and compelling works, Robert J. Tiess began writing poetry in the 1980s. A SUNY New Paltz graduate with an English Literature degree, Robert has enjoyed an inspiring career in public libraries since 1995. His acclaimed poetry explores nature, human nature, and much more. You can explore his books and reviews of his publications at www.RobertJTiess.net. The three book covers are 1: GRACIOUS NATURE: POEMS ON EARTH AND LIFE. 2: MAY WE LEARN FROM THE EARTH: NATURE POEMS AND REFLECTIONS ON THE ENVIRONMENT. 3: THE HUMBLING AND OTHER POEMS. ALL THREE BOOKS ARE BY ROBERT J. TIESS.
robertjtiess.bsky.social
"Gardens Beyond the Gates"

my essay on T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets,
Possibilities, Decisions, Time,
and What Was and Might Yet Be...

I hope you enjoy it.

Essay link:

robertjtiess.medium.com/gardens-beyo...

#poetry #essay #possibilities #decisions
#doors #gardens #time #metaphors
Gardens Beyond the Gates
Contemplating Doorways of Possibilities
robertjtiess.medium.com
January 12, 2026 at 2:22 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #haiku for #DailyHaikuPrompt
#creek #smoldering

________________________________

lightning, smoldering...
blame late or absent rainfall,
not the dried-up creek

________________________________

#poetry #poem © me 2026
#fire #droughts

@dailyhaikuprompt.mastodon.world.ap.brid.gy
January 11, 2026 at 5:40 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My 2009 3D art project "The Snowman Who Longed to Touch the Sun" drew some inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen's 1861 "The Snow Man" story:

andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersho...

I have more to say about this here...

www.facebook.com/robertjtiess...

#parables #education #reality #poetry #art #snow
Robert Tiess
My 2009 3D art project "The Snowman Who Longed to Touch the Sun" drew some inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Man" story: https://andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheSnowMan_e.html...
www.facebook.com
January 10, 2026 at 11:09 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
"May Perpetual Light Shine"
by Patricia Spears Jones

(courtesy of Poets.org)

a gentle meditative poem on grief,
love ("the heart's food"), and life.

Highly recommended reading.

About the poet:
poets.org/poet/patrici...

poets.org/poem/may-per...

#poetry #grief #love #hope #peace #inspirational
May Perpetual Light Shine
We have encountered storms
poets.org
January 10, 2026 at 6:12 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
A brief and kind reminder from Thoreau

(courtesy of Poets.org)

poets.org/poem/true-ki...

#poetry #poems #thoreau #kindness #bekind #loveothers #peace
True Kindness Is a Pure Divine Affinity
True kindness is a pure divine affinity
poets.org
January 10, 2026 at 5:49 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
1/2

Let us never forget the warmth and rays of hope we can extend into the existence of others.

We can become beacons in dark hours, sources of strength, knowledge, peace, bringing comforting and optimistic glows to needed truths with honest loving clarity.

#light #knowledge #truth #peace #hope
Image credit: The Radiance of Stars Is within You by Robert J. Tiess © Copyright 2015 Description: the image is a portrait of an otherworldly being that's somewhat human in appearance. Beams of light emanate from the being's head. The being wears a flowing robe and a necklace bearing a glowing medallion. Behind, there are stars and maybe planets varying in size and brightness. The being smiles with eye closed and seems to be contemplating something (life? the universe? love?) joyfully and with incredible warmth.
January 9, 2026 at 5:39 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
Words for #vss365
#adorn
.

*

TO A SOURCE OF RADIANCE

Like atmosphere adorning dawn
with opalescent scattered light,

confusion could be beautiful,
as when your brilliance floods my mind:

perplexity bejeweled with truths
escaping vain embellishments...

*
.

#poetry #poem © me 2026
#beauty #love
January 9, 2026 at 4:33 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #DailyHaikuPrompt #haiku
#time #glade theme

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

glades gaining daylight,
forest shadows narrowing:
tree time's not our time

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

#poetry #poem © me 2026

@dailyhaikuprompt.mastodon.world.ap.brid.gy
January 9, 2026 at 4:20 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #TankaThursday #tanka
#midst theme

~ ~ ~

gulls filling our midst,
shoreline ninety miles away,
no storms approaching:
hunger, or do they mistake
our pooling tears for the sea?

~ ~ ~

#poetry #poem © me 2026
#TankaPoem #micropoetry
#sorrow #crying
@evecastle.bsky.social
@pvcannon.bsky.social
January 9, 2026 at 2:36 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My poem Nova Lux

(paired here with a 3D sculpting project of mine from 2007).

Nova Lux is Latin for New Light.

Why Latin?

I think it fits with the "old becoming new again" spirit of this poem.

Happy New Year!

#poetry #poem #winter #snow #happiness #renewal #rebirth #hope #joy #newyear #renewal
Image credit: Winter's Givings by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2007 Alt text description: three polar bears (one small, one medium, one large) watch snowflakes descend. The polar bears seem entranced if not amused. The snowflakes are large, richly geometrical, and highly stylized. There is snow throughout the picture and a hint of stars in the background. It's an enchanted sort of image, not photorealistic, one focusing mostly on the natural beauty and magic of winter. Nova Lux Why wait for spring's revival when rebirth may come mid-winter—now! Broke moments cry for restoration, resurrecting Hopefulness. Dawn, you need not wait for Night. The age of Light dwells outside time. Come, reawaken, Dreams of Peace! Be Optimistic Lazarus! We'll marvel at the simplest things, crawl back to life with newborn eyes! Let stars and snowflakes fascinate! Familiar Things, astonish us! And let's go meet our former selves and see how strange we feigned back then. Revisiting all starting points! Rejuvenescence! Youth resumes! Within this sprightly wilder light, today may be our renaissance! . Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
December 31, 2025 at 11:54 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
No need to wait for Valentine's Day.

Let's replenish hearts with love today.

Love being alive.

Love being yourself.

Love more...
the Earth...
the Moon...
the universe!

Love more! Love love!

See love is divine.

Believe in its powers.

Know you are loved!

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

#poetry #love #inspirational
Image credit: Let Your Heart Overflow with Love by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2011 Alt text description: the image is filled with traditional simple symbols of hearts reaching out in all directions. There are smaller hearts within larger hearts, brighter hearts among darker hearts. Many hearts are overlapping, and most are interconnected. The image overflows with love as hearts go past the margins of the image, perhaps into infinity or eternity.
December 31, 2025 at 5:44 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My Open Prayer for Progress, Peace, and Unity

now updated with an Afterword...

I hope it resonates with some of you.

Thank you for hearing these words.

bsky.app/profile/robe...

#poetry #peace #newyear #unity #prayers #love #happynewyear #truth #hope #together
robertjtiess.bsky.social Robert J. Tiess @robertjtiess.bsky.social · 15d
Please let us approach the coming new year

and every new day going forth

in the magnificent manner of our most luminous and loving selves.

I invite you read my Open Prayer for Progress, Peace, and Unity...

robertjtiess.medium.com/an-open-pray...

#poetry #peace #newyear #unity #prayers #love
An Open Prayer for Individual & Societal Progress, Peace, and Unity in the New Year and Every Year…
by Robert J. Tiess
robertjtiess.medium.com
December 31, 2025 at 4:14 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
Please let us approach the coming new year

and every new day going forth

in the magnificent manner of our most luminous and loving selves.

I invite you read my Open Prayer for Progress, Peace, and Unity...

robertjtiess.medium.com/an-open-pray...

#poetry #peace #newyear #unity #prayers #love
An Open Prayer for Individual & Societal Progress, Peace, and Unity in the New Year and Every Year…
by Robert J. Tiess
robertjtiess.medium.com
December 30, 2025 at 12:33 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #haiku for #DailyHaikuPrompt
#cold #full #moon theme
___________________________________

cool blue luminous,
full moon over lava lakes:
night melts into light

___________________________________
#poetry #poem © me 2025

@dailyhaikuprompt.mastodon.world.ap.brid.gy
December 30, 2025 at 4:35 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
Some older peaceful piano pieces of mine,
shared here to send more peace into the world.

Sending blessings, peace, love, and joy to all!

May your 2026 be beautifully uplifting🩵

Music link:
www.reverbnation.com/robertjtiess...

#music #peace #tranquility #calmness #instrumentals #piano #pianomusic
www.reverbnation.com
December 30, 2025 at 2:11 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
For #vssdaily #sit
.

FROM A BENCH

light's yellow
horns bellow
I sit

crossers wait
I sit
skaters skate

I sit
paper tumbles
leaves crumble

joggers jog
I sit
couples snog

pigeons near
pigeons clear
I sit

shoppers shop
I go
tourists stop

neon blaze
gazers gaze
radios play

.
#poetry #poem
©2025
December 29, 2025 at 11:05 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My essay on one of the biggest fears I've faced for the longest time as a poet...

Facing & Embracing Our Uncertainties
as Poets & Writers Aspiring to
Mean and Move and Matter
in this Meandering World

robertjtiess.medium.com/facing-embra...

#poetry #poets #writers #writing #poetrylovers #authors
Facing & Embracing Our Uncertainties as Poets & Writers Aspiring to Mean and Move and Matter in…
an essay by Robert J. Tiess
robertjtiess.medium.com
December 29, 2025 at 6:42 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My poem "Landscape Painting Meditations"

on art and painting as healing, mind-clearing, soul-renewing...

ALT text + poem text link:
allpoetry.com/poem/1885158...

#poem #poetry #poetrycommunity #poems #art #painting #healing #selfcare #selfhelp #peace #meditation
THE TITLE OF THE POEM: Landscape Painting Meditations .THE POEM: No stony summits grating sky. No heavens drenched in heavy grays. Today, I'm painting clarity, azure softness, snowy heights, and water slowed to mirroring ethereal serenity, an art of healing, comforting, forgiving, living for the light, with calmness reaching everybody, earth at peace with everything. .THE END OF THE POEM. Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
December 29, 2025 at 12:24 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My poem "Your Alexandria"

on someone hoping to understand another

(includes a reference to the Library of Alexandria: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library...)

Hope you enjoy this.

ALT text in image

+ poem link: allpoetry.com/poem/1884857...

#poetry #poems #understanding #library #libraries #metaphors
THE TITLE OF THE POEM: Your Alexandria THE POEM: How many aisles, high and deep with volumes of uncommon knowledge, stock your mind's bright library? What might I find in that fine light? New truths? Perspectives? Lessons? Dreams? Experiences? Histories? Imagination hesitates, but I've my theories, plus a hunch there's plenty esoterica: I picture parchment, cobwebbed scrolls, if read (and ever understood), unlocking cosmic scholarship, part arcane wisdom figured lost in flaming Alexandria, then something of eleven worlds, each humbling me with untold shelves, which verse me in my nescience yet urge me to skim all I can, if I could stay past closing time, leave one lamp lit, read for an hour, ten minutes, just one chapter. Please. . THE END OF THE POEM. Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
December 27, 2025 at 7:33 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #tanka for #TankaThursday
#true theme

.

Magnetic north roams,
misdirecting compasses;
but we know true north!
Who would let themselves get lost
following false directions?

.

#TankaPoem #micropoetry
#poetry #poem © me 2025
#travel #truth #metaphors

@evecastle.bsky.social
@pvcannon.bsky.social
December 26, 2025 at 4:07 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
For #vss365 #survive
.

OUT OF DOORS

Snow lingers, hardens
in dark corners.

Fences, roofs,
more walls obstruct

the sun or warmth
from thawing long,

until March rains
purge every nook.

Is that survival?
Failing light?

How chills persist
or shadows win?

.
#poetry
©me 2025
@vss365hq.bsky.social
December 26, 2025 at 2:49 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
I wish all my friends, fans, colleagues, and fellow poets and artists a peaceful and heartening holiday.

I'm grateful for each of you.

I hope 2026 brings you the lasting joy, fulfillment, and serenity you deserve.

💙 Robert

#poetrycommunity #writingcommunity
#readingcommunity #christmas #holidays
The Ephemeral Aesthetics of Snowflakes by Robert J. Tiess, Copyright 2014. The image features a large bright multi-faceted and iridescent snowflake that seems like it could very well be the star on top of a giant Christmas tree. Smaller snowflakes appear in the background.
December 24, 2025 at 10:47 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My poem "Remontant"

on re-discovering earth's wonders.

The title (blooming more than once) connects with the poem's speaker reawakening to nature's inspirations.

🌸

ALT text
+ poem link: allpoetry.com/poem/1884468...

#poetry #poems #nature #flowers #trees #plants #earth #awareness #appreciation
THE TITLE OF THE POEM: Remontant .THE POEM: Why now, much closer than before, do I trace furrows, scales, and search for finer lines in barks of poplar, maple, pine, and oak? Why am I eavesdropping on all these crows, or listening for finches, sparrows, larks, or waiting lakeside for returning geese? I've sensed and loved extraordinary things, the unseen owls, hid lotuses in mud, sequoia giants, monarchs, banyan trees. My eyes, more like the canyons, grander, part on earth I've scanned but barely scratched as deep. Fresh clarity brings urgent light to life! Hydrangeas, were you as full as this? Wisteria! You've beautified my years! How many morning glories did I miss? .THE END OF THE POEM. Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
December 24, 2025 at 10:14 PM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
My #poem "Snow Globe Knowings"

paralleled here with an older 3D art project of mine.

Alt text in both images

+ poem text link:
allpoetry.com/poem/1884163...

Wishing all of you a sweet and peaceful holiday.🎀

#poetry #winter #snow #snowglobes #snowman #confirmationbias #reality #truth #metaphors
Image credit: Microcosm by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2007 Alt text description: there is a traditionally-arrayed snowman (complete with a hat and a carrot nose) inside a snow globe. inside, he is accompanied by the glitter of fake snow suspended in water, several candy canes, and some indications of snow at his feet. The snow globe base is fairly ornate with little decorations of gold dots, latticework, and circles of green and red. Outside of the snow globe there are large snow flakes falling as the snowman seems to look at them with perhaps a wishful or wistful expression. A NOTE ABOUT THE POEM: THE TEXT OF THIS POEM IS CENTERED, AND THERE ARE THREE PROGRESSIVELY LARGER STANZAS THAT ARE ROUGHLY-ROUND, IN KEEPING WITH THE "SNOW GLOBE" AND "GLASS SPHERE" IMAGERY OF THE POEM. THE TITLE POEM IS: SNOW GLOBE KNOWINGS. THIS IS THE POEM: Snow Globe Knowings Inside, it's winter all year round, until somebody quakes your world; then spinning glitter glistens with a Christmas wishful stardust light that shimmers in this liquid magic (amniotic, if you're borne by colder bolder sober truths of what a globe contains, restrains, and how glass can distort reports of goings-on outside what lies past bleary spheres of biased eyes) .THE END OF THE POEM. Poem by Robert J. Tiess Copyright © 2025
December 23, 2025 at 3:57 AM
robertjtiess.bsky.social
Three #senryu
for #SenryuSunday

*

cities shrouding stars?
halos hiding heavens now?
blame our bright ideas

*

flashy meteors
demanding much attention
yet saying nothing

*

Venus, Jupiter:
planets outperforming stars?
stage light trickery

*

#poetry #space
#poem © me 2025

@jennfel.bsky.social
December 21, 2025 at 6:54 PM