[Larry Robinson]

Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh



Because it broods under its hood like a perched falcon,

Because it jumps like a skittish horse and sometimes throws me,

Because it is poky when cold,

Because plastic is a sad, strong material that is charming to rodents,

Because it is flighty,

Because my mind flies into it through my fingers,

Because it leaps forward and backward, is an endless sniffer and searcher,

Because its keys click like hail on a boulder,

And it winks when it goes out,

And puts word-heaps in hoards for me, dozens of pockets of gold under boulders in streambeds, identical seedpods strong on a vine, or it stores bins of bolts;

And I lose them and find them,

Because whole worlds of writing can be boldly laid out and then highlighted and vanish in a flash at “delete,” so it teaches of impermanence and pain;

And because my computer and me are both brief in this world, both foolish, and we have earthly fates,

Because I have let it move in with me right inside the tent,

And it goes with me out every morning;

We fill up our baskets, get back home,

Feel rich, relax, I throw it a scrap and it hums.

- Gary Snyder

[Larry Robinson]

Poem after a walk in the woods


I went for a walk in the woods alone at sunset
with my dog
and the earthquake in Haiti
and the health care bill passed by the senate
and a great horned owl
and at least 3 hunters in the surrounding hills
apparently trying to set some kind of a record for ammunition wasted in a one hour period

my feelings about the hunters
were different than my feelings about the owl
though a vole or a mouse might have felt
that the threat in the sounds they made
was pretty similar

and I enumerated in my mind the 4, or was it five, basic goals of the health
care bill passed by the senate, and left it to rest somewhere in the muddy
footprint left by a moose

and for awhile I walked with the ghosts of the people killed in the earthquake in Haiti
hundreds of thousands of them, covered with plaster dust
possibly more than the total number of people killed in the Iraq war
and thought of Pat Robertson, who said, and I paraphrase,
that the Haitians had made a pact with the devil and he was taking his due,
and this comment showed an unprecedented sense of poetry
because how could something so overwhelmingly sad and desperate
come of something so mundane as the subduction of one plate of earth under another?
Certainly an injury this huge in the fabric of the universe
must have been the result of divine intervention.

And I walked with the millions of people who will, like T cells and macrophages and fibroblasts in the dark body of the earth, heal, but oh so excruciatingly slowly, this deep and bleeding laceration.

and then I was just walking with my dog
who was barking at the vole she had unearthed
overjoyed with this intimate interspecies interaction
and then performing brief and truly inadequate CPR with her nose

and the owl again
and the hunters
and the sun setting through grey clouds on the stubble fields and forested hills
the golden light
on the half frozen ponds
of the place I walked
which lacked nothing
of perfection

- Janice Boughton

[Larry Robinson]

Poem for the Poorest Country In the Western Hemisphere

Oh poorest country, this is not your name.
You should be called beacon, and flame,

almond and bougainvillea, garden
and green mountain, villa and hut,

little girl with red ribbons in her hair,
books-under-arm, charmed by the light
of morning,

charcoal seller in black skirt, encircled by dead trees.

You, country, are the businessman
and the eager young man, the grandfather

at the gate, at the crossroads
with the flashlight, with the light,

with the light.

- Danielle Legros Georges

[Larry Robinson]

I believe there is a fundamental reason why we look at the sky with wonder and longing – for the same reason that we stand, hour after hour, gazing at the distant swell of the open ocean.

There is something like an ancient wisdom, encoded and tucked away in our DNA that knows its point of origin as surely as a salmonid knows its creek.

Intellectually we may not want to return there, but the genes know, and long for their origins.

The spectacular truth – and this is something that your DNA has known all along – the very atoms of your body – the iron, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and so on, were initially forged in long-dead stars.

This is why, when you go stand outside under a moonless country sky, you feel some ineffable tugging at your innards.

- Jerry Waxman
( From Astrological Tidbits)
Jerry was a gifted professor of astronomy at Santa Rosa Junior College. He died earlier this year from complications related to Parkinson's Disease.

[Larry Robinson]

Praise Them

The birds don't alter space.
They reveal it. The sky
never fills with any
leftover flying. They leave
nothing to trace. It is our own
astonishment collects
in chill air. Be glad.
They equal their due
moment never begging,
and enter ours
without parting day. See
how three birds in a winter tree
make the tree barer.
Two fly away, and new rooms
open in December.
Give up what you guessed
about a whirring heart, the little
beaks and claws, their constant hunger.
We're the nervous ones.
If even one of our violent number
could be gentle
long enough that one of them
found it safe inside
our finally untroubled and untroubling gaze,
who wouldn't hear
what singing completes us?

- Li-Young Lee

[Larry Robinson]

A Valley Like This

Sometimes you look at an empty valley like this,
and suddenly the air is filled with snow.
That is the way the whole world happened -
there was nothing, and then...

But maybe sometimes you will look out and even
the mountains are gone, the world become nothing
again. What can a person do to help
bring back the world?

We have to watch and then look at each other.
Together we hold it close and carefully
save it, like a bubble that can disappear
if we don't watch out.

Please think about this as you go on. Breathe on the world.
Hold out your hands to it. When mornings and evenings
roll along watch how they open and close, how they
invite you to the long party your life is.

- William Stafford

[Larry Robinson]

The Inside Chance

Dance like a jackrabbit
in the dunegrass, dance
not for release, no
the ice holds hard but
for the promise. Yesterday
the chickadeees sang fever,
fever, the mating song.
You can still cross ponds
leaving tracks in the snow
over the sleeping fish
but in the marsh the red
maples look red
again, their buds swelling.
Just one week ago a blizzard
roared for two days.
Ice weeps in the road.
Yet spring hides
in the snow. On the south
wall of the house
the first sharp crown
of crocus sticks out.
Spring lurks inside the hard
casing, and the bud
begins to crack. What seems
dead pares its hunger
sharp and stirs groaning.
If we have not stopped
wanting in the long dark,
we will grasp our desires
soon by the nape.
Inside the fallen brown
apple the seed is alive.
Freeze and thaw, freeze
and thaw, the sap leaps
in the maple under the bark
and although they have
pronounced us dead, we
rise again invisibly,
we rise and the sun sings
in us sweet and smoky
as the blood of the maple
that will soon open its waving
leaves by the thousands.

- Marge Piercy

[Larry Robinson]

Because Even The Word Obstacle Is An Obstacle

Try to love everything that gets in your way;
The Chinese women in flowered bathing caps
murmuring together in Mandarin and doing leg exercises in your lane
while you execute thirty-six furious laps,
one for every item on your to-do list.
The heavy-bellied man who goes thrashing through the water
like a horse with a harpoon stuck in its side and
whose breathless tsunamis rock you from your course.
Teachers all. Learn to be small
and swim past obstacles like a minnow,
without grudges or memory. Dart
toward your goal, sperm to egg. Thinking, Obstacle,
is another obstacle. Try to love the teenage girl
lounging against the ladder, showing off her new tattoo:
Cette vie est la mienne, This life is mine,
in thick blue-black letters on her ivory instep.
Be glad she'll have that to look at the rest of her life, and
keep going. Swim by an uncle
in the lane next to yours who is teaching his nephew
how to hold his breath underwater,
even though kids aren't supposed
to be in the pool at this hour. Someday,
years from now, this boy
who is kicking and flailing in the exact place
you want to touch and turn
may be a young man at a wedding on a boat,
raising his champagne glass in a toast
when a huge wave hits, washing everyone overboard.
He'll come up coughing and spitting like he is now,
but he'll come up like a cork,
alive. So your moment
of impatience must bow in service to the larger story,
because if something is in your way, it is
going your way, the way
of all beings: toward darkness, toward light.

- Allison Luterman

[Larry Robinson]

After

There is one thing certain.
Once you have stood
in the midst of that
searing flash,
been struck down
to earth
like a Mongol taking his bride
on the steppe,
and have lain there,
waiting,
not quite certain—

how can you ever know again
what it is
not to be blinded by the light,
never to have gone there
to the top of the snow hung peak
and felt that nameless something
descend onto your shoulders,
your breast,
even as you bent forward
in disbelief.

- Dorothy Walters

[Larry Robinson]

Light

Walking uphill,
late morning, as
the ripening sunlight
invigorates, yet eases,

I catch sight
of a fallen post,
gate clamp still bolted,
by Paul years ago,

bringing
to mind
his easy smile,
his quiet, helpful way,

and his passing, weeks ago, in fullness,
and, oddly, feel my step
lighten, my eyes lifted

up to clouds silent, white
afloat overhead
and see:
so we pass.

And so, live.

- Scott O'Brien

[Larry Robinson]

A Marriage, an Elegy

They lived long, and were faithful
to the good in each other.
They suffered as their faith required.
Now their union is consummate
in earth, and the earth
is their communion. The enter
the serene gravity of the rain,
the hill's passage to the sea.
After long striving, perfect ease.

- Wendell Berry

[Larry Robinson]

The Grapes of My Body.

The grapes of my body can only become wine
After the winemaker tramples me.
I surrender my spirit like grapes to his trampling
So my inmost heart can blaze and dance with joy.
Although the grapes go on weeping blood and sobbing
"I cannot bear any more anguish, any more cruelty"
The trampler stuffs cotton in His ears: "I am not working in ignorance
You can deny me if you want, you have every excuse,
But it is I who am the Master of this Work.
And when, through my Passion, you reach perfection,
You will never be done praising my name."

- Rumi

[Larry Robinson]

Nova In Night Sky

The river and I are lovers.
We are always together
Separate, but not apart.

The river is tender and temperamental.
It hurls me towards ragged rocks and snags,
and just at the moment of impact
sweeps me away,
toward our mutual destiny.

I come to the edge and I am tossed down.
I fall and I fall until
I feel there is no reprieve.
I hit the water and
fall farther down.
Sucked into a swirling vortex
I spin and I spin
until I do not know
where I am going
or who I am.

And then
I am spit out
into the cool sweet air.
I float, empty,
forever it seems,
until the morning light warms the water.

The river and I are lovers.
It terrifies me
and fills me with such great joy.
It holds me in tender arms
until undulating waves rock and bounce me.
Wave after wave
until I am filled with such heat
that my heart pounds
my head swells
my body bursts
and I become Nova
in night sky.

I fall back upon
the body of the river
spark by spark by spark
until, the river and I
are one.

- Sally Churgel

[Larry Robinson]

Peace Pilgrim, You Are Still Walking

on the long roads, late at night. So many years
after you died, you're not off the hook, you're keeping
the pace, swinging your strong arms.
Who among us found a clearer way?
I shall not accept more than I need
while others in the world have less than they need.
We can work on inner peace and world peace
at the same time. Little people of the world,
may we never feel helpless again.
I marveled at your many-layered pinecone heart
and 3 possessions: toothbrush, postage stamps, comb.
Walk till given shelter, fast till given food.
Still, you're starting before dawn,
pausing at a roped-off trail that says,
THIS IS NO LONGER A FOOTPATH,
shaking your head. I'm sorry you can't rest yet.
One day I woke thinking, it's good you're dead.
We're still fools in a world of war.
Then I recalled the navy canvas of your suit,
how it always felt fresh, not tired.
We listened as hard as we could. What can't we learn?
I would establish a peace department in our government.
Under the swollen orange moon.
On the rim of the sad city, in a cardboard box under the overpass,
you held the calm and the strong conviction.
Oh Peace. Dear Peace.
Don't give up on us. Don't leave us stranded, please.

- Naomi Shihab Nye

Mildred Norman Ryder, the woman known as "Peace Pilgrim," began walking in 1953 for the termination of the Korean War, a U.S. Department of Peace, and for nuclear disarmament. She counted the miles she had walked until she reached 25,000 in 1964, but she continued making pilgrimages across the country until the time of her death by car accident in 1981, according to the Friends of Peace Pilgrim Web site.

Peace Pilgrim spoke often of the "freedom of simplicity" and urged those who wished to contribute to world peace to first abandon material desires and achieve peace within themselves, sayswww.peacepilgrim.org.

[Larry Robinson]

Spelled Differently



When I allowed myself to be spelled differently,

the alphabet itself stood at attention

then collapsed in a bale of laughter.



Try on a new face, it spelled out.

Well, I am. It has wrinkles and squintier eyes.



Try on a new body, it again spelled.

Well, hey, this one’s not getting any younger.

Certain sags and bulges are blooming.

Bones, hidden, remind me they are there.



Try on a new mind, it suggested.

So I was flabbergasted again and again.

Dumbfounded. Everything I thought I knew

dissolved. Where to begin?



Try on a new heart, it cajoled:

Bigger-better, wider, kinder.

Oh, all right, I said, in a somewhat disgruntled manner,

and began the intricate work

set before me.



So remember:

who you thought I was: I am not.

For I am spelled differently now,

in an alphabet of an as yet undecipherable language

in a tongue foreign to my own name.



- Tina Devine

[Larry Robinson]

A Man Talking To His House

I say that no one in this caravan is awake
and that while you sleep, a thief is stealing

the signs and symbols of what you thought
was your life. Now you're angry with me for

telling you this! Pay attention to those who
hurt your feelings telling you the truth.

Giving and absorbing compliments is like
trying to paint on water, that insubstantial.

Here is how a man once talked with his house,
“Please, if you're ever about to collapse,

let me know.” One night without a word the
house fell. “What happened to our agreement?”

The house answered, “Day and night I've been
telling you with cracks and broken boards and

holes appearing like mouths opening. But you
kept patching and filling those with mud, so

proud of your stopgap masonry. You didn't
listen.” This house is your body always

saying, I'm leaving; I'm going soon. Don't
hide from one who knows the secret. Drink

the wine of turning toward God. Don't examine
your urine. Examine instead how you praise,

what you wish for, this longing we've been
given. Fall turns pale yellow light wanting

spring and spring arrives! Trees blossom.
Come to the orchard and see what comes to

you, a silent conversation with your soul.

- Jelelludin Rumi

[Larry Robinson]

Night and the River

I have seen the great feet
leaping
into the river

and I have seen moonlight
milky
along the long muzzle

and I have seen the body
of something
scaled and wonderful

slumped in the sudden fire of its mouth,
and I could not tell
which fit me

more comfortably, the power,
or the powerlessness;
neither would have me

entirely; I was divided,
consumed,
by sympathy,

pity, admiration.
After a while
it was done,

the fish had vanished, the bear
lumped away
to the green shore

and into the trees. And then there was only
this story.
It followed me home

and entered my house—
a difficult guest
with a single
tune

which it hums all day and through the night—
slowly or briskly,
it doesn’t matter,

it sounds like a river leaping and falling
it sounds like a body
falling apart.

- Mary Oliver

[Larry Robinson]

John Muir on Mt. Ritter

After scanning its face again and again,
I began to scale it, picking my holds
With intense caution. About half-way
To the top, I was suddenly brought to
A dead stop, with arms outspread
Clinging close to the face of the rock
Unable to move hand or foot
Either up or down. My doom
Appeared fixed. I MUST fall.
There would be a moment of
Bewilderment, and then,
A lifeless rumble dawn the cliff
To the glacier below.
My mind seemed to fill with a
Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse
Lasted only a moment, when life blazed
Forth again with preternatural clearness.
I seemed suddenly to become possessed
Of a new sense. My trembling muscles
Became firm again, every rift and flaw in
The rock was seen as through a microscope,
My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision
With which I seemed to have
Nothing at all to do.

- Gary Snyder

[Larry Robinson]

Day to Day Devotions

Imagine making of your life, a prayer
A worship, a devotion. Imagine moving
through the world in celebration
casting alms by the sure presence
of your faith in life.

Imagine waking and rising to
be an invocation, a gifting
in which what is most
precious to you is invited
into the world.

Imagine eating and bathing as
sacramental, a communion with
the sacred other, a remembrance
of all our relations whereby
our own self is given form.

Imagine breathing and walking,
touching and holding to be the
movements of your soul as it
feels its way into your
arms and legs, those
“inlets of soul in our age” as Blake reminds us.

Imagine talking and listening
as rituals of meeting
where who you are is
welcomed into the
heart of another.

Imagine these day to day devotions
as the purest chance you have
of redemption. Imagine
these simple gestures as
God’s sweetest blessing.

- Francis Weller

[Larry Robinson]

Steelhead Valentine

Every year on Valentine’s Day I celebrate the return of the steelhead, Oncorhynchus mykiss (their species name). Mykiss—what could be more perfect?

Whether the run is late or early, on Valentine’s Day they are always in the river, thrusting upstream, in the laguna, in the creeks, heading home in an ecstatic urgency, driven back to their natal beds to spawn. If you watch the creeks in patient silence you will see them. If you listen at night, you will hear them leaping, slapping cradles in the gravel bars.

They are here right now, as you read this--a thread of the culture of this place that stitches you to the people who came before you, just as they stitch the land to the sea, returning nutrients with their very bodies. The carcasses of those that die feed critters all the way up the food chain--that osprey flying overhead a month from now, those river otters I saw last year up at Fitch Mountain.

When you reach for your beloved, think of them. Half in air, he stutters across shallows, rushing to reach her. Veiled in dark water, she glides over the gravel. They are dancing when your hands entwine. He circles over her back. They weave the water in figure eights. She turns on her side, a rainbow through rain.

To hold them in you heart is to value an old companion. To hold them in your heart is to keep clean cold water in our creeks. To hold them in your heart is to protect our streams from toxins and sediment, to keep our hills forested, to restore our urban waterways.

Once by streamside with my lover, we saw a steelhead fly up from the froth of a waterfall, fall back, leap again, fall back, leap again. Love and instinct. Without them, what would life be?

- Elizabeth Carothers Herron

[Larry Robinson]

There is a girl inside

There is a girl inside.
She is randy as a wolf.
She will not walk away and leave these bones
to an old woman.

She is a green tree in a forest of kindling.
She is a greeen girl in a used poet.

She has waited patient as a nun
for the second coming,
when she can break through gray hairs
into blossom

and her lovers will harvest
honey and thyme
and the woods will be wild
with the damn wonder of it.

- Lucille Clifton



FEBRUARY 15, 2010

R.I.P. poet Lucille Clifton
Those who were still snow-bound last weekend might not have heard the sad news: Former state poet laureate and National Book Award winner Lucille Clifton died Saturday at age 73, after a long battle with cancer and other illnesses. Her obituary in the Baltimore Sun noted that the long-time Columbia resident was known for a mix of profundity, earthiness and humor in her 11 books of poetry.

The obit listed some of her many honors: She was state poet laureate from 1979 to 1985. She was the first black woman to win the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize award (2007), which is among the most prestigious awards for American poets and which carries a $100,000 stipend. She won the National Book Award in 2001 for "Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000" and was a two-time Pulitzer finalist.

[Larry Robinson]

Anthem

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.

- Leonard Cohen

[Larry Robinson]

Want to be a free man?

It’s simple
first shed your clothes
they say too much about what you wish to be

next, to eliminate the compulsion to dominate remove your testicles and
set them on a shelf high overhead

now lay your ego by the side of the road and in your sternest voice give
the command, “stay!” then run like hell until you can’t hear its protests
anymore

expunge your history by taking a fist sized eraser and rub it away so that
you are not a man anymore, nor are you a Catholic or a protestant or a Jew
or a Muslim you are not Mexican, German or Chinese

don’t consider the future, in fact so you won’t think at all
put your brain in the freezer (thinking is overrated)

find a clock and smash it between two large stones
and feel your way through days and nights

forgive yourself and your children for not being enough
forgive your ex, forgive god for not giving you the answers you seem to
think He owes you

now find a place in the shade, sit silently and then listen closely to
everyone particularly the birds until you recognize the miracle of breath

- Armando Garcia-Dávila

[Larry Robinson]

Practice

Not the high mountain monastery

I had hoped for, the real

face of my spiritual practice

is this:

the sweat that pearls on my cheek

when I tell you the truth, my silent

cry in the night when I think

I’m alone, the trembling

in my own hand as I reach out

through the years of overcoming

to touch what I had hoped

I would never need again.

- Kim Rosen

[Larry Robinson]

Complaints

The dead complain we lack
the skill to keep them buried.
But that's the grave's job
and there's no safe burial ground.
They'll shine up through the earth
spreading their affection.

They're offered refuge
under markers and memorials
but they refuse and wait
for us in unlit places
tapping their white canes
with the terrible patience
of those possessing time.

In the slow caress of years,
our weight is doubled by
the burden of others
we cultivate and carry,
and deep in the future
our children keep us alive.

- Ruth Daigon

(Ruth Daigon died February 17. You can view her biography at Tryst Poet Emeritus: Ruth Daigon.)

[Larry Robinson]

Fool's Errands

A thing
cannot be
delivered
enough times:
this is the
rule of dogs
for whom there
are no fool's
errands. To
loop out and
come back is
good all alone.
It's gravy to
carry a ball
or a bone.

- Kay Ryan

[Larry Robinson]

THE WOLF INSIDE

Every dog knows there’s a wolf inside

It is our deepest source of pride.

If I say there’s a wolf in you

Where does your mind go?

Rapacious wolf pack?

Old horror movies?

Terrifying fairy tales?

My dear cousins on two legs

What fear has locked you in that cage?

Where wolves sit quietly outside

Looking at you with soft eyes

Waiting to teach you about family

And cooperation and playfulness.

Here’s my advice:

Throw Little Red Riding Hood out on her ass!

Get down on all fours and play with us

As if you life depended on it.

It does.

- Warren Peace

(Translated from canine by Brian Narelle)

[Larry Robinson]

Recession

A grotesquerie for so long we mostly ignored it:
Illuminated mammoth Santa atop
the Quikstop's roof, presiding over pumps
That gleamed and gushed in the tarmac lot below it.
Out back, with pumps of their own, the muttering diesels.
And we, for the most part, ordinary folks,
Took things for granted: the idling semis' smoke,
The fuel that streamed into our tanks, above all
Our livelihoods. We stepped indoors to talk
With friends, drank coffee, read the local paper,
Which now bears news of hard hard times. We shiver
Our afternoons are gone. At five 0'clock -
Though once we gave the matter little thought -
Plastic Santa no longer flares with light.

- Sydney Lea

[Larry Robinson]

Waiting for the Fire



Not just the temples, lifting

lotuses out of the tangled trees,

not the moon on cool canals,

the profound smell of the paddies,

evening fires in open doorways,

fish and rice the perfect end of wisdom;

but the small bones, the grace, the voices like

clay bells in the wind, all wasted.

If we ever thought of the wreckage

of our unnatural acts,

we would never sleep again

without dreaming a rain of fire:

somewhere God is bargaining for Sodom,

a few good men could save the city; but

in that dirty corner of the mind

we call the soul

the only wash that purifies is tears,

and after all our body counts,

our rape, our mutilations,

nobody here is crying; people who would weep

at the death of a dog

stroll these unburned streets dry-eyed.

But forgetfulness will never walk

with innocence; we save our faces

at the risk of our lives, needing

the wisdom of losses, the gift of despair,

or we could kill again.

Somewhere God is haggling over Sodom:

for the sake of ten good people

I will spare the land.

Where are all those volunteers

to hold back the fire? Look:

when the moon rises over the sea,

no matter where you stand,

the path of the light comes to you.

- Philip Appleman

[Larry Robinson]

Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say that there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. *The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. *Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

- Lisel Mueller

[Larry Robinson]

we are running



running and
time is clocking us
from the edge like an only
daughter.
our mothers stream before us,
cradling their breasts in their
hands.
oh pray that what we want
is worth this running,
pray that what we're running
toward
is what we want.


- Lucille Clifton

[Larry Robinson]

Last Night As I Was Sleeping
*
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.
Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

- Antonio Machado

(Translated by Robert Bly)

[Larry Robinson]

More Rare

more rare
than a bird stumbling
on its shadow
than an ant lying in wait for
its prey,

more rare
than a raven
with white wings,

more rare
than a tornado
enveloped in my arms,
than a mutinous stick,
than a docile flame,

more rare
than all that

is to find myself
at peace for a moment

- Adnan Mohsen
(Translated from the Arabic by James Kirkup)

[Larry Robinson]

Death and His Horses


I don't remember the snow falling this evenly when I was a child.
Back then, it seemed all thick drifts and crevasses to dig my hands in.
Now, it's a pale blanket that swaddles my horses' legs.

(No, they are not white; I had borrowed one
the day the apostle took down the details.)

I keep roans and dapple-grays, nothing special.
I like the way their colors flash against
the plains, green in spring, tan in autumn, ice-white in winter.

I live for every stubborn stamp of their hooves,
the swish when they toss their manes.
Most of them I never ride, only keep them fed and watch them roam.

In this season, they stand so still
the snow piles on their haunches and dusts their tails.
they brace together for warmth
and sigh in sudden, steamy plumes.
They eye me resentfully, even at dusk when I lead them into the stables.

The grace of each day slips from their animal minds once it passes.
They forget the green season: new grass crushed between their jaws, sweet spit.
They forget estrus: animal need to regenerate.
They forget what it is to run for joy; in the cold, they only run for terror.

When night comes, I lead them to bed,
Where the straw is soft and ready for their bodies.

- Beth Winegarner

[Larry Robinson]

may my heart always be open

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

- e.e. cummings