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  1. TopTop #3061
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Tomorrow

    Tomorrow
    we are
    bones and ash,
    the roots of weeds
    poking through
    our skulls.

    Today,
    simple clothes,
    empty mind,
    full stomach,
    alive, aware,
    right here,
    right now.

    Drunk on music,
    who needs wine?

    Come on,
    Sweetheart,
    let’s go dancing
    while we’ve still
    got feet.

    - David Budbill
    6/13/1940 - 9/25/2016
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  3. TopTop #3062
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    L'shonah Tovah


    May we learn justice without which there is no peace;
    may we learn compassion without which there is no justice.

    Que aprendamos justicia sin la cual no hay paz;
    que aprendamos compasión sin la cual no hay justicia.




    Tashlikh

    These are the days of awe -
    time of inventory
    and a new beginning
    when harvest of what we sowed
    comes in.
    (What have we sown
    of discord & terror?
    Where have we fallen short
    of justice?)

    The scales dip & teeter;
    there is so much
    to discard,
    so much to atone.

    When our temples stood
    we loaded a goat
    with our transgressions
    and sent it to the wild.
    Now we must search our pockets
    for crumbs of our trespasses,
    our sins to cast upon the rivers.
    The days are upon us
    to take stock of our hearts.
    It is time to dust
    the images of our household gods,
    our teraphim,
    our lares.

    © Rafael Jesús González 2016
    (Arabesques Review, vol. 3 no. 3, 2007; author's copyrights)


    Tashlij

    Estos son los días de temor -
    tiempo del inventario
    y un nuevo comienzo
    cuando la cosecha de lo que sembramos
    entra.
    (¿Qué hemos sembrado
    de discordia y terror?
    ¿Dónde hemos fallado
    en la justicia?)

    Las balanzas se inclinan y columpian;
    hay tanto de que deshacerse,
    tanto por lo cual expiar.

    Cuando estaban en pie nuestros templos
    cargábamos una cabra
    con nuestros pecados
    y la echábamos al desierto.
    Ahora tenemos que buscar en los bolsillos
    las migas de nuestras faltas,
    nuestros pecados para echarlos a los ríos.
    Están sobre nosotros los días
    para hacer inventario del corazón.
    Es tiempo de sacudir
    las imagines de nuestros dioses domésticos,
    nuestros térafim,
    nuestros lares.

    © Rafael Jesús González 2016
    Last edited by Barry; 10-04-2016 at 12:32 PM.
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  4. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  5. TopTop #3063
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I’m Listening

    I'm listening. But I don't know
    If what I hear is silence or God.
    I'm listening. But I can't tell
    If I hear the plane of emptiness echoing
    Or a keen consciousness
    That at the bounds of the universe
    Deciphers and watches me.
    I only know I walk like someone
    Beheld, Beloved and Known.
    And because of this
    I put into my every movement
    Solemnity and Risk.

    - Sophia DeMello-Breyner
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  6. TopTop #3064
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    My Mother’s Pears


    Plump, green-gold, Worcester’s pride,

    transported through autumn skies
    in a box marked Handle With Care

    sleep eighteen Bartlett pears,
    hand-picked and polished and packed
    for deposit at my door,

    each in its crinkled nest
    with a stub of stem attached
    and a single bright leaf like a flag.

    A smaller than usual crop,
    but still enough to share with me,
    as always at harvest time.

    Those strangers are my friends
    whose kindness blesses the house
    my mother built at the edge of town

    beyond the last trolley-stop
    when the century was young, and she
    proposed, for her children’s sake,

    to marry again, not knowing how soon
    the windows would grow dark
    and the velvet drapes come down.

    Rubble accumulates in the yard,
    workmen are hammering on the roof,
    I am standing knee-deep in dirt

    with a shovel in my hand.
    Mother has wrapped a kerchief round her head,
    her glasses glint in the sun.

    When my sisters appear on the scene,
    gangly and softly tittering,
    she waves them back into the house

    to fetch us pails of water,
    and they skip out of our sight
    in their matching middy blouses.

    I summon up all my strength
    to set the pear tree in the ground,
    unwinding its burlap shroud.

    It is taller than I. “Make room
    for the roots!” my mother cries,
    “Dig the hole deeper.”

    - Stanley Kunitz
    Last edited by Barry; 10-06-2016 at 04:39 PM.
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  7. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  8. TopTop #3065
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    One Source of Bad Information

    There's a boy in you about three
    years old who hasn't learned a thing for thirty
    Thousand years. Sometime it's a girl.

    This child had to make up its mind
    How to save you from death. He said things like:
    ``Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk.''

    You live with this child, but you don't know it.
    You're in the office, yes, but live with this boy
    At night. He's uninformed, but he does want

    To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy
    You survived a lot. He's got six big ideas.
    Five don't work. Right now he’s repeating them to you.

    - Robert Bly
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  9. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  10. TopTop #3066
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Heart Work

    Monday. Bronze sunlight
    on the worn gray rug
    in the dining room where Viva sits
    playing her recorder. Pain-ripened sunlight
    I nearly wrote, like the huge
    vine-ripened tomato
    my friend brought yesterday
    from her garden, to add to our salad:
    meaning what comes
    in its time to its own
    end, then breaks
    off easily, needing no more
    from summer.
    The notes
    of some medieval dance
    spill gracefully from the stream
    of Viva's breath. Something
    that had been stopped
    is beginning to move: a leaf
    driven against rock
    by a current
    frees itself, finds its way again
    through moving water. The angle of light
    is low, but still it fills
    this space we're in. What interrupts me
    is sometimes an abundance. My sorrow too,
    which grew large through summer
    feels to me this morning
    as though if I touched it
    where the thick dark stem
    is joined to the root, it would release itself
    whole, it would be something I could use.

    - Anita Barrows
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  12. TopTop #3067
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Poem In October

    It was my thirtieth year to heaven
    Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
    And the mussel pooled and the heron
    Priested shore
    The morning beckon
    With water praying and call of seagull and rookies
    And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
    Myself to set foot
    That second
    In the still sleeping town and set forth.

    My birthday began with the water-
    Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
    Above the farms and the white horses
    And I rose
    In a rainy autumn
    And walked abroad in shower of all my days
    High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
    Over the border
    And the gates
    Of the town closed as the town awoke.

    A springful of larks in a rolling
    Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
    Blackbirds and the sun of October
    Summery
    On the hill's shoulder,
    Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
    Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
    To the rain wringing
    Wind blow cold
    In the wood faraway under me.

    Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
    And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
    With its horns through mist and the castle
    Brown as owls
    But all the gardens
    Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
    Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
    There could I marvel
    My birthday
    Away but the weather turned around.

    It turned away from the blithe country
    And down the other air and the blue altered sky
    Streamed again a wonder of summer
    With apples
    Pears and red currants
    And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
    Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
    Through the parables
    Of sunlight
    And the legends of the green chapels

    And the twice told fields of infancy
    That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
    These were the woods the river and the sea
    Where a boy
    In the listening
    Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
    To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
    And the mystery
    Sang alive
    Still in the water and singing birds.

    And there could I marvel my birthday
    Away but the weather turned around. And the true
    Joy of the long dead child sang burning
    In the sun.
    It was my thirtieth
    Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
    Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
    O may my heart's truth
    Still be sung
    On this high hill in a year's turning.

    - Dylan Thomas
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  13. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  14. TopTop #3068
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Old Man Leaves Party

    It was clear when I left the party
    That though I was over eighty I still had
    A beautiful body. The moon shone down as it will
    On moments of deep introspection. The wind held its breath.
    And look, somebody left a mirror leaning against a tree.
    Making sure that I was alone, I took off my shirt.
    The flowers of bear grass nodded their moonwashed heads.
    I took off my pants and the magpies circled the redwoods.
    Down in the valley the creaking river was flowing once more.
    How strange that I should stand in the wilds alone with my body.
    I know what you are thinking. I was like you once. But now
    With so much before me, so many emerald trees, and
    Weed-whitened fields, mountains and lakes, how could I not
    Be only myself, this dream of flesh, from moment to moment?

    I Will Love the Twenty-first Century
    Dinner was getting cold. The guests, hoping for quick,
    Impersonal, random encounters of the usual sort, were sprawled
    In the bedrooms. The potatoes were hard, the beans soft, the meat—
    There was no meat. The winter sun had turned the elms and houses
    yellow;
    Deer were moving down the road like refugees; and in the driveway,
    cats
    Were warming themselves on the hood of a car. Then a man turned
    And said to me: “Although I love the past, the dark of it,
    The weight of it teaching us nothing, the loss of it, the all
    Of it asking for nothing, I will love the twenty-first century more,
    For in it I see someone in bathrobe and slippers, brown-eyed and poor,
    Walking through snow without leaving so much as a footprint behind.”
    “Oh,” I said, putting my hat on, “Oh.”

    - Mark Strand
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  15. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  16. TopTop #3069
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Poet's Task

    Whoever isn't listening to the sea this Friday morning,
    whoever is trapped inside some
    house, office, factory---or mistress
    or street corner or coal mine or solitary confinement:
    to that person I make my way and without speaking or nodding come up and spring open the cage; and something begins to hum, faint but insistent; a great snapped-off clap of thunder harnesses itself to the weight of the planet and the foam; the hoarse rivers of the ocean rise up, a star shimmers and trills in its rose window, and the sea stumbles, falls, and continues on its way.

    Then, with destiny as my pilot,
    I will listen and listen harder to keep alive
    in my memory the sea's outcry.
    I must feel the impact of solid water
    and save it in a cup outside of time
    so that wherever anyone may be imprisoned,
    wherever anyone is made to suffer in the dying year,
    I will be there, whispering in the ceaseless tides.
    I will drift through open windows,
    and, hearing me, eyes will glance upward
    saying, How can we get to the ocean?
    And, without answering, I will pass on
    the collapse of foam and liquid sand,
    the salty kiss of withdrawal,
    the gray keening of birds on the shore.
    And so, through me, freedom and the sea
    will bring solace to the downcast heart.

    - Pablo Neruda
    (translated from the Spanish by Alfred Corn)
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  17. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  18. TopTop #3070
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Pity The Nation
    (After Khalil Gibran)

    Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
    and whose shepherds mislead them.
    Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose
    sages are silenced,
    and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
    Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
    except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully
    as hero
    and aims to rule the world with force and by
    torture.
    Pity the nation that knows no other language but
    its own
    and no other culture but its own.
    Pity the nation whose breath is money
    and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
    Pity the nation--oh, pity the people who allow
    their rights to erode
    and their freedoms to be washed away.
    My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

    - Lawrence Ferlinghetti



    "the path to heaven
    doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
    It’s in the imagination
    with which you perceive
    this world,
    and the gestures
    with which you honor it.”

    - Mary Oliver
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  19. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  20. TopTop #3071
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Memorial Day

    In Afghanistan, we pour water
    On the stones to keep memories
    Alive. So many stories,
    So many stones
    An army of children
    Are employed, keeping
    Vigil from Bibi Jawaher's grave.
    Bibi, twenty-seven years dead,
    Gives them a home, gathering
    Place to watch as mourners
    Come to remember.

    A mother dreams
    Her son dying in suicidal flames
    A lost love, temporary agony
    Assuaged by permanent solution.
    Mother's agony indefinite, daily
    She pays the boys to water
    The stone.

    Here the daily dead
    Mingle with War's harvest.
    The jeweler's mother
    Receives daily ministrations,
    Her stone bathed
    As one might bathe a baby,
    Delicate, loving touch
    From a boy whose attentions
    Buys bread for his family.


    Bibi's name disappeared,
    Merged into the stone
    Is known by fingers
    Reading as though by Braille.
    Water that remains
    In the boys' buckets
    Honors her, gratitude remembers her
    If only by name, daily.
    If she sinned, surely
    The stone's frequent ablution
    Has made her a saint.

    "Death is easy here,"
    The stone mason says.
    He used to construct
    Fireplaces, sculpt monuments,
    Money was easy once.
    It flowed from foreign coffers
    But like their soldiers,
    Little stayed behind.
    The mason fortunate and flexible
    Lives by carving portraits
    Of the dead.

    The market thrived, alive
    Today the cemetery, home
    To more and more
    Is the City's center.
    Every day here is
    Day of the Dead, Memorial Day
    Every day families picnic
    Children play.
    Every day the Dead live
    Lives surrounded by loved ones.

    - Rebecca del Rio
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  21. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  22. TopTop #3072
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    This Little Orchid

    This little orchid
    with its five dark oval leaves hasn’t bloomed
    in years, but once

    a week I soak the whole pot the way Cindy told me
    she does her orchids, and so it lives.
    This morning, in a kind of dreamy trance, I lift it

    out above the sink, then pour the water over it
    in a wavering ribbon I can see right through.
    How does thought come? Out of its absence

    I’m suddenly in mind of Aleppo. This water
    would be a miracle there, the last wells bombed,
    the aid convoys blown up before they unload.

    Here’s this little orchid with its tender green roots
    like worms humped up and reaching for air
    above the bark, glistening wet, my hands

    curved around the pot the way they might
    around the seed of a baby unborn. I’d tell it to go back,
    tell it the world is not a safe place, not there –

    bloody in the rubble, thirsty and covered with dust.
    Later, unpinning a sheet from the line, I press my face
    to the smell of sun and autumn oak trees, the sheet

    huge for my queen bed, white as a clean
    bandage, and here they are again, the children,
    their lives with me like ghosts or rue.

    - ​Elizabeth Carothers Herron
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  23. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  24. TopTop #3073
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Name:  Little-Orchid-poem.jpg
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    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    This Little Orchid

    ....
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  25. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  26. TopTop #3074
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Grief

    begin with the pain
    of the grass
    that bore the weight
    of adam,
    his broken rib mending
    into eve,
    imagine
    the original bleeding,
    adam
    moaning
    and the lamentation of grass.
    from that garden,
    through fields of lost
    and found, to now, to here,
    to grief for the upright
    animal, to grief for the
    horizontal world.
    pause then for the human
    animal in its coat
    of many colors.
    pause
    for
    the myth of america.
    pause for the myth
    of america.
    and pause for the girl
    with twelve fingers
    who never learned to cry enough
    for anything that mattered,
    not enough for the fear,
    not enough for the loss,
    not enough for the history,
    not enough
    for the disregarded planet.
    not enough for the grass.
    then end in the garden of regret
    with time’s bell tolling grief
    and pain,
    grief for the grass
    that is older than adam,
    grief for what is born
    human,
    grief for what is not.

    - Lucille Clifton
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  27. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  28. TopTop #3075
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Testament



    And now to the Abyss I pass
    Of that Unfathomable Grass...

    1.
    Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath
    Grows large and free in air, don't call it death --
    A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire
    His surly art of imitating life; conspire
    Against him. Say that my body cannot now
    Be improved upon; it has no fault to show
    To the sly cosmetician. Say that my flesh
    Has a perfect compliance with the grass
    Truer than any it could have striven for.
    You will recognize the earth in me, as before
    I wished to know it in myself: my earth
    That has been my care and faithful charge from birth,
    And toward which all my sorrows were surely bound,
    And all my hopes. Say that I have found
    A good solution, and am on my way
    To the roots. And say I have left my native clay
    At last, to be a traveler; that too will be so.
    Traveler to where? Say you don't know.

    2.
    But do not let your ignorance
    Of my spirit's whereabouts dismay
    You, or overwhelm your thoughts.
    Be careful not to say
    Anything too final. Whatever
    Is unsure is possible, and life is bigger
    Than flesh. Beyond reach of thought
    Let imagination figure

    Your hope. That will be generous
    To me and to yourselves. Why settle
    For some know-it-all's despair
    When the dead may dance to the fiddle

    Hereafter, for all anybody knows?
    And remember that the Heavenly soil
    Need not be too rich to please
    One who was happy in Port Royal.

    I may be already heading back,
    A new and better man, toward
    That town. The thought's unreasonable,
    But so is life, thank the Lord!

    3.
    So treat me, even dead,
    As a man who has a place
    To go, and something to do.
    Don't muck up my face
    With wax and powder and rouge
    As one would prettify
    An unalterable fact
    To give bitterness the lie.

    Admit the native earth
    My body is and will be,
    Admit its freedom and
    Its changeability.

    Dress me in the clothes
    I wore in the day's round.
    Lay me in a wooden box.
    Put the box in the ground.

    4.
    Beneath this stone a Berry is planted
    In his home land, as he wanted.
    He has come to the gathering of his kin,
    Among whom some were worthy men,

    Farmers mostly, who lived by hand,
    But one was a cobbler from Ireland,

    Another played the eternal fool
    By riding on a circus mule

    To be remembered in grateful laughter
    Longer than the rest. After

    Doing that they had to do
    They are at ease here. Let all of you

    Who yet for pain find force and voice
    Look on their peace, and rejoice.



    - Wendell Berry
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  29. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  30. TopTop #3076
    BManna
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Reading the first three sections of this poem I fall in love, again, more deeply, with Wendell Berry. I'm so grateful for his skillful reflections and I wince hoping it's not his passing which led Larry to publish this selection. Then reading the 4th section I wonder why, again, Wendell Berry neglects to name or praise the female(s), the feminine?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Testament...
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  32. TopTop #3077
    Timothy Gega
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I take umbrage to your potboiler predilection phonemes.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by BManna: View Post
    Reading the first three sections of this poem I fall in love, again, more deeply, with Wendell Berry. I'm so grateful for his skillful reflections and I wince hoping it's not his passing which led Larry to publish this selection. Then reading the 4th section I wonder why, again, Wendell Berry neglects to name or praise the female(s), the feminine?
    Last edited by Barry; 10-19-2016 at 01:57 PM.
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  33. TopTop #3078
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Landscape

    Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
    they have no tongues, could lecture
    all day if they wanted about
    spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
    the black oaks along the path are standing
    as though they were the most fragile of flowers?
    Every morning I walk like this around
    the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
    ever close, I am as good as dead.
    Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
    the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
    and burst up into the sky—as though
    all night they had thought of what they would like
    their lives to be, and imagined
    their strong, thick wings.

    - Mary Oliver
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  34. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  35. TopTop #3079
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Blue Robe

    How joyful to be together, alone
    as when we first were joined
    in our little house by the river
    long ago, except that now we know
    each other, as we did not then;
    and now instead of two stories fumbling
    to meet, we belong to one story
    that the two, joining, made. And now
    we touch each other with the tenderness
    of mortals, who know themselves:
    how joyful to feel the heart quake
    at the sight of a grandmother,
    old friend in the morning light,
    beautiful in her blue robe!

    - Wendell Berry
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  36. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  37. TopTop #3080
    BManna
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thank you Larry!

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    The Blue Robe

    How joyful to be together, alone
    as when we first were joined
    in our little house by the river
    long ago, except that now we know
    each other, as we did not then;
    and now instead of two stories fumbling
    to meet, we belong to one story
    that the two, joining, made. And now
    we touch each other with the tenderness
    of mortals, who know themselves:
    how joyful to feel the heart quake
    at the sight of a grandmother,
    old friend in the morning light,
    beautiful in her blue robe!

    - Wendell Berry
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  38. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  39. TopTop #3081
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    South

    In the cold, clear winter air
    of Andalusia, I walked
    a trail up through pig grass
    toward a distant abandoned
    farmhouse. No one could live here,
    I said aloud, the land is baked clay,
    the long summers are withering.
    Yet someone did. The one wall
    left intact bore the handprint
    of a child, the fingers splayed
    out to form half a message
    in the lost language of childhood.
    It said, “You won’t find me!”
    Then the wind woke from its nesting
    in the weeds and the tall grass
    to blow the childish words away.
    Almost noon, the distant sun
    rode straight above us like a god
    aware of everything and like
    a god utterly silent. What
    could ever grow from this ground
    to feed anyone? And who bore
    the mysterious child who spoke
    in riddles? If we climbed
    the hill’s crest we’d find
    a higher hill and then another
    hill until we reached an ocean
    or gave up and turned back
    to where the land descends step
    by slow step to bring us exactly
    here, where we began, stunned
    by raw sunlight yet in the dark.

    - Philip Levine
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  40. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  41. TopTop #3082
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    At The Workplace

    Today, I vow to regard my co-workers serenely, with
    Loving-kindness and without judgment.
    This one, who appears not to bathe and has a pungent odor,
    That one, who leads the e-mail clique trash-talking the rest of us,
    Are merely creatures caught in dukkha, or suffering.
    May they one day be made whole and not so messed up,
    Or at least be transferred to another department.

    - Jenny Allen



    “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”
    - Wendell Berry
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  42. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  43. TopTop #3083
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Vodadahue Mountain

    When I feel tall I tell myself
    that when the time comes I will know
    as the elephant knows as the puma knows
    and I will go
    to Vodadahue Mountain
    by the deep green inlet
    by the deep green gorge
    and in steady pain I will climb the basalt tower
    and on the last ice step before the summit
    unmarked by everything but air
    I will be still for a long moment
    and then let the white mouth of the snowcloud eat me
    and there will be only this silence
    and the trees at the foot will begin to feed
    and I will have paid back all that I have owed
    and there will be only this silence.

    - Paul Kingsnorth
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  44. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  45. TopTop #3084
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    My Mother’s Pears

    Plump, green-gold, Worcester’s pride,
    transported through autumn skies
    in a box marked Handle With Care

    sleep eighteen Bartlett pears,
    hand-picked and polished and packed
    for deposit at my door,

    each in its crinkled nest
    with a stub of stem attached
    and a single bright leaf like a flag.

    A smaller than usual crop,
    but still enough to share with me,
    as always at harvest time.

    Those strangers are my friends
    whose kindness blesses the house
    my mother built at the edge of town

    beyond the last trolley-stop
    when the century was young, and she
    proposed, for her children’s sake,

    to marry again, not knowing how soon
    the windows would grow dark
    and the velvet drapes come down.

    Rubble accumulates in the yard,
    workmen are hammering on the roof,
    I am standing knee-deep in dirt

    with a shovel in my hand.
    Mother has wrapped a kerchief round her head,
    her glasses glint in the sun.

    When my sisters appear on the scene,
    gangly and softly tittering,
    she waves them back into the house

    to fetch us pails of water,
    and they skip out of our sight
    in their matching middy blouses.

    I summon up all my strength
    to set the pear tree in the ground,
    unwinding its burlap shroud.

    It is taller than I. “Make room
    for the roots!” my mother cries,
    “Dig the hole deeper.”

    - Stanley Kunitz
    Last edited by Barry; 10-27-2016 at 07:13 PM.
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  47. TopTop #3085
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mountain Water

    On the way down from Mt Ranier, on a tour bus we stop
    for a birds eye view of Narada Falls. I walk
    to the edge of a stream sloping
    toward the falls.

    I remember Narada as a prince in Indian mythology. Exactly who?
    Oh yeah, a musician and storyteller who saw Vishnu only once
    in this lifetime— an inspiration for prayer and mantra
    the lad would compose along the path.

    It’s autumn and I want to feel the chill of water against my skin
    so I place a foot on a rock and prepare to kneel and drop
    my hands into the shimmering stream. Damn I see
    a sign which stops me cold:

    Rocks are slippery
    Current is strong
    If you fall you may
    Be battered to death

    Stepping away to save my ass I ponder Narada: would he have danced
    across boulders if there were a poem in the movement
    or if it were a way to bathe Vishnu
    with soft tears of devotion?

    What I’m getting at is you can look at the artist as hero facing death
    in every act of creation, in each song and sand painting, but have
    no sense of how he treats his dog, brews his coffee, or even
    whether or not he prefers an electric tooth brush.

    Still we want to be artists,
    want to be heroes,
    step on slippery rocks,
    save the world.

    - Barry Denny
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  48. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  49. TopTop #3086
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    You Were Made For This
    By Clarissa Pinkola Estes

    Our Great Hope

    My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

    You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times.

    Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

    I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

    Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

    In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

    We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

    Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

    What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

    One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

    Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

    There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

    The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.


    Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.

    Author of the best seller Women Who Run with the Wolves
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  50. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  51. TopTop #3087
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Advice to Water

    Seep in at foundation cracks and out
    at gutters and drains. Ram up against
    dams and laugh at drywall. Observe
    with pleasure how you adjust to one-inch
    pipes, faucets and crystal goblets. Bear

    the indignity of being poured over your
    cousin, crushed ice, and forced to share
    a glass with distilled spirits; it makes many
    people happy. Condone frogs. Know that along
    with earth, wind and fire you are the frequent

    embodiment of myth and hope. Accept this
    graciously. As our damage to the planet catches
    up with us, teach us to respect and conserve you,
    love and revere you – something we’ve failed
    at, badly. Accept being sucked skyward,

    warehoused in dark clouds and pitched down
    without notice. Forgive those who call this
    “bad weather” -- perhaps too late, we know
    that it’s anything but. Look after us, if you’ve
    a mind to. Not that we deserve it.

    - David Beckman
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  52. TopTop #3088
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    All Hallow’s Eve, 2001

    Above the deep-piled carpet of maple leaves
    the madrones are slipping free
    of summer’s brown paper wrapping,
    eager to show off their new winter coats.

    The afternoon rain still drips
    from the canopy of oak, fir and pine.
    Across the creek a gang of turkeys chuckles
    as a nearby woodpecker beats a drum.

    The light is passing swiftly now,
    passing from the face of this land.
    Shadows are lengthening everywhere,
    reaching out across our lives.


    Should we not, then, dare to love boldly,
    more boldly than ever before -
    as if the fate of the Earth itself
    depended upon our loving?

    And still the stars will surely rise,
    revealing the Soul’s deep secret:
    that the eye can see farther in the dark of night
    than ever it could by day.

    - Larry Robinson
    Last edited by Barry; 10-31-2016 at 03:09 PM.
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  53. TopTop #3089
    Roland Jacopetti's Avatar
    Roland Jacopetti
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Wonderful, Larry! The perfect poem for today!

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    All Hallow’s Eve, 2001

    ...
    Last edited by Barry; 10-31-2016 at 05:10 PM.
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  54. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  55. TopTop #3090
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Appearances

    It lay on cement that wet winter Sunday
    red-shafted flicker’s wings spread wide, beak black
    pointing to the sky.

    Did it fly into its own reflection seen in nearby
    windows, into the unreal that looked so true? -
    the mirror: invisible pane.

    We too can mistake reflection for truth.
    any mirror could kill us if we hit it head on.

    One day a finch flew into my house.
    A glass prison for the bird.

    It flew again and again into clear pane until
    it gave up for a moment, perched on a
    curly willow branch in a pot, grew still.

    I raised its entry window, letting a breeze
    flow in. The finch felt fresh air’s call to be free.
    It flew out at last into the truth of what was.

    - Clare Morris
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  56. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

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