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  1. TopTop #1021
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Moral Proverbs and Folks Songs
    (The Countryside of Castile)

    1
    I love Jesus, who said to us:
    Heaven and earth will pass away.
    When heaven and earth have passed away,
    my word will remain.
    What was your word, Jesus"
    Love? Affection? Forgiveness?
    All your words were
    one word: Wakeup.

    2
    It is good know that glasses
    are to drink from;
    the bad thing is not to know
    what thirst is for.

    3
    You say nothing is created new?
    Don't worry about it, with the mud
    of the earth, make a cup
    from which your brother can drink.

    4
    All things die and all things live forever;
    but our task is to die,
    To die making roads,
    Roads over the sea.

    5
    To die...To fall like a drop
    of water into the big ocean?
    Or to be what I've never been:
    a man without a shadow, without a dream,
    a man all alone, walking,
    without a mirror, and with no road?

    6
    Mankind owns four things
    That are no good at sea:
    rudder, anchor, oars,
    and the fear of going down.

    - Antonio Machado
    (translated by Robert Bly)


    __________________________________________________

    De Proverbios y Cantares

    1
    Yo amo a Jesús, que nos dijo:
    Cielo y tierra pasarán.
    Cuando cielo y tierra pasen
    mi palabra quedará.
    ¿Cuál fue, Jesús, tu palabra?
    ¿Amor? ¿Perdón? ¿Caridad?
    Todas tus palabras fueron
    una palabra: Velad.

    2
    Bueno es saber que los vasos
    nos sirven para beber;
    lo malo es que no sabemos
    para qué sirve la sed.


    3
    ¿Dices que nada se crea?
    No te importe, con el barro
    de la tierra, haz una copa
    para que beba tu hermano.



    4
    Todo pasa y todo queda,
    pero lo nuestro es pasar,
    pasar haciendo caminos,
    caminos sobre la mar.

    5
    Morir... ¿Caer como gota
    de mar en el mar inmenso?
    ¿O ser lo que nunca he sido:
    uno, sin sombra y sin sueño,
    un solitario que avanza
    sin camino y sin espejo?


    XLVI

    Anoche soñé que oía
    a Dios, gritándome: ¡Alerta!
    Luego era Dios quien dormía,
    y yo gritaba: ¡Despierta!


    6
    Cuatro cosas tiene el hombre
    que no sirven en la mar:
    ancla, gobernalle y remos,
    y miedo de naufragar.

    - Antonio Machado
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  2. TopTop #1022
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    On the Nature of Understanding

    Say you hoped to
    tame something
    wild and stayed
    calm and inched up
    day by day. Or even
    not tame it but
    meet it halfway.
    Things went along.
    You made progress,
    understanding
    it would be a
    lengthy process,
    sensing changes
    in your hair and
    nails. So its
    strange when it
    attacks: you thought
    you had a deal.

    - Kay Ryan
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  3. Gratitude expressed by:

  4. TopTop #1023
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Memory Of TheFuture

    I will say tree, not pine tree.
    I will say flower, not forsythia.
    I will see birds, many birds,
    flying in four directions.

    Then rock and cloud will be
    lost. Spring will be lost.
    And, most terribly,
    your name will be lost.

    I will revel in a world
    no longer particular.
    A world made vague,
    as if by fog. But not fog.

    Vaguely aware,
    I will wander at will.
    I will wade deeper
    into wide water.

    You'll see me, there,
    out by the horizon,
    an old gray thing,
    who finally knows

    gray is the most beautiful color.

    - Elizabeth Spires
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  5. TopTop #1024
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    In the Elementary School Choir

    I had never seen a cornfield in my life,
    I had never been to Oklahoma,
    But I was singing as loud as anyone,
    “Oh what a beautiful morning. . . . The corn
    Is as high as an elephant’s eye,”
    Though I knew something about elephants I thought,
    Coming from the same continent as they did,
    And they being more like camels than anything else.

    And when we sang from Meet Me in St. Louis,
    “Clang, clang, clang went the trolley,”
    I remembered the ride from Ramleh Station
    In the heart of Alexandria
    All the way to Roushdy where my grandmother lived,
    The autos on the roadway vying
    With mule carts and bicycles,
    The Mediterranean half a mile off on the left,
    The air smelling sharply of diesel and salt.

    It was a problem which had dogged me
    For a few years, this confusion of places,
    And when in 5th grade geography I had pronounced
    “Des Moines” as though it were a village in France,
    Mr. Kephart led me to the map on the front wall,
    And so I’d know where I was,
    Pressed my forehead squarely against Iowa.
    Des Moines, he’d said. Rhymes with coins.

    Now we were singing “zippidy-doo-dah, zippidy-ay,”
    And every song we’d sung had in it
    Either sun or bluebirds, fair weather
    Or fancy fringe, O beautiful America!
    And one tier below me,
    There was Linda Deemer with her amber waves
    And lovely fruited plains,
    And she was part of America too
    Along with sun and spacious sky
    Though untouchable, and as distant
    As purple mountains of majesty.

    “This is my country,” we sang,
    And a few years ago there would have been
    A scent of figs in the air, mangoes,
    And someone playing the oud along a clear stream.

    But now it was “My country ‘tis of thee”
    And I sang it out with all my heart
    And now with Linda Deemer in mind.
    “Land where my fathers died,” I bellowed,
    And it was not too hard to imagine
    A host of my great uncles and -grandfathers
    Stunned from their graves in the Turkish interior
    And finding themselves suddenly
    On a rock among maize and poultry
    And Squanto shaking their hands.

    How could anyone not think America
    Was exotic when it had Massachusetts
    And the long tables of thanksgiving?
    And how could it not be home
    If it were the place where love first struck?

    We had finished singing.
    The sun was shining through large windows
    On the beatified faces of all
    Who had sung well and with feeling.
    We were ready to file out and march back
    To our room where Mr. Kephart was waiting.
    Already Linda Deemer had disappeared
    Into the high society of the hallway.
    One day I was going to tell her something.
    Des Moines, I was saying to myself,
    Baton Rouge. Terre Haute. Boise.

    - Gregory Djanikian
    (from Falling Deeply into America. Copyright © 1989 Carnegie Mellon University Press)
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  6. TopTop #1025
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Litany

    "You are the bread and the knife
    The crystal goblet and the wine."
    -Jacques Crickillon

    You are the bread and the knife,
    the crystal goblet and the wine.
    You are the dew on the morning grass,
    and the burning wheel of the sun.
    You are the white apron of the baker
    and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

    However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
    the plums on the counter,
    or the house of cards.
    And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
    There is no way you are the pine-scented air.

    It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
    maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
    but you are not even close
    to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

    And a quick look in the mirror will show
    that you are neither the boots in the corner
    nor the boat asleep in the boathouse.
    It might interest you to know,
    speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
    that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

    I also happen to be the shooting star,
    the evening paper blowing down an alley,
    and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

    I am also the moon in the trees
    and the blind woman's teacup.
    But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
    You are still the bread and the knife.
    You will always be the bread and the knife,
    not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--
    the wine.

    - Billy Collins
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  7. Gratitude expressed by:

  8. TopTop #1026
    marcwordsmith's Avatar
    marcwordsmith
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Can somebody out there explain this poem to me please?
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  9. TopTop #1027
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Day Dream

    One day people will touch and talk perhaps easily,
    And loving be natural as breathing and warm as sunlight,
    And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
    Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
    Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
    And work will be simple and swift as a seagull flying,
    And play will be casual and quiet as a seagull settling,
    And the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder or care or notice,
    And people will smile without reason, even in winter, even in the rain.

    - A. S. J. Tessimond
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  10. TopTop #1028
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Working Together

    We shape our self
    to fit this world

    and by the world
    are shaped again.

    The visible
    and the invisible

    working together
    in common cause,

    to produce
    the miraculous.

    I am thinking of the way
    the intangible air

    passed at speed
    round a shaped wing

    easily
    holds our weight.

    So may we, in this life
    trust

    to those elements
    we have yet to see

    or imagine,
    and look for the true

    shape of our own self
    by forming it well

    to the great
    intangibles about us.

    - David Whyte
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  11. TopTop #1029
    kpage9's Avatar
    kpage9
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Hi Marc,

    I LOVE this poem, and here's what I think it means--a wild guess, of course, based on ever so subjective gut reaction.

    We are both many-sided, with some real beauties but not all of them.

    I think the particular images are not really interpretable, but I get the sense that, feeling-wise, they are ACCURATE. By accurate I mean true to his perception, and I believe (without any rational reason but truly) that he's right, both about the perception and the reality.

    kathy


    Quote Posted in reply to the post by marcwordsmith: View Post
    Can somebody out there explain this poem to me please?
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  12. TopTop #1030
    kpage9's Avatar
    kpage9
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I was referring to the Billy Collins one, "Litany"

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by kpage9: View Post
    Hi Marc,

    I LOVE this poem, and here's what I think it means--a wild guess, of course, based on ever so subjective gut reaction.

    We are both many-sided, with some real beauties but not all of them.

    I think the particular images are not really interpretable, but I get the sense that, feeling-wise, they are ACCURATE. By accurate I mean true to his perception, and I believe (without any rational reason but truly) that he's right, both about the perception and the reality.

    kathy
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  13. TopTop #1031
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What Never Changes

    What never changes, always
    Changes, remains an aftertaste
    Or forethought. The sand always
    Arrives, changing grain by grain.

    We sit,
    We watch through half-closed lids or
    Listen, our hands itching
    To plunge into the clay of
    Creation, make it our own.

    Always, and no matter,
    We are the recipient, the Giver
    Goes before us, adoring
    Our clumsy intentions.

    - Rebecca del Rio
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  14. TopTop #1032
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

    1.

    Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat
    of the sweet grass?
    Will the owl bite off its own wings?
    Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or
    forget to sing?
    Will the rivers run upstream?

    Behold, I say - behold
    the reliability and the finery and the teachings
    of this gritty earth gift.

    2.

    Eat bread and understand comfort.
    Drink water, and understand delight.
    Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
    are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
    who are drinking the sweetness, who are
    thrillingly gluttonous.

    For one thing leads to another.
    Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
    Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

    And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
    both intimate and ultimate,
    and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
    And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
    oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
    beautiful bodies of your lungs….

    4.

    Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
    The dancer, the potter,
    To make me a begging bowl
    Which I believe
    My soul needs.

    And if I come to you,
    To the door of your comfortable house
    With unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
    Will you put something into it?

    I would like to take this chance.
    I would like to give you this chance.

    5.

    We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we change.
    Congratulations, if
    You have changed.

    6.

    Let me ask you this.
    Do you also think that beauty exists for some fabulous reason?

    And if you have not been enchanted by this adventure-
    Your life-
    What would do for you?

    7.

    What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
    Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
    That was many years ago.
    Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
    through with difficulty.
    I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
    I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
    They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
    somehow or another).
    And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
    I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
    I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
    I have become younger.

    And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
    Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

    - Mary Oliver
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  15. Gratitude expressed by:

  16. TopTop #1033
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Your Blinded Hand

    Suppose that
    everything that greens and grows
    should blacken in one moment, flower and branch.
    I think that I would find your blinded hand.
    Suppose that your cry and mine were lost among numberless cries
    in a city of fire when the earth is afire,
    I must still believe that somehow I would find your blinded hand.
    Through flames everywhere
    consuming earth and air
    I must believe that somehow, if only one moment were offered,
    I would
    find your hand.
    I know as, of course, you know
    the immeasurable wilderness that would exist
    in the moment of fire.
    But I would hear your cry and you’d hear mine and each of us
    would find
    the other’s hand.
    We know
    that it might not be so.
    But for this quiet moment, if only for this
    moment,
    And against all reason,
    let us believe, and believe in our hearts,
    that somehow it would be so.
    I’d hear your cry, you mine –

    And each of us would find a blinded hand.

    - Tennessee Williams
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  18. TopTop #1034
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thinking Ahead To Possible Options And A Worst-Case Scenario

    I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel
    in the center of the road and that's when
    the deer came charging out of the forest
    and forced me to hit the brakes for all I
    was worth and I careened back to the other
    side of the road just as a skunk came toddling
    out of Mrs. Bancroft's front yard and I swung
    back perhaps just grazing it a bit. I glanced
    quickly in the rearview mirror and in that
    instant a groundhog waddled from the side
    of the road and I zigzagged madly and don't
    know if I nipped it or not because up ahead I
    could see a coyote stalking the Collier's
    cat. Oh well, I said, and drove the rest
    of the way home without incident.

    - James Tate
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  19. TopTop #1035
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    When They Sleep

    All people are children when they sleep.
    There's no war in them then.
    They open their hands and breathe
    in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.

    They pucker their lips like small children
    and open their hands halfway,
    soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
    The stars stand guard
    and a haze veils the sky,
    a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.

    If only we could speak to one another then
    when our hearts are half-open flowers.
    Words like golden bees
    would drift in.

    - God, teach me the language of sleep.

    - Rolf Jacobsen (Norway, 1907-1994)



    (The Roads Have Come to an End Now, translation by Robert Hedin)
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  21. TopTop #1036
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Our Voices When We Wake

    Our voices when we wake
    are light and soft
    and young
    When we awake from sleep
    from the place of deep breathing
    the safe space
    in the warm dark

    Could we stay so undefended
    in the daylight world
    the world of hard edges
    that our tight voices mimic?

    If we could approach one another
    soft-voiced, light, easy
    still connected to
    the small flowing child-self within

    We would be like those gentle visitors
    we imagine
    from some evolved other world.
    We could create that world here.

    - Nina Mermey Klippel
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  23. TopTop #1037
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A blind man was riding an unheated train,
    From Bryansk he was traveling home with his fate.

    Fate whispered to him so the whole car could hear:
    And why should you care about blindness and war?

    It’s good, she was saying, you’re sightless and poor.
    If you were not blind, you’d never survive.

    The Germans won’t kill you, you’re nothing to them.
    Allow me to lift that bag on your shoulder—

    The one with the holes, the empty torn one.
    Let me just raise your eyelids wide open.

    The blind man was traveling home with his fate,
    Now thankful for blindness. Happy about it.

    - Arseny Tarkovsky

    (Written in a cargo train, between Bryansk and Zhivodovka, 1943
    Translated from the Russian by Philip Metres & Dimitri Psurtsev)
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  25. TopTop #1038
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mindful

    Every day
    I see or hear
    something
    that more or less

    kills me
    with delight,
    that leaves me
    like a needle

    in the haystack
    of light.
    It was what I was born for -
    to look, to listen,

    to lose myself
    inside this soft world -
    to instruct myself
    over and over

    in joy,
    and acclamation.
    Nor am I talking
    about the exceptional,

    the fearful, the dreadful,
    the very extravagant -
    but of the ordinary,
    the common, the very drab,

    the daily presentations.
    Oh, good scholar,
    I say to myself,
    how can you help

    but grow wise
    with such teachings
    as these -
    the untrimmable light

    of the world,
    the ocean's shine,
    the prayers that are made
    out of grass?

    - Mary Oliver
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  26. Gratitude expressed by:

  27. TopTop #1039
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ode to the Tomato

    The street

    filled with tomatoes,
    midday,
    summer,
    the light
    splits
    in two halves
    of tomato,
    the juice
    runs
    through the streets.
    In June
    the tomato
    cuts loose,
    invades
    the kitchens,
    takes over lunches,
    sits down
    comfortably
    on sideboards,
    among the glasses,
    the butter dishes,
    the blue saltshakers.
    It has its own light,
    a benign majesty.
    Unfortunately, we have to
    assassinate it;
    the knife plunges
    into its living flesh,
    it is a red
    viscera,
    a cool,
    deep,
    inexhaustible
    sun
    fills the salads
    of Chile,
    is cheerfully married

    to the clear onion
    and to celebrate,
    oil lets itself
    fall,
    son and essence
    of the olive tree,
    onto the half-open hemispheres,
    pepper
    adds
    its fragrance,
    salt, its magnetism:
    it is the day's
    wedding,
    parsley
    raises
    little flags,
    potatoes
    vigorously boil,
    with its aroma
    the steak
    pounds
    on the door,
    it's time!
    let's go!

    -*Pablo Neruda, translated by Stephen Mitchell

    Oda al tomate


    La calle
    se llenó de tomates,
    mediodía,
    verano,
    la luz
    se parte
    en dos
    mitades
    de tomate,
    corre
    por las calles
    el jugo.
    En diciembre
    se desata
    el tomate
    invade
    las concinas,
    entra por los almuerzos,
    se sienta
    reposado
    en los aparadores,
    entre los vasos,
    las mantequilleras,
    los saleros azules.
    Tiene
    luz propia,
    majestad benigna.
    Debemos, por desgracia
    asesinarlo;
    se hunde
    el cuchillo

    en su pulpa viviente,
    en una roja
    vícera,
    un sol
    fresco,
    profundo,
    inagotable,
    llena las ensalades
    de Chile,
    se casa alegremente
    con la clara cebolla,
    y para celebralo
    se deja
    caer
    aceite,
    hijo
    esencial del olivo,
    sobre sus hemisferios entreabiertos,
    agrega
    la pimienta
    su fragancia,
    la sal su magnetismo:
    son las bodas
    del día
    el perejil
    levanta
    banderines,
    las papas
    hierven vigorosamente,
    el asado
    golpea
    con su aroma
    en la puerta,
    es hora!
    vamos!

    -*Pablo Neruda
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  28. TopTop #1040
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Fresh

    To move
    Cleanly.
    Needing to be
    Nowhere else.
    Wanting nothing
    From any store.
    To lift something
    You already had
    And set it down in
    A new place.
    Awakened eye
    Seeing freshly.
    What does that do to
    The old blood moving through
    Its channels?

    -Naomi Shihab Nye
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  29. TopTop #1041
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Light By The Barn

    The light by the barn that shines all night
    pales at dawn when a little breeze comes.

    A little breeze comes breathing the fields
    from their sleep and waking the slow windmill.

    The slow windmill sings the long day
    about anguish and loss to the chickens at work.

    The little breeze follows the slow windmill
    and the chickens at work till the sun goes down--

    Then the light by the barn again.

    - William Stafford
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  30. TopTop #1042
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Hay for the Horses

    He had driven half the night
    From far down San Joaquin
    Through Mariposa, up the
    Dangerous Mountain roads,
    And pulled in at eight a.m.
    With his big truckload of hay
    behind the barn.
    With winch and ropes and hooks
    We stacked the bales up clean
    To splintery redwood rafters
    High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
    Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
    Itch of haydust in the
    sweaty shirt and shoes.
    At lunchtime under Black oak
    Out in the hot corral,
    ---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
    Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
    "I'm sixty-eight" he said,
    "I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
    I thought, that day I started,
    I sure would hate to do this all my life.
    And dammit, that's just what
    I've gone and done."

    - Gary Snyder
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  31. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  32. TopTop #1043
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For Jean Koda
    (March 19, 1919 - July 13, 2011)

    My Japanese-American Mother-in-law
    Born in America
    Tough with brokers
    A smart trader,
    Grew up working barefoot
    in the Delta, on the farm.
    Doesn't like Japan.
    Sits in the early morning
    By the window, coffee in hand,
    Gazing at cherry blossoms.
    Needing no poem.

    - Gary Snyder
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  33. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  34. TopTop #1044
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    No Ordinary Sun
    for lost M'whera Miners & Korea North & South

    Tree let your arms fall:
    raise them not sharply in supplication
    to the bright enhaloed cloud.
    Let your arms lack toughness and
    resilience for this is no mere axe
    to blunt nor fire to smother.
    Your sap shall not rise again
    to the moon's pull.
    No more incline a deferential head
    to the wind's talk, or stir
    to the tickle of coursing rain.
    Your former shagginess shall not be
    wreathed with the delightful flight
    of birds nor shield
    nor cool the ardour of unheeding
    lovers from the monstrous sun.
    Tree let your naked arms fall
    nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
    This is no gallant monsoon's flash,
    no dashing trade wind's blast.
    The fading green of your magic
    emanations shall not make pure again
    these polluted skies . . . for this
    is no ordinary sun.
    O tree
    in the shadowless mountains
    the white plains and
    the drab sea floor
    your end at last is written.

    - Hone Tuwhare
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  35. TopTop #1045
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Lastness

    A black bear sits alone
    in the twilight, nodding from side
    to side, turning slowly around and around
    on himself, scuffing the four-footed
    circle into the earth. He sniffs the sweat
    in the breeze, he understands
    a creature, a death-creature,
    watches from the fringe of the trees,
    finally he understands
    I am no longer here, he himself
    from the fringe of the trees watches
    a black bear
    get up, eat a few flowers, trudge away,
    all his fur glistening
    in the rain.

    And what glistening! Sancho Fergus,
    my boychild, had such great shoulders,
    when he was born his head
    came out, the rest of him stuck. And he opened
    his eyes: his head out there all alone
    in the room, he squinted with pained,
    barely unglued eyes at the ninth-month’s
    blood splashing beneath him
    on the floor. And almost
    smiled, I thought, almost forgave it all in advance.

    When he came wholly forth
    I took him up in my hands and bent
    over and smelled
    the black, glistening fur
    of his head, as empty space
    must have bent
    over the newborn planet
    and smelled the grasslands and the ferns.

    - Galway Kinnell


    
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  36. Gratitude expressed by:

  37. TopTop #1046
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Moon

    The moon can be taken in teaspoons

    or as a capsule every two hours.

    It is a good hypnotic or narcotic

    and relieves, too,

    hangovers of those drunk on philosophy.

    *

    A piece of the moon tucked in the pocket

    is a better good luck charm than a rabbit’s foot;

    It works as a love charm,

    to get rich without connections

    and to ward off doctors.

    *

    It can be given as a treat to children

    when they can’t sleep.

    A few moon drops in the eyes of the elderly

    help them die well.

    *

    Put a tender new moon leaf

    under your pillow

    and you will see your heart’s desire.

    *

    Always carry a small jar of moon air

    for when you are drowning,

    And give a*key tothe moon

    to prisoners and the disillusioned,

    to those condemned to death

    and those condemned to life.

    *

    There is no better tonic than the moon

    given in precise, controlled doses.

    * - Jaime Sabines (1926-99)


    (Translated by Rebecca Del Rio)
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  38. Gratitude expressed by:

  39. TopTop #1047
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Appassionata

    After the rising dissonance

    with the trumpet and the sax
    trying to out-shout each other
    and the drums, the drums,
    trying to shut them both down,

    came the silence-- two, three, five--
    one hardly dared to count--
    eight, thirteen...

    and the cello began
    in such pure and hesitant
    sweetness
    that the tears began to rise
    and the flowers of tenderness
    opened slowly
    and we saw each other again
    in our various and awkward beauty.

    - Barbara Hazard
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  40. TopTop #1048
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Blackberries

    Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
    Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
    A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
    Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
    Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
    Ebon in the hedges, fat
    With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
    I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
    They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

    Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks—
    Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
    Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
    I do not think the sea will appear at all.
    The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
    I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
    Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
    The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
    One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

    The only thing to come now is the sea.
    From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
    Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
    These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
    I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
    To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock
    That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
    Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
    Beating and beating at an intractable metal.

    - Sylvia Plath
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  41. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  42. TopTop #1049
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Color of the Sky

    Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
    driving over the hills from work.
    There are the dark parts on the road
    when you pass through clumps of wood
    and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
    but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.

    I should call Marie and apologize
    for being so boring at dinner last night,
    but can I really promise not to be that way again?
    And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
    in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

    Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
    the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
    are full of infant chlorophyll,
    the very tint of inexperience.

    Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
    and on the highway overpass,
    the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
    MEMORY LOVES TIME
    in big black spraypaint letters,

    which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

    Last night I dreamed of X again.
    She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
    Years ago she penetrated me
    but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
    I never got her out,
    but now I’m glad.

    What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
    What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
    What I thought was an injustice
    turned out to be a color of the sky.

    Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
    and the police station,
    a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;

    overflowing with blossomfoam,
    like a sudsy mug of beer;
    like a bride ripping off her clothes,

    dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,

    so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
    It’s been doing that all week:
    making beauty,
    and throwing it away,
    and making more.
    - Tony Hoagland
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  43. Gratitude expressed by:

  44. TopTop #1050
    RexCasteel
    Guest

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    First thought: "Too long!"

    My attempt to escape was unsuccessful.

    Subconscious forced me to scan and my eyes caught

    What I thought...
    What I thought...
    What I thought...

    The chorus hooks me in.

    As he says...

    And now I'm glad.


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

    What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
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