Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

OM


It’s the being
The coming into being
Not wherefrom
Not where to
That matters


No name can explain
No time has the better
Religion has no ownership
Neither time not space
Beyond time and space


Energy becoming mass
Consciousness expressing
Shiva to Shakti
Before to now
The present moment only


Another moment
A new present
A new past
Being, coming into being


The true incarnation
The recycling
Energy to mass
Mass to different forms
The eyes, ears and thoughts of
Earth, Space and Spirit


Thus are we all
Om and
The silence before
The silence after
Om




- Roy Woolfstead

[Larry Robinson]

Psalm for a Lost Summer

By the rivers of Estes Park, there we sat down, yes, we sighed, when we
remembered Italy.

We pressed our pens against paper, and we sat under the pine trees,
listening to the crows.

For there in Colorado we were captive at a high altitude, required
to write without breath; and if we could not write, our consciences
required us to read, and improve our minds.

How shall we write our poems in this strange land?

If I forget you, Venice, let my right hand forget to wind the fettuccini
around the fork.

If I do not remember balmy Sorrento, let me never taste lemons again;
if I prefer not Capri above my chief joy.

Remember, O Muse, the couple who strolled about Assisi; who said,
How lovely this is, but next year let's vacation at home.

O Citizens of Assisi, do not blame us for the earthquake that destroyed
your basilica; how happy we were, looking at your frescos during a
thunderstorm.

Happy we shall be again, when we dash from this rented cabin, and
drive down from these great stone mountains forever, Amen.


- Maura Stanton

[Larry Robinson]

City Psalm

The killings continue, each second
pain and misfortune extend themselves
in the genetic chain, injustice is done knowingly, and the air
bears the dust of decayed hopes,
yet breathing those fumes, walking the thronged
pavements among crippled lives, jackhammers
raging, a parking lot painfully agleam
in the May sun, I have seen
not behind but within, within the
dull grief, blown grit, hideous
concrete facades, another grief, a gleam
as of dew, an abode of mercy,
have heard not behind but within noise
a humming that drifted into a quiet smile.
Nothing was changed, all was revealed otherwise;
not that horror was not, not that killings did not continue,
but that as if transparent all disclosed
an otherness that was blessed, that was bliss.

I saw Paradise in the dust of the street.

- Denise Levertov

[Larry Robinson]

Supporting Roles


A raucous ruckus
was being raised
by the Seal Island seals of Point Lobos
and we were drinking it all in, when

a squadron of pelicans,
a hundred strong,
in single undulating file,
swoops down,
leaving us seal-drunk and pelican-awed. And

you said, best as I remember,
“Pelicans only get a supporting role
in a place like this…”
And your eyes traced the landscape—
sea, sun, rocks, sand, seal, sky.
It took a moment to sink in,
these things do; but

isn’t that all any of us get—
“Supporting roles”—
in the great cosmic melodrama?
Where the only stars
are the stars—
and there’s so many of them
they hardly count.

- Gary Turchin

[REALnothings]

thanks! put me right where I belong, mercifully small in the great Cosmic One.:waccosun:

[Larry Robinson]

Apollo and Daphne, 1622

Solid marble,
empowered by Bernini,
escapes Earth’s bounds,
just as Daphne eludes
the bonds of Apollo’s passion,
wanting to break loose
of his embrace,
yet hesitating, glancing
back over bare shoulder
unbound hair billowing
upward, arms rising,
fingers spread in
supplication, sprouting
translucent leaves –
defying gravity,
the laws of nature,
and the gods.

Unable to resist
the immense pull
of this story in stone,
I circle and circle,
sensing Time’s
harsh breath upon me.
And I long
to deny him, to slip
from his arms,
to dwell, like Daphne,
beyond his grasp.

- Jodi Hottel

[Larry Robinson]

Two Kinds


There are two kinds of people in the world;
the ones with washers and dryers and the ones
who unfurl their slips at the laundromat, spread
saris and bed sheets by the river, hang
their checkered boxers on the line.

There are two: those who love Einstein
for his relativity and those who love his hair.
Those who relish words like infrastructure
and problematic, and those who like to ponder
life in the belly of the whale. For some,
invitations come as night birds; others get
a summons in the mail. These wander wet and
lonely; those soft-shoe in rhythm with the rain.

Two kinds: the tragic heroes and the understudies;
the bootleggers and the cobblers. Wolf-whisperers
and dogcatchers; shovellers of snow and readers
of the flake. There are those who run into the room
with a lit match, stopping to wonder what they came for,
and the ones who run in without the match.

- Prater Sereno

[Dan Gurney]

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary notation, and those who don't. :wink:


Two Kinds

There are two kinds of people in the world;...

[gardenmaniac]

good one, Dan - one or the other ...


There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary notation, and those who don't. :wink:

[podfish]

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary notation, and those who don't. :wink:and you can only count to 14 if you use both your fingers AND your toes.

[Califoon]

Gosh, why does it feel like a variation on #whiteprivilege to have math exhibitionists openly flashing in the poetry section?


and you can only count to 14 if you use both your fingers AND your toes.

[Larry Robinson]

Irreverent Narrator

I come alive reading
a novel with
an irreverent narrator
because how
can you take
this rascal life
seriously?
Life, everyone’s outrageous
sidekick with the big sombrero
who laughs at you
and almost never
obeys your commands
or even your kind
suggestions,
who make loud farts
AND fart-noises so
you can’t even tell
which is which,
who won’t sit still
for a portrait,
each one of which
ends up showing only parts,
but who
may become a true friend if
you stand your ground,
crack your own jokes back,
mine irony’s rich vein,
and are willing to abandon
every defense at
a moment’s notice and become
a damn fool
for love.

- Max Reif

[podfish]

Gosh, why does it feel like a variation on #whiteprivilege to have math exhibitionists openly flashing in the poetry section?that's pretty racist. Only white people do math?? and anti-intellectual too. Math isn't the antithesis of poetry, you know... in classic times, not like our modern degraded age, there wasn't the urge to partition philosophical realms that way. So how bout a #dilettante tag for those who haven't enough education to enjoy both?

ok, one more. If you choose your numbers right, you have 10 fingers not counting your thumbs.

[Califoon]

Well you see, there are two kinds of people...

One kind feels the need to attack and vilify what they do not understand. This person is often quite literal and unable to imagine any more complicated emotional states or meanings beyond the obvious. The subtle humor and surrealism of a phrase like "math exhibitionists openly flashing" would be absolutely lost on this type. Not understanding, they will not ask the meaning. They will allow their unconscious mind to fill in every unknown from a list of evils they always keep on hand, and then they attack. And maybe tack on a random slur questioning social status and education. This is how witches get burned.

Podfish, what are you doing here? Running for the Republican nomination? Why don't you be a good cop and put the gun down, ask a few questions next time.

I loved the poem; I enjoyed the binary jokes. I will say, however, that to me math may as well be the opposite of poetry, thank you very much.
At the heart of the white privilege issue I see people who are essentially oblivious to a good deal of their surroundings in terms of the lives lived by folks right in their own town. My ref there was just a weak joke about people being oblivious to their surroundings, farting in church, talking in library etc...
I come to this miraculous fountain of poetry every day (actually it comes to me) and for me it IS a sanctuary. There is a good supply here of something that I find sorely lacking in the world around me and it helps me almost every day. Would I have Dan not post his thought?? NEVER. I had a funny emotional reaction ( a demi-dismay) to the notion of math being discussed in the poetry thread and I made a silly colorful joke about that, I hoped, not taking the time to craft and edit it for clarity and harmlessness. You gonna shoot me for a bad joke? I'd think that a waste of your time. relax, go have some tea and be thankful for something.

I saw your gratitude and I appreciate that, but other folks are involved now and I thought it best to explain and put this to a timely close.
All the best!, Cal



that's pretty racist. Only white people do math?? and anti-intellectual too. Math isn't the antithesis of poetry, you know... in classic times, not like our modern degraded age, there wasn't the urge to partition philosophical realms that way. So how bout a #dilettante tag for those who haven't enough education to enjoy both?

ok, one more. If you choose your numbers right, you have 10 fingers not counting your thumbs.

[Ronaldo]

Humour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour)

<cite class="_Rm">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour</cite>

Wikipedia

Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny—and thus are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational.

note: Apparently that person is no longer hypothetical.


that's pretty racist. Only white people do math?? and anti-intellectual too. Math isn't the antithesis of poetry, you know... in classic times, not like our modern degraded age, there wasn't the urge to partition philosophical realms that way. So how bout a #dilettante tag for those who haven't enough education to enjoy both?

ok, one more. If you choose your numbers right, you have 10 fingers not counting your thumbs.

[Sara S]

Well, I had to look up "binary notation" and still don't really understand it, but, having studied the I Ching for many years, I thought that this (from Wikipedia) was very interesting:

The I Ching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching) dates from the 9th century BC in China.[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#cite_note-HackerMoore2002-3) The binary notation in the I Ching is used to interpret its quaternary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_numeral_system) divination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching_divination) technique.[4] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#cite_note-FOOTNOTERedmondHon2014227-4)
It is based on taoistic duality of yin and yang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang).[5] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#cite_note-scientific-5) eight trigrams (Bagua) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba_gua) and a set of 64 hexagrams ("sixty-four" gua) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagram_%28I_Ching%29), analogous to the three-bit and six-bit binary numerals, were in use at least as early as the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Dynasty).[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#cite_note-HackerMoore2002-3)
The contemporary scholar Shao Yong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shao_Yong) rearranged the hexagrams in a format that resembles modern binary numbers, although he did not intend his arrangement to be used mathematically.[4] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#cite_note-FOOTNOTERedmondHon2014227-4) Viewing the least significant bit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_significant_bit) on top of single hexagrams in Shao Yong's square (https://www.biroco.com/yijing/sequence.htm) and reading along rows either from bottom right to top left with solid lines as 0 and broken lines as 1 or from top left to bottom right with solid lines as 1 and broken lines as 0 hexagrams can be interpreted as sequence from 0 to 63. [6] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_number#cite_note-Shao_Yong.E2.80.99s_.E2.80.9DXiantian_Tu.E2.80.98.E2.80.98-6)

[podfish]

... hypothetically, some might find it ironic that the characterization of "overly literal" might work both ways... or be amused by the idea that 'hypothetically' and 'hyperbole' are both in use here. I could explain how taking an absurd premise at face value, or extending it to its logical extreme, can both be humourous, but explaining humor is a fool's errand. Although there's humour in foolishness too.


Humour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour)

<cite class="_Rm">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour</cite>

Wikipedia

Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny—and thus are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational.

note: Apparently that person is no longer hypothetical.... though I can see that it's possible to see my original post as a personal accusation, despite the wording. Sorry to have left that impression. Still not sorry if my sense of humour isn't universally shared, though. Shoulda used a smiley.

[gardenmaniac]

Well you see, there are two kinds of people...

yes, as we say in our elite binary code, 10 kinds of ...

[Califoon]

Any two for Elevenis? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcGA4alhPas) :wink:


yes, as we say in our elite binary code, 10 kinds of ...

[carpet crawler]

Can't say that that exhibitionist exhibited much. Using binary, you can count to 16 on one hand, and if you used all your fingers and toes you can count up to 1,048,576...


Gosh, why does it feel like a variation on #whiteprivilege to have math exhibitionists openly flashing in the poetry section?

[Larry Robinson]

Love Poem

Let me have just one more day,
let me have this day and let it not be my last.
Let me have just one more day to feel the sap in the stems,
to hear the language of birds and the wind,
one more day of light, one more day of turning,
one more day balanced on the precipice, one more day
to bask and revel, one more day of the exquisite pain,
one more day to risk a bit more, just one more day
to feel the tide’s pull, to be swept and tossed,
to fear the loss, one more day to empty and be bereft.

Let me have one more day that I might find you and
find myself in you, to allow the wonder of the dance,
one more day to reveal and conceal, one more day
without words to say what I can not tell you, one more day
to be willing, to allow time’s victory and defeat,
one more day carried on the upwelling, my body
salt in the tears, some kind of habitation, some kind of crystallization,
some kind of membrane between.

I don’t mean to be trite but
I love you like water loves gravity, like lungs love oxygen,
like the grasses with the breeze, like the torrents over the rocks.
I’m serious here. My gaze wants to linger longer on you.
I have not had enough of your demands. I have more of laughter to learn.

Nothing have I to offer but failing as best I can.
I rely on what I can not know.
This being should not be, for how can it be,
but given its apparentness, let it continue with me just one more day.

- Tim Hicks

[Larry Robinson]

Stone

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in the river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed,
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill -
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

​​​Charles Simic

[Ronaldo]

35075
Photo taken in St. Peters Village, PA.

[Larry Robinson]

Every Revolution Needs Fresh Poems


Every revolution needs fresh poems
that is the reason
poetry cannot die.
It is the reason poets
go without sleep
and sometimes without lovers
without new cars
and without fine clothes
the reason we commit
to facing the dark
and
rein ourselves, regularly, to the possibility
of being wrong.
Poetry is leading us.
It never cares how we will
be held by lovers
or drive fast
or look good
in the moment;
but about how completely
we are committed
to movement
both inner and outer;
and devoted to transformation
and to change.

- Alice Walker

[BothSidesNow]

At first I thought No, not a stone. But if there's moonlight inside & I could be used to make sparks fly, then I'm with it!
Many thanks, Larry.
Janet


Stone

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in the river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed,
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill -
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

​​​Charles Simic

[Larry Robinson]

More Than You Gave

We have the town we call home wakening for dawn
which isn’t yet here but is promised, we have
our tired neighbors rising in ones and twos, we have
the sky slowly separating itself from the houses
to become the sky while the stars blink a last time
and vanish to make way for us to enter the great stage
of an ordinary Tuesday in ordinary time.

- Phillip Levine

[Larry Robinson]

The Cure At Troy

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.

History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.

Seamus Heaney's translation of
"The Philoctetes," by Sophocles

[Larry Robinson]

Psalm

Lord, there are creatures in the understory,
snails with whorled backs and silver boots,
trails beetles weave in grass, black rivers
of ants, unbound ladybugs opening their wings,

spotted veils and flame, untamed choirs

of banjo-colored crickets. and stained-glass cicadas.
Lord, how shall we count the snakes and frogs
and moths? How shall we love the hidden
and small? Mushrooms beneath leaves

constructing their death domes in silence,

their silken gills and mycelial threads, cap scales
and patches, their warts and pores. And the buried
bulbs that will bloom in spring, pregnant with flower
and leaf, sing Prepare for My Radiance, Prepare

for the Pageantry of My Inevitable Surprise.

These are the queendoms, the spines and horns,
the clustered hearts beating beneath our feet. Lord
though the earth is locked in irons of ice and snow
there are angels in the undergrowth, praise them.

- Dorianne Laux

[Larry Robinson]

The Ballad of Father O’Hart

Good Father John O'Hart
In penal days rode out
To a Shoneen who had free lands
And his own snipe and trout.
In trust took he John's lands;
Sleiveens were all his race;
And he gave them as dowers to his daughters.
And they married beyond their place.
But Father John went up,
And Father John went down;
And he wore small holes in his Shoes,
And he wore large holes in his gown.
All loved him, only the shoneen,
Whom the devils have by the hair,
From the wives, and the cats, and the children,
To the birds in the white of the air.
The birds, for he opened their cages
As he went up and down;
And he said with a smile, "Have peace now';
And he went his way with a frown.
But if when anyone died
Came keeners hoarser than rooks,
He bade them give over their keening;
For he was a man of books.
And these were the works of John,
When, weeping score by score,
People came into Colooney;
For he'd died at ninety-four.
There was no human keening;
The birds from Knocknarea
And the world round Knocknashee
Came keening in that day.
The young birds and old birds
Came flying, heavy and sad;
Keening in from Tiraragh,
Keening from Ballinafad;
Keening from Inishmurray.
Nor stayed for bite or sup;
This way were all reproved
Who dig old customs up.

- William Butler Yeats

[Larry Robinson]

Bleeder

By now I bet he’s dead which suits me fine,
but twenty-five years ago when we were both fifteen
and he was a camper and I a counselor
in a straight-laced Pennsylvania summer camp
for crippled and retarded kids, I’d watch

him sit all day by himself on a hill.
No trees, or sharp stones: he wasn’t safe to be around.
The slightest bruise and all his blood would simply drain away
It drove us crazy – first to protect him, then to see it happen

I would hang around him, picturing a knife or pointed stick
wondering how a small cut you’d have to make, then see the expectant face
of another boy watching me, and we each knew, how the other would like to see him bleed.

He made us want to hurt him so bad so much we hurt ourselves instead:
sliced fingers in craft class, busted noses in baseball, then joined at last mass wrestling matches beneath his hill, a tangle of crutches and braces, hammering at

each other to keep from harming him. I’d look up from slamming a kid in the gut and see him watching
with the empty blue eyes of children in sentimental paintings, and hope to see him frown or grin.
But there was nothing: as if he had already died.

Then after a week, they sent him home. Too much responsibility, the director said.
Hell, I bet the kid had skin like leather.
Even so, I’d lie in bed at night and think
of busting into his room with a sharp stick, lash

and break the space around his rose petal flesh,
while campers in bunks around me tossed and dreamt with this his pleasure: To make us cringe beneath

our wish to do damage? But then who cared?
We were living children, he the ghost
and what he gave us was the pleasure of being bad together.
He took us from our private spite and offered our bullying a common cause:

which is why we missed him, even though we wished him harm. When he went, we lost ours hared meanness and each of us was left to snarl his way to a separate future, eager to discover some new loser to link us in frailty again.

- Stephen Dobyns

[Larry Robinson]

The Beauty of Things

To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things - earth, stone and water,
Beast, man and woman, sun, moon and stars -
The blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts, frenzies and passions,
And unhuman nature its towering reality -
For man’s half dream; man, you might say, is nature dreaming, but rock
And water and sky are constant - to feel
Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural
Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.
The rest’s diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the intricate ideas,
The love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason.

- Robinson Jeffers

[Larry Robinson]

Elemental

Is the word the work
Of someone who tills the blue field,
Unearths its dark plenitude
For the tight seed to release its thought
Into the ferment of clay,
Searching to earth the light
And come to voice in a word of grain
That can sing free in a breeze,
Bathe in the yellow well of the sun,
Avoid the attack of the bird,
And endure the red cell of the oven
Until memory leavens in the gift of bread?

- John O’Donohue

[Larry Robinson]

Agrigento Road

There a wind remains that I recall afire
within the manes of horses as they slanted
their way across the planes, a wind that chafes
the sandstone and erodes the very hearts
of derelict caryatids cast down
Onto the grass. Soul of antiquity
Gone gray with age and rage, turn back and lean
into that wind, breathe of the delicate moss
clothing those giants tumbled out of heaven.
How lonely what is left to you must be!
And worse: to break your heart to hear once more
that sound resound and dwindle out to sea
where Hesperus already streaks the dawn:
a sad jew's-harp reverberating through
the throat of that lone cartman as he slowly
ascends his moon-cleansed hill again through dark
murmurings of the Moorish olive trees.

- Salvatore Quasimodo

All the suffering in the world comes from seeking pleasure for oneself. All the happiness in the world comes from seeking happiness for others.
- Shantideva

[Larry Robinson]

The Well of Grief

Those who will not
slip beneath the still surface
on the well of grief,
turning down through its black water
to the place where we cannot breathe
will never know the source
from which we drink the secret water,
cold and pure,
nor find in the darkness, glimmering,
the small round coins thrown by those
who wished for something else.

- David Whyte

[Larry Robinson]

Allegiances


It is time for all the heroes to go home
if they have any, time for all us common ones
to locate ourselves by the real things we live by.

Far to the north, or indeed in any direction,
strange mountains and creatures have always lurked:
elves, goblins, trolls and spiders - we
encounter them in dread and wonder,

But once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold,
found some limit beyond the waterfall,
a season changes and we come back, changed
but safe, quiet, grateful.

Suppose an insane wind holds all the hills
while strange beliefs whine at the traveler’s ears,
we ordinary beings can cling to the earth and love
where we are, sturdy for common things.

- William Stafford

[Larry Robinson]

The Song of the Lark

The song begins and the eyes are lifted
but the sickle points toward the ground
its downward curve forgotten in the song she hears
while over the dark wood, rising or falling
the sun lifts on cool air
the small body of a singing lark.

The song falls, the eyes raise, the mouth opens
and her bare feet on the earth have stopped.

Whoever listens in this silence, as she listens
will also stand opened, thoughtless, frightened
by the joy she feels, the pathway in the field
branching to a hundred more, no one has explored.

What is called in her rises from the ground
and is found in her body,
what she is given is secret even from her.

This silence is the seed in her
of everything she is
and falling through her body
to the ground from which she comes
it finds a hidden place to grow
and rises, and flowers, in old wild places
where the dark-edged sickle cannot go.

- David Whyte

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[Larry Robinson]

In My Father’s Garden

“Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway..."
- Tennyson


The unusual blue hyacinth came into bloomhttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2016-03-25_23-25-08.png
unnoticed, and now the apple tree surprises me:
already in full flower.
The daffodils he planted here last fall
have all come up, bright gold in the March dusk.
He has had to leave his home, go
elsewhere to be cared for, and I’ve
come back here to look in on his garden.
Does the camelia care there’s no face at the window?
Do the birds in the branches miss the one who watched them?
Does it matter to the tulips that they opened up, then
faded, unappreciated and unseen?
For fifty years, his eyes admired this garden, every flower;'
I might expect to find their imprint on these petals.

- Carolyn Tipton

[Larry Robinson]

Remember


That to have the eyes of an artist,

That can be enough,

The ear of a poet,

That can be enough.

The soul of a human

Just pointed

In the direction of the Divine,

That can be more than enough.

I tell you this to remind myself.

Every gesture is an act of creation.

Even empty spaces and silence

Can be the wings and voices of angels.

- Michael Linfante

[Larry Robinson]

Becoming


Nowhere is it the same place as yesterday.
None of us is the same person as yesterday.
We finally die from the exhaustion of becoming.
This downward cellular jubilance is shared
by the wind, bugs, birds, bears and rivers,
and perhaps the black holes in galactic space
where our souls will all be gathered in an invisible
thimble of antimatter. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Yes, trees wear out as the wattles under my chin
grow, the wrinkled hands that tried to strangle
a wife beater in New York City in 1957.
We whirl with the earth, catching our breath
as someone else, our soft brains ill-trained
except to watch ourselves disappear into the distance.
Still, we love to make music of this puzzle.


- Jim Harrison
(1938-2016)

[Larry Robinson]

<tbody>

<tbody>
Would Live In Your Love


</tbody>









<tbody>
I would live in your love as the
sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it
passes, drawn down by each
wave that recedes;
I would empty my soul of the
dreams that have gathered
in me,
I would beat with your heart as
it beats, I would follow your
soul as it leads.


</tbody>







</tbody>
- Sara Teasdale

[Larry Robinson]

Threshold

It has happened.
You thought you had some control
of your life
and that you were in a place
you understood
in a time that moved
from a past you knew
to a future that followed
in a more or less straight line.
But here you are at the edge
of a shore, the shallow waves
washing over your feet
taking the sand you stand on
away and suddenly you wonder
if all the ground beneath you
is disappearing.
You have stepped through the threshold.
The door closed and locked behind you.
You are on the other side.
You try to forget it, distract yourself,
but nothing works.
You check your messages.
The doctor’s office left a number
on your phone.
Is it is a blood test result,
survival rate for treatment,
or days left to live?
Now you are alone.
After the panic subsides you stand there
looking around.
Everything is fresh,
colors are vivid,
you can smell scents,
even subtle ones,
and your hearing is sharp.
You feel the breeze on your skin
and the tickle of hairs moving
across your brow.
You are pierced through
with the inexplicable joy
at having nothing.
[if !supportEmptyParas] [endif]
The sand forms around your foot
and the water wipes out all traces of your path.
Everywhere you turn there is something new
and the space around you
holds you gently
as it spills out and becomes
a part of the expanding world.
So many things are remarkable now.
Here is the freedom that always frightened you.
You have forgotten your name
and it does not matter.

- Newton Smith

[Larry Robinson]

Who By Fire

And who by fire, who by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?
And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche, who by powder,
who for his greed, who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,
who in solitude, who in this mirror,
who by his lady's command, who by his own hand,
who in mortal chains, who in power,
and who shall I say is calling?

- Leonard Cohen

[Larry Robinson]

On the Pulse of Morning


A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow,
I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Facedown in ignorance,
Your mouths spilling words

Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today,
You may stand upon me;
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song. It says,
Come, rest here by my side.

Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.

Come, clad in peace,
And I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the Rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say they Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today.
Come to me,
Here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed-
On traveler, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you,
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede,
The German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
The Italian, the Hungarian, the Pole,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I, the River, I, the Tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes
Upon this day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands,
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space
To place new steps of change
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me,
The Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
And into your brother's face,
Your country,
And say simply
Very simply
With hope--
Good morning.


- Maya Angelou

[Larry Robinson]

Extra, Extra

All hail the yellow flag of spring waving on the earth,
the fields striking light against the bell of the sky
in one triumphant peal announcing revolution.
Sing hail to the marching band in its rows of thousands,
hail to the buds on the branches like droplets of milk
about to bloom in a cup of black tea. Hail breakfast.

All praise to weeds, to fennel, thistle, miner's lettuce,
to foxtail and rattlesnake grass, horseradish, duckweed,
to moss and lichen, to goldenback fern. Praise outlaws.
Praise their persistence and their disregard for safety,
the way they pass through fences as if through open doors.
Praise to the uncountable numbers of their beauty.

And thanks for nothing. Thank you for this embarrassment
of useless gifts, this bright paper covering the box
of earth. Thank you for the fecund grave, the open mouth
of the river in constant, irresponsible flood.
Thanks for all that goes to waste, unasked for, unwanted:
this love, in such profusion, that does not care for us.

- Yosha Bourgea

[Larry Robinson]

On Clergymen Preaching Politics


Indeed, Sir Peter, I could wish, I own,
That parsons would let politics alone;
Plead, if they will, the customary plea,
For such like talk, when o'er the dish of tea:
But when they tease us with it from the pulpit,
I own, Sir Peter, that I cannot help it.


If on their rules a justice should intrench,
And preach, suppose a sermon, from the bench,
Would you not think your brother magistrate
Was a little touched in his hinder pate?
Now which is worse, Sir Peter, on the total
The lay vagary, or the sacerdotal?


In ancient times, when preachers preached indeed
Their sermons, ere the learned learnt to read,
Another spirit, and another life,
Shut the church doors against all party strife:
Since then, how often heard, from sacred rostrums,
The lifeless din of Whig and Tory nostrums!


'Tis wrong, Sir Peter, I insist upon't;
To common sense 'tis plainly an affront:
The parson leaves the Christian in a lurch,
Whene'er he brings his politics to church;
His cant, on either side, if he calls preaching,
The man's wrong-headed, and his brains want bleaching.


Recall the time from conquering William's reign,
And guess the fruits of such a preaching vein:
How oft its nonsense must have veered about,
Just as the politics were in, or out:
The pulpit governed by no gospel data,
But new success still mending old errata.


Were I a king (God bless me) I should hate
My chaplains meddling with affairs of state;
Nor would my subjects, I should think, be fond,
Whenever theirs the Bible went beyond.
How well, methinks, we both should live together,
If these good folks would keep within their tether!


- John Byron

[Larry Robinson]

Anecdote of the Jar


I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was upon the hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.


The wilderness rose up to it,
and sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.


It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.


- Wallace Stevens

[Larry Robinson]

Happiness


In the afternoon I watched
the she-bear; she was looking
for the secret bin of sweetness -
honey, that the bees store
in the trees’ soft caves.
Black block of gloom, she climbed down
tree after tree and shuffled on
through the woods. And then
she found it! The honey-house deep
as heartwood, and dipped into it
among the swarming bees - honey and comb
she lipped and tongued and scooped out
in her black nails, until


maybe she grew full, or sleepy, or maybe
a little drunk, and sticky
down the rugs of her arms,
and began to hum and sway.
I saw her let go of the branches,
I saw her lift her honeyed muzzle
into the leaves, and her thick arms,
as though she would fly -
an enormous bee
all sweetness and wings -
down into the meadows, the perfections
of honeysuckle and roses and clover -
to float and sleep in the sheer nets
swaying from flower to flower
day after shining day.


- Mary Oliver

[Larry Robinson]

Coming Home


The war came home today,
the buddy burned to ashes,
the howling headaches in the night,
the gun beside us in the bed,
the wife and daughter turned to ghosts,
strangers turned to enemies,
the blood upon the theater seats,
children zipped in body bags,
bullets buried in the classroom walls,
plastic flowers where the garden bloomed.
I see the shrapnel of my self
shouting in the silence,
speechless at the party,
sleepless lining up the bottles
in the cabinet
on the counter
in the morning at the curb.
And I come weeping,
my only home destruction,
my only hope a stone.
Beloved come and claim me,
I’ve come home.


- William Johnson Everett

[Larry Robinson]

In an Old Book


In an old book—about a hundred years old—
I found, neglected among the leaves,
a watercolour with no signature.
It must have been the work of a very powerful artist.
It bore the title “Representation of Love.”


But “—of the love of extreme sensualists” would have been
more fitting.


For it was clear as you looked at this work
(the artist’s idea was easily grasped)
that the youth in this portrait wasn’t meant
for those who love in a somewhat wholesome way,
within the limits of what is strictly permitted—
with his chestnut-brown, intensely colored eyes;
with the superior beauty of his face,
the beauty of unusual allures;
with those flawless lips of his that bring
pleasure to the body that it cherishes;
with those flawless limbs of his, made for beds
called shameless by the commonplace morality.


- C.P.Cavafy
(Translated from the Greek by Daniel Mendelsohn)

[Larry Robinson]

three pears in paris
(paring it down)


the poetry lesson


she wrote a poem about three pears
and a tangerine in paris
“it could be pared down”
they suggested
then it came down to
two pears in paris
without the tangerine
“maybe pare it down
a bit more”
they said
(yes, of course she thought)
and then the poem
came down
to just
one
pear.


here is the new pared down poem about the pear.


pear

- Patricia LeBon Herb

[Larry Robinson]

A Buddhist Grace
or What’s Wrong With This Picture?


Somehow I never make it through this prayer:


Potatoes, celery, carrots, onions,
each tenderly coaxed
from soft soil aerated by your hand.
Thank you farmer for your work,
I am connected to you
through this fine stew
unified by its good red burgundy stock.
Thank you vintners and wine makers
for your part in this symphony
conducted with the tang of a bay leaf.


Let’s see—allow me to consider what else
for which to be thankful in my
deep dish of pungent stew—
—ah the succulence of fall-apart beef
nurtured to morseled chunks by your hand,
my cook, my uniter of all components.


Thank you cattle for offering yourselves as sacrifice.
Thank you slaughterhouse workers
wading ankle-deep in blood.
Thank you, those of you with the courage
to impersonally slay.
Thank you to the packers hanging carcasses on hooks.
Thank you for the cutters
who hew beef bodies
as if they were so many grades
and cuts of lumber.
Thank you, all of you, for the intimate part
you play in my meal and my life this day.


- Ed Coletti

[REALnothings]

Interesting poem! Just parenthetically and a bit synchronistically, my wife is currently reading MY YEAR OF MEATS by Ruth Ozeki, a zen teacher as well as author of several novels. This one is about a documentary film-maker's experience of the beef industry in America.

[kpage9]

One of my all-time favorite books--hilarious, poignant, fantastical and real.
kathy


Interesting poem! Just parenthetically and a bit synchronistically, my wife is currently reading MY YEAR OF MEATS by Ruth Ozeki, a zen teacher as well as author of several novels. This one is about a documentary film-maker's experience of the beef industry in America.

[Larry Robinson]

I Was Just Reading A Beautiful Book of Poetry


and I glanced down
at my hand holding that book
and my hand—
it had to have been my hand
because I was the only one there
and I was the one holding the book--
my hand was all ripply
with wrinkles.


Not just a few wrinkles—
dozens, hundreds of wrinkles
more wrinkles than one would imagine
could even fit on a hand
and not even a whole hand
no, just the space between wrist
and thumb that was holding the book
of poems in my hand
the beautiful book of beautiful poems
by Fran Claggett
the beautiful wrinkled old poet
on the cover.


- Lilith Rogers

[Larry Robinson]

Pay Heed to the Magic


Don’t confuse it with illusionhttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2016-04-11_14-39-02.png
magicians’ mischief
the sleight-of-hand that splays the deck of cards
& begs you choose
won’t listen to your longing.


Peer under leaves instead
in early morning light
still drunk with dew.
Trace the snail’s trail
with your finger;
see where it goes.


Catch the eyes of elders
eyes that laugh when mouths turn down
in spite of themselves.
They have seen the magic.
Pay heed to wild mushrooms
springing from a fairy ring.


The world’s alive with synchronicity
there for the taking.
Take what you need
or what you love.
Leave breathless.


- Sandra Anfang

[Larry Robinson]

<tbody>

<tbody>
Belle Isle, 1949


</tbody>


</tbody>



<tbody>

<tbody>
We stripped in the first warm spring night
and ran down into the Detroit River
to baptize ourselves in the brine
of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles,
melted snow. I remember going under
hand in hand with a Polish highschool girl
I’d never seen before, and the cries
our breath made caught at the same time
on the cold, and rising through the layers
of darkness into the final moonless atmosphere
that was this world, the girl breaking
the surface after me and swimming out
on the starless waters towards the lights
of Jefferson Ave. and the stacks
of the old stove factory unwinking.
Turning at last to see no island at all
but a perfect calm dark as far
as there was sight, and then a light
and another riding low out ahead
to bring us home, ore boats maybe, or smokers
walking alone. Back panting
to the gray coarse beach we didn’t dare
fall on, the damp piles of clothes,
and dressing side by side in silence
to go back where we came from.


- Phillip Levine


</tbody>


</tbody>

[Larry Robinson]

From A Window

Incurable and unbelieving
in any truth but the truth of grieving,

I saw a tree inside a tree
rise kaleidoscopically

as if the leaves had livelier ghosts.
I pressed my face as close

to the pane as I could get
to watch that fitful, fluent spirit

that seemed a single being undefined
or countless beings of one mind

haul its strange cohesion
beyond the limits of my vision

over the house heavenwards.
Of course I knew those leaves were birds.

Of course that old tree stood
exactly as it had and would

(but why should it seem fuller now?)
and though a man's mind might endow

even a tree with some excess
of life to which a man seems witness,

that life is not the life of men.
And that is where the joy came in.

- Christian Wiman

[Larry Robinson]

Terza Rima


In this great form, as Dante proved in Hell,
There is no dreadful thing that can't be said
In passing. Here, for instance, one could tell


How our jeep skidded sideways toward the dead
Enemy soldier with the staring eyes,
Bumping a little as it struck his head,


And then flew on, as if towards Paradise.


- Richard Wilbur

[Larry Robinson]

Song of a Second April


April, this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again and butterflies.


There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey woodpecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.


The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively -- only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.


- Edna St. Vincent Millay

[Larry Robinson]

Second Life


My uncourageous life
doesn’t want to go,
doesn’t want to speak,
doesn’t want to carry on,
wants to make its way
through stealth,
wants to assume
the strange and dubious honor
of not being heard.
My uncourageous life
doesn’t want to move
doesn’t even want to stir,
wants to inhabit
a difficult form
of stillness,
to pull everything
into the silence
where the throat strains
but gives no voice.
My uncourageous life
wants to stop
the whole world
and keep it stopped
not only for itself
but for everyone
and everything it knows,
refusing to stir even a single inch
until given an exact
and final destination.
This uncourageous
second life wants to win
some undeserved lottery
so that it can finally
bestow a just and final
reward upon itself.
No, this second life
never wants to write
or speak, or cook
or set the table
or welcome guests
or sit up talking
with a stranger
who might accidentally
set us traveling again.
This second life
doesn’t want
to leave the door,
doesn’t want
to take any path
that works its own
sweet way
through mountains,
doesn’t want
to follow
the beckoning flow
of a distant river
nor meet
the chance weather
where a pass
takes us
from one discovered
world
to another.
This second life
just wants to lie down;
close its eyes
and tell God
it has a headache.
But my other life
my first life,
the life I admire
and want to follow
looks on and listens
with some wonder,
and even extends
a reassuring hand
for the one holding back,
knowing there can be
no real confrontation
without the need
to turn away
and go back
away from it all,
to have things
be different,
and to close our eyes
until they
are different.
No,
this hidden life,
this first courageous life,
seems to speak
from silence
and in the language
of a knowing,
beautiful heartbreak,
above all
it seems to know
well enough
it will have
to give back
everything received
in any form
and even, sometimes,
as it tells the story
of the way ahead,
laughs out loud
in the knowledge.
This first life seems
sure and steadfast
in knowing
it will come across
the help it needs
at every crucial place
and thus continually
sharpens my sense
of impending
revelation.
This first
courageous life
in fact, has already
gone ahead
has nowhere to go
except
out the door
into the clear air
of morning
taking me with it,
nothing to do
except to breathe
while it can,
no way to travel
but with that familiar
pilgrim
movement in the body,
nothing to teach except
to show me
on the long road
how we sometimes
like to walk alone,
open to the silent revelation,
and then stop and gather
and share everything
as dark comes in,
telling the story
of a day’s accidental
beauty.
And perhaps
most intriguingly
and most poignantly
and most fearfully of all
and at the very end
of the long road
it has travelled,
it wants to take me
to a high place
from which to see,
with a view looking back
on the way we took
to get there,
so it can have me
understand myself
as witness
and thus
bequeath me
the way ahead,
so it can teach me
how to invent
my own disappearance
so it can lie down at the end
and show me,
even against my will,
how to undo myself,
how to surpass myself:
how to find
a way
to die
of generosity.
- David Whyte

[Larry Robinson]

Grief will come to you.
Grip and cling all you want,
It makes no difference.


Catastrophe? It's just waiting to happen.
Loss? You can be certain of it.


Flow and swirl of the world.
Carried along as if by a dark current.


All you can do is keep swimming;
All you can do is keep singing.


- Gregory Orr

[Larry Robinson]

Apocalypse


We took what we could before the storm came.
We were still speaking then, our words kinder –
what to pack and how to leave this house behind,
what about the computers and some clothes,
a few toys for the kids, and
who would drive?


I remember the last look at the living room -
its majestic fireplace, blonde wood mantle
industrial bolts at each end, the alpine ceiling,
eastward view of the mountain range.
From the picture window, we saw the escalating chaos,
plumes of smoke and hungry wild eyes.


We moved from side to side
frantic for pockets of air that would save us.
But we were left without breath,
no way to rebuild
even when the ashes cooled.


What did we know of the coming destruction?
We took what we could.
Why did we leave the children behind?


- Jackie Huss Hallerberg

[Larry Robinson]

The Wren of the Heart

In the fragile and crystalline beauty of the sweet summer morning
The wren of the heart becomes visible.
All that soft hopefulness that the world crushes
Is unveiled briefly.

What we have wanted and wished
With childlike simplicity
Flies out towards the simplicity
Of the vulnerable early day.

In that moment of silence
The song of yearning
Sings its single sweet note.

- Jean Norelli

[Larry Robinson]

<tbody>

<tbody>
Dear you: the lights here ask
nothing, the white falling
around my letters silent,
unstoppable. I am writing this
from the empty stomach of sleep


where nothing but the cold
wonders where you’re headed;
nobody here peels heads sour
and cheap as lemon, and only
the car sings AM the whole


night through. In the city,
I have seen children half-
bitten by wind. Even trains
arrive without a soul
to greet them; things do


not need me here, this world
dances on its own. Only bridges
beg for me to make them
famous, to learn what I had
almost forgotten of flying,


of soaring free, south,
down. So long. Xs, Os.


</tbody>


</tbody>


- Kevin Young

<tbody>




</tbody>

[Larry Robinson]

<tbody>
Applying for a poetic license

The line was surprisingly long
The wait - nerve wracking
List credentials:
Classes, check
Workshops, check
MFA, check
Conferences, check
Long dark night of the soul, check

Fill in: Quote the masters
Fill in: quote the hacks
And don’t do that. Ever.

Multiple choice:
How many coffee spoons would you need
To measure your life?
How big was your yawp
For how many hours did you race naked screaming
Down the foggy hills of San Francisco?

Extra credit:
Bad childhood?
Lonely marriage?

Did you get it all, the man behind me asked.
All, I replied
but at the front of the line
The sign clicked over
Like an old clock, new numbers
The fee changed again
& Today, too high
For what remains
In my account.


</tbody>

- Catherine Bramkamp

[Larry Robinson]

Passover


Tell me: how is this night different https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2016-04-22_13-30-54.png
From all other nights?
How, tell me, is this Passover
Different from other Passovers?
Light the lamp, open the door wide
So the pilgrim can come in,
Gentile or Jew;
Under the rags perhaps the prophet is concealed.
Let him enter and sit down with us;
Let him listen, drink, sing and celebrate Passover;
Let him consume the bread of affliction,
The Paschal Lamb, sweet mortar and bitter herbs.
This is the night of differences
In which you lean your elbow on the table,
Since the forbidden becomes prescribed,
Evil is translated into good.

We will spend the night recounting
Far-off events full of wonder,
And because of all the wine
The mountains will skip like rams.
Tonight they exchange questions:
The wise, the godless, the simple-minded and the child.
And time reverses its course,
Today flowing back into yesterday,
Like a river enclosed at its mouth.
Each of us has been a slave in Egypt,
Soaked straw and clay with sweat,
And crossed the sea dry-footed.
You too, stranger.
This year in fear and shame,
Next year in virtue and in justice.

- Primo Levi

[Larry Robinson]

Passover Remembered

Pack nothing.
Bring only your determination to serve
and your willingness to be free.

Don't wait for the bread to ride.
Take nourishment for the journey,
but eat standing,
be ready to move at a moment's notice.

Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind - fear, silence, submission.

Only surrender to the need of the time;
to love justice and walk humbly with your God.

Do not take time to explain to the neighbors.
Tell only a few trusted friends and family members.

Then begin quickly, before you have time to sink back into the old ways.

Set out in the dark.
I will send fire to warm and encourage you.
I will be with you in the fire
and I will be with you in the cloud.

You will learn to eat new food and find refuge in new places.
I will give you dreams in the desert
to guide you safely home to that place
you have not yet seen.

The stories you will tell one another around the fires in the dark
will make you strong and wise.

Outsiders will attack you and some who follow you,
and at times you will get weary
and turn on each other
from fear and fatigue and blind forgetfulness.

You have been preparing for this for hundreds of years.
I am sending you into the wilderness to make a new way
And to learn my ways more deeply.

Some of you will be so changed
by weathers and wanderings
that even your closest friends
will have to learn your features
as though for the first time.
Some of you will not change at all.

Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves
and misunderstood by those
who have known you since birth
and feel abandoned by you.

Some will find new friendship
in unlikely faces, and old friends
as faithful, and true
as the pillar of God's flame.

Sing songs as you go,
and hold close together.
You may at times grow confused
and lose your way.

Continue to call each other
By the names I’ve given you,
To help you remember who you are.
Touch each other and keep telling the stories.

Make maps as you go,
remembering the way back
from before you were born.

So you will be only the first
of many waves of deliverance on these desert seas.
It is the first of many beginnings
your Paschaltide.
Remain true to this mystery.

Pass on the whole story.

Do not go back.

I am with you now
and I am waiting for you.

- Alla Renee Bozarth

[Roland Jacopetti]

A perfect poem for these very difficult times.


Passover Remembered

...

[Larry Robinson]

Our Mother


Our Mother who here is,
holy be all your names,
here be your reign,
your will is done,
heaven takes care of itself.
Give us our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses
a while longer until we learn
not to trespass against one another.
We make our own temptations
and only we can free ourselves from evil.
For yours is the reign,
the power, and the glory
for as long we exist to praise you.
Amen.

- Rafael Jesús González


Madre Nuestra

Madre nuestra que aquí eres,
santos sean todos tus nombres,
aquí es tu reino,
se hace tu voluntad,
el cielo se cuida de si mismo.
Danos nuestro pan de cada día,
y perdona nuestras ofensas
un rato más hasta que aprendamos
a no ofendernos unos a los otros.
Hacemos nuestras propias tentaciones
y sólo nosotros podremos librarnos del mal.
Pues tuyo es el reino,
y el poder y la gloria
por cuanto existamos para alabarte.
Amén.

- Rafael Jesús González

[Larry Robinson]

Dover Beach


The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full,
the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;
on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean,
and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full,
and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.


- Matthew Arnold

[Larry Robinson]

Eagle Feather Fan
The eagle is my power,
And my fan is an eagle.
It is strong and beautiful
In my hand. And it is real.
My fingers hold upon it
As if the beaded handle
Were the twist of bristlecone.
The bones of my hand are fine
And hollow; the fan bears them.
My hand veers in the thin air
Of the summits. All morning
It scuds on the cold currents;
All afternoon it circles
To the singing, to the drums.


- N. Scott Momaday

[Larry Robinson]

Government
Standing next to my old friend
I sense that his soldiers have retreated.
And mine?
They're resting their guns on their shoulders,
Talking quietly.
"I'm hungry," one says.
"Cheeseburger," says another.
And they all decide to go and find some dinner.
But the next day,
negotiating the too narrow aisles at the Health and Harmony Food Store,
when I say, "Excuse me" to the woman and her cart of organic chicken
and green grapes,
she pulls her cart not quite far back enough for me to pass,
and a small mob in me begins to pick up the fruit to throw.
So many kingdoms, and in each kingdom
So many people:
The disinherited son, the corrupt counselor, the courtesan, the fool.
And so many gods arguing among themselves over toast,
through the lunch salad,
and on into the long hours of the mild spring afternoon.
"I'm the god."
"No, I'm the god."
"No, I'm the god!"
I can hardly hear myself over their muttering.
How can I discipline my army?
They're exhausted and want more money.
How can I disarm when my enemies seem so intent?
- Marie Howe

[Larry Robinson]

In Memory of W. B. Yeats
I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2016-04-28_09-40-10.png
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the
Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly
accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his
freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.




III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.


In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;


Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.


Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;


With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;


In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.


- W. H. Auden

[Roland Jacopetti]

Yeats and Auden - - two of the truly greats.

[Larry Robinson]

Hawks

Surely, you too have longed for this -- https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2016-04-29_12-17-06.png
to pour yourself out
on the rising circles of the air
to ride, unthinking,
on the flesh of emptiness.

Can you claim, in your civilized life,
that you have never leaned toward
the headlong dive, the snap of bones,
the chance to be so terrible,
so free from evil, beyond choice?

The air that they are riding
is the same breath as your own.
How could you not remember?
That same swift stillness binds
your cells in balance, rushes
through the pulsing circles of your blood.

Each breath proclaims it --
the flash of feathers, the chance to rest
on such a muscled quietness,
to be in that fierce presence,
wholly wind, wholly wild.

- Lynn Ungar

[Larry Robinson]

Buddha's Dogs


I'm at a day-long meditation retreat, eight hours of watchinghttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2016-04-30_13-39-00.png
my mind with my mind,
and I already fell asleep twice and nearly fell out of my chair,
and it's not even noon yet.

In the morning session, I learned to count my thoughts, ten in
one minute, and the longest
was to leave and go to San Anselmo and shop, then find an
outdoor cafe and order a glass

of Sancerre, smoked trout with roasted potatoes and baby
carrots and a bowl of gazpacho.
But I stayed and learned to name my thoughts, so far they are:
wanting, wanting, wanting,

wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, judgment,
sadness. Don't identify with your
thoughts, the teacher says, you are not your personality, not your
ego-identification,

then he bangs the gong for lunch. Whoever, whatever I am is
given instruction
in the walking meditation and the eating meditation and walks
outside with the other

meditators, and we wobble across the lake like The Night of the
Living Dead.
I meditate slowly, falling over a few times because I kept my
foot in the air too long,

towards a bench, sit slowly down, and slowly eat my sandwich,
noticing the bread,
(sourdough), noticing the taste, (tuna, sourdough), noticing
the smell, (sourdough, tuna),

thanking the sourdough, the tuna, the ocean, the boat, the
fisherman, the field, the grain,
the farmer, the Saran Wrap that kept this food fresh for this
body made of food and desire

and the hope of getting through the rest of this day without
dying of boredom.
Sun then cloud then sun. I notice a maple leaf on my sandwich.
It seems awfully large.

Slowly brushing it away, I feel so sad I can hardly stand it, so I
name my thoughts; they are:
sadness about my mother, judgment about my father, wanting
the child I never had.

I notice I've been chasing the same thoughts like dogs around
the same park most of my life,
notice the leaf tumbling gold to the grass. The gong sounds,
and back in the hall.

I decide to try lying down meditation, and let myself sleep. The
Buddha in my dream is me,
surrounded by dogs wagging their tails, licking my hands.
I wake up

for the forgiveness meditation, the teacher saying, never put
anyone out of your heart,
and the heart opens and knows it won't last and will have to
open again and again,

chasing those dogs around and around in the sun then cloud
then sun.


- Susan Browne

[Larry Robinson]

Surrealist May Day 1984

The workers of the world have united only in going to work, like on any other day when the steelworkers are poured into vats of molten iron, the chemical workers are poisoned, and the auto workers are run over; but outdoors the air breathes the throb of spring's pulse.

People who have not been out all winter have doffed their heavy clothing and carry banners in the street saying, 'Kindness, Please', silent hordes who have never spoken their hearts.

Eagles drop good luck amulets all over the city from their talons. Sitting on a park bench, I try to follow out the lines of my palm into the future, but keep winding up in fog.

There's another parade from the opposite side of town, a parade of heavy-breasted mothers chanting, 'We did our best! ' But following them are dwarves with crystal balls imploring them to search their hearts more deeply.

Orangutans in tuxedos dine at the best restaurants in town, worship at chic liberal chapels, and drive cars on obsessed trails like vicious bloodhounds in order to make dentists' appointments on time.

Hoboes are waking in the parks, beginning to walk. By the time they reach the classiest hotels, they too are magically dressed in tuxedos, and tap-dance in the lobbies. In comes a singing waiter with free horseduerves, crooning in a voice like Caruso, 'After this, you're on your own.'

A conference of Surrealist painters is going to City Hall to confess that they never meant anything by their symbolism. They have voted to ask to be put in jail.

Elvis Presley and James Dean types have run out of cigarettes in their t-shirt sleeves, gotten nervous, and gone to the Neurology floor of the Hospital to see if maybe an operation could make them like everybody else.

From beyond the sea comes an invasion of the Armies of Compassion, about to disembark from their troop carriers on the river, bearing cannons of Love. Their waving banners read, 'Everybody is a Prophet' and 'Flowers Are Banners, Too'. They have wise smiles and deep eyes, and their onrush promises to radically alter the situation.


- Max Reif

[Larry Robinson]

Salt
for my 5th great-grandmother, buried at sea in 1755, first name unknown

I imagine cormorants, black against rinsed sky, fog
a second skin, your hands on the ship's slick rail to steady
yourself against the tide that day you fled. I imagine

your leave-taking, rough unpainted door, hedgerow
of hawthorn in bud, blue song-thrush eggs safe in their nest,
left behind with your idle loom. Ulster's kings of commerce

no longer trade in linen, raised the rent, pressed your life to the margins.
Your family can only imagine freedom and plenty somewhere that is not home.
A rough migration along the curve of the earth leaves the Irish Sea behind,

your ears filled with wind, heaven past the horizon, just out of reach.
I imagine ingots of light igniting the waves as smallpox ignites
your cheeks, your fevered dreams of home, the hawthorn buds, open,

their honeyed scent, a thrush's fluting song, while on this ship,
three children, John, Jacob, Sarah, clutch their father's homespun shirt,
bereft. I imagine a life, a death, your memory a whisper,

nameless. No shroud save your linen apron. No Memento mori
on lichened stone. The salt of fever and tears joins all the unnamed
beneath the waves, your life just so much salt in the wound of the world.


- Susan Lamont

[Larry Robinson]

The Gods of the Millennium


The god of expectations made money like mad, made money like
butter in a churn, poured it out like butter over popcorn,
on the deserving and covetous alike. The god of expectations was
blessed and applauded.

And that was a good year.
The god of approximations made the kingdom almost come.
Granted, There were brush wars, small wars, minor contusions on
the world map. There were bombings on high and sanctions
against expendable children and a general mood of discontent
and 'Get the bustards'.

But still, by and large the sanctuaries were full and the
preachers preached and the collections came in and the
authorities sat straight in the front pews of the national
cathedral. The president entered the bully pulpit to intone an
infallible irrefutable doctrine of bloody tit for tat.

And that was a good year.
The god of contemplation made humans spin like spinning prayer
wheels. Seated on a bed of gold, like a lotus in its native
element, he intoned; you think therefore you are. Think, think.

So they thought and thought and they were and were.
And that was a good year.

The god of Christians staggered up a hill, dragging a plank of
wood heavy as a plowshare. Like a plowshare the plank made a
furrow; from the furrow sprang armed warriors, redundant lives,
talking skulls, disconsolate dragons, teeth on edge, followed
by a multitude of martyrs, clothed in their blood. A girl
named Cassandra brought up the rear, raving into the wind.

That procession? It was of small moment and went all but
unnoticed.

Except for this; with regard to money, war, bully pulpits and
prayer wheels - that was a very bad year.


- Daniel Berrigan
1922-2016

[Larry Robinson]

The Power of the Crone


She enacts and teaches the truth —
embracing the blessing of limitation
she accepts Life’s new gift of freedom,
she discovers her power to choose,
to say a Positive No to the things
she doesn’t want to do —

She focuses on what matters most
in her life, letting go
of the excesses that drain her energies,
she practices tender loving detachment
as she discerns or confirms

Where Home Is
Where She Belongs
What Her Heart’s Desire Is
And What She Cherishes Most

and embraces them
and herself
to the Full.

- Alla Renee Bozarth

[Larry Robinson]

Memory

Climbing through a dark shower
I came to the edge of the mountain

I was a child
and everything was there

the flight of eagles the passage of warriors
watching the valley far below

the wind on the cliff the cold rain blowing upward
from the rock face

everything around me had burned
and I was coming back

walking on charcoal among the low green bushes
wet to the skin and wide awake


- W.S. Merwyn

[Larry Robinson]

On Another's Sorrow


Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear --

And not sit beside the next,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?

And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

He doth give his joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

Oh He gives to us his joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

- William Blake

[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

[REALnothings]

wow, so much said in so few words!

[Larry Robinson]

Looking for Mother


He stands among the white painted racks –
An older man who could be any woman's son.
He is looking for mother in the words and phrases
Penned on the inside of each greeting card.
She is not there.

I wonder – will this be my son
When his time comes to choose?
Will he find me among the Hallmark deities,
Second only to Mary or Mother Teresa?

From what palette of memories
Will he paint my portrait?
Will it be the goodnight hugs, sweet moments of tenderness,
Or sometimes, tears of despair?

Will he select, as this man does,
The blank page on which to write?
Will he remember that I had my own life,
And mother was only one of my names?

- Jackie Huss Hallerberg

[Larry Robinson]

Kaddish for My Mother


Sarah Sarah shtetl child
of peddler Sholem, sheytled Mintzi,
you bore the griefs of history to Brooklyn,
hungry for the taste of liberation
in the cage of a tenement
where you sang your exiled songs.

Sarah of dark curls and heart-shaped face,
what a beauty you were, girl of seventeen
smiling under April blossom trees
with Sam, namesake of your father;
in you he saw the Medina's promised gold.

The litany of your three day labor,
your apocalyptic screams
while Bubbe Sonia muttered in his ear
bad luck to kiss before a birth.

His male hesitation
his fear of uncleanness
The kiss too late.

I was yours, Mother.

Friday sundowns you lit the Sabbath candles,
chanted the prayers with covered head,
cupped fingers beseeching the flame
while I gazed speechless
aching with the sudden beauty that lit the kitchen
to a temple.

Bungalow summers, blackberry picking days,
nights when I lay my head in your lap
feeling your heart beat, your blood flow,
as you sang with the women Yiddish songs
of struggle and yearning.

I'm older now than you would ever be;
sickness stopped your May Day marches
stilled your voice,
stilled your mind.

Sleep now, bride, in the final bed.
Now you are one with your dreams,
perfect, your cells in cosmic silence,
clear and light, an open channel
for the simple forms of nature to pass through
and claim you as their own.

My daughter sings your songs,
keeps the funny dolls you made
with shaky button eyes,
and I, I keep a rain-cap,
travel-kit, gifts you gave,
good for one on a journey.
You knew.

I journeyed to your grave again
sat in the quiet of earth and stones
saw a sparrow land
where you lie as if flying
from the blossom trees of Brooklyn.

- Mara Levine

[Larry Robinson]

The Pact


It was broken before
We arrived, the pact with
Life. Shattered like crystal
Heaved in fearful fury. All our
Lives, we walk across
The sparkling glass
Bleeding out breathing
In the agony of Ages.


How could we know
We came as witnesses?
Our job to see beyond
Even our own cynicism
The pessimism inherited
From millennia and millions.


Our work
Immerse in mourning
Inhale distilled sorrow
Become an alchemist
Convert loss into love.


- Rebecca del Rio

[Larry Robinson]

Leave Me Hidden

I was having trouble deciding
which to watch: Night
of the Living Bloggers, or
Attack of the Neck-Brace People.
In the end I just went for a walk.

In the woods I stopped wondering why
of all trees
this one: my hand
pressed to fissures
and ridges of

bark’s hugely magnified
fingerprint, forehead
resting against it
finally, feeling
distinctly

a heartbeat, vast, silently
booming there deep in
my hidden leaves, blessed
motherworld, personal
underworld, thank you

thank you.

- Franz Wright

[Larry Robinson]

The Stream of Enough


After decades of meandering hither and yon,
like a sleep-deprived pilot with neither destination nor flight plan,
attaching tentatively wherever I landed,
as you learn to do when you grow up with your bags packed,
searching for more,
yearning for more,
sometimes strategically, sometimes artfully,
mostly haphazardly,
I wandered awhile back, almost by chance, into contentment.

I feel settled now,
remembering afresh the sweet dreaminess of being four,
lying on the grass, idling timelessly,
nothing to do, nowhere to go,
staring happily at white clouds floating in a Pennsylvania blue sky,
rowing my mental boat gently down an untroubled stream
for which I have, at long last, found a name:
enough!

- Bill Dickinson

[Larry Robinson]

Care



<tbody>

<tbody>

<tbody>
My 16-month old daughter wakes from her nap
and cries. I pick her up, press her against my chest

and rub her back until my palm warms
like an old family quilt. “Daddy’s here, daddy’s here,”

I whisper. Here is the island of Oʻahu, 8,500 miles
from Syria. But what if Pacific trade winds suddenly

became helicopters? Flames, nails, and shrapnel
indiscriminately barreling towards us? What if shadows

cast against our windows aren’t plumeria
tree branches, but soldiers and terrorists marching

in heat? Would we reach the desperate boats of
the Mediterranean in time? If we did, could I straighten

my legs into a mast, balanced against the pull and drift
of the current? “Daddy’s here, daddy’s here,” I

whisper. But am I strong enough to carry her across
the razor wires of sovereign borders and ethnic

hatred? Am I strong enough to plead: “please, help
us, please, just let us pass, please, we aren’t

suicide bombs.” Am I strong enough to keep walking
even after my feet crack like Halaby pepper fields after

five years of drought, after this drought of humanity.
Trains and buses rock back and forth to detention centers.

Yet what if we didn’t make landfall? What if here
capsized? Could you inflate your body into a buoy

to hold your child above rising waters? “Daddy’s
here, daddy’s here,” I whisper. Drowning is

the last lullaby of the sea. I lay my daughter
onto bed, her breath finally as calm as low tide.

To all the parents who brave the crossing: you and your
children matter. I hope your love will teach the nations

that emit the most carbon and violence that they should,
instead, remit the most compassion. I hope, soon,

the only difference between a legal refugee and
an illegal migrant will be how willing

we are to open our homes, offer refuge, and
carry each other towards the horizon of care.


- Craig Carlos Perez




</tbody>


</tbody>


</tbody>

[Larry Robinson]

Anniversary


The day will come

when you’ll be dead longer
than alive—thankfully

not soon.
There are of course years

long before, without you
breathing—and your years

without me even
an idea. Then there are those

infant months, when I knew
your voice, your bearded

face, not your name—
at least to speak

it aloud. And in the night,
father, I cried out

and in the day—
like now.

- Kevin Young

[Larry Robinson]

Clouds


My brother is a birder.
He has a life list
and when he adds new birds
it’s considered polite
to feign excitement.
And I am excited
for him.


But I’m a cloudspotter.
So far this is a much less
legitimized pasttime.
When I remark on a cool cloud
or a sky phenomenon,
and there are lots—
halos, coronas, glories, sun dogs,
cloud iridescence, virga, fallstreak holes—
cumulus, stratus, cirrus
and their genus and species and varieties—
it tends to make people self-conscious.
Or silent.
Or bored.
Kinda like when I used to
quote Shakespeare to my kids.
They hated it.
Still do.


What’s wrong with Shakespeare?
Doesn’t anybody look up?


One of these days
The Cloud Appreciation Society
will have a meet in the US.
Like minds
who like clouds.
On that day
Earth’s water atmosphere
will get its due.


No frenetic birds flitting from branch to branch,
but slow-moving arabesques
of water vapor and droplets
and ice crystals.


Which remind us
as the stars do at night
that life
is sometimes


miraculous.


- Kerry Lichlyter

[Larry Robinson]

The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundews

An ingenuity too astonishing
to be quite fortuitous is
this bog full of sundews, sphagnum-
lined and shaped like a teacup.

A step
down and you’re into it; a
wilderness swallows you up:
ankle-, then knee-, then midriff-
to-shoulder-deep in wetfooted
understory, an overhead
spruce-tamarack horizon hinting
you’ll never get out of here.

But the sun
among the sundews, down there,
is so bright, an underfoot
webwork of carnivorous rubies,
a star-swarm thick as the gnats
they’re set to catch, delectable
double-faced cockleburs, each
hair-tip a sticky mirror
afire with sunlight, a million
of them and again a million,
each mirror a trap set to
unhand unbelieving,

that either
a First Cause said once, “Let there
be sundews,” and there were, or they’ve
made their way here unaided
other than by that backhand, round-
about refusal to assume responsibility
known as Natural Selection.

But the sun
underfoot is so dazzling
down there among the sundews,
there is so much light
in the cup that, looking,
you start to fall upward.

- Amy Clampitt

[Larry Robinson]

Declaring Peace


Enough. Say it slow, revel in the eff
disguised as a cough, slide on the E
until you give everything you've got
to WHEE; you're free of anything
coming next. No preference, no
acceptance. No next at all. Just
the chasm between that lonely E
and the expansive tangle
of all those letters making one
sound. Enough. Content.
All my masks in insouciant
disarray on the gleaming floor.


- Patrick Woodworth

[Larry Robinson]

<tbody>

<tbody>
Patience Taught by Nature


</tbody>









<tbody>
‘O dreary life,’ we cry, ‘O dreary life!’
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory: O thou God of old,
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.


</tbody>







</tbody>
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[Larry Robinson]

What If We Were Alone?


What if there weren't any stars?
What if only the sun and the earth
circled alone in the sky? What if
no one ever found anything outside
this world right here? -- no Galileo
could say, "Look -- it is out there,
a hint of whether we are everything."


Look out at the stars. Yes -- cold
space. Yes, we are so distant that
the mind goes hollow to think it.
But something is out there. Whatever
our limits, we are led outward. We glimpse
company. Each glittering point of light
beckons: "There is something beyond."


The moon rolls through the trees, rises
from them, and waits. In the river all
night a voice floats from rock
to sandbar, to log. What kind of listening
can follow quietly enough? We bow, and
the voice that falls through the rapids
calls all the rocks by their secret names.


- William Stafford

[Larry Robinson]

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction
VIII

What am I to believe? If the angel in his cloud,
Serenely gazing at the violet abyss,
Plucks on his strings to pluck abysmal glory,

Leaps downward through evening’s revelations, and
On his spredden wings, needs nothing but deep space,
Forgets the gold centre, the golden destiny,

Grows warm in the motionless motion of his flight,
Am I that imagine this angel less satisfied?
Are the wings his, the lapis-haunted air?

Is it he or is it I that experience this?
Is it I then that keep saying there is an hour
Filled with expressible bliss, in which I have

No need, am happy, forget need’s golden hand,
Am satisfied without solacing majesty,
And if there is an hour there is a day,

There is a month, a year, there is a time
In which majesty is a mirror of the self:
I have not but I am and as I am, I am.

These external regions, what do we fill them with
Except reflections, the escapades of death,
Cinderella fulfilling herself beneath the roof?

- Wallace Stevens

[Larry Robinson]

Before You Cut Loose,


put dogs on the list
of difficult things to lose. Those dogs ditched
on the North York Moors or the Sussex Downs
or hurled like bags of sand from rented cars
have followed their noses to market towns
and bounced like balls into their owners’ arms.
I heard one story of a dog that swam
to the English coast from the Isle of Man,
and a dog that carried eggs and bacon
and a morning paper from the village
surfaced umpteen leagues and two years later,
bacon eaten but the eggs unbroken,
newsprint dry as tinder, to the letter.
A dog might wander the width of the map
to bury its head in its owner’s lap,
crawl the last mile to dab a bleeding paw
against its own front door. To die at home,
a dog might walk its four legs to the bone.
You can take off the tag and the collar
but a dog wears one coat and one colour.
A dog got rid of—that’s a dog for life.
No dog howls like a dog kicked out at night.
Try looking a dog like that in the eye.

- Simon Armitage

[Larry Robinson]

Ladies With White Hair Seen From A Second Storey Window

Look down with me,
below, upon the heads of these mares.
Their calling-card to death is silver,
white as bone, grey as going mist.
How can you not love them for their courage
to wear the cap of departure,
wear it anyhow, just like anything?

The clouds upon their napes,
this declaration of what’s to come,
neither waited for, denied, nor bragged,

I with my own white hair
glorify the locks that shall unlock
the curls of snow so soon to melt,
declaring their purchase in advance
of the white graves of heaven, which are also white,
whiter than white, whiter than anything.

- Bruce Moody

[Larry Robinson]

Afternoon in Manhattan

Once upon a book
We walked through your Manhattan
While smoke-scented air
Drew cool in our nostrils
We strolled its wasted streets.

Your hand held mine
And I looked into your face –
“There is a man” you whispered to me,
Pointing with your voice
“With all he owns in that paper sack.”
And I knew you knew, but never how.

We paused before a new brick house
Pressed between buildings of crumbling stone.
“There,” you spoke “is where your great uncle lived,
“But his building was old and torn down.”
And I thought I felt your clear eyes cry
For the lost bricks
For those lost dead bricks that you loved.

On we walked
Through the yellowfaced streets of Chinatown
My Chinatown
With paper fans and parasols
And the odor of food spelling CHOW MEIN
In capital letters in the narrow streets.

All that afternoon we were filled with each other
No street looked dirty,
No building old and worn.
All we knew were each other’s joys
Which mingled with our own.
Then, laughing together we rode the slow train home.

- Nan Fuchs