The Swan

Across the wide waters
something comes
floating--a slim
and delicate

ship, filled
with white flowers--
...

WaccoBB is now CLOSED!

Thanks for willing to create community with me!

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish! :wink:

With Love and Gratitude,
Barry
:waccosun:

A Modest Love


The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,

The fly her spleen, the little sparks their heat;

The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small,

And bees have stings,...

Why I Urge You to Do What You’re Passionate About


When Rilke travelled through Russia
and studied Saint Francis
and fell in love with the married Salomé
and wrote poems for The Book of...

You Darkness


You Darkness, from which I come,
I love you more than all the fires that fence out the world.


Because the fires make a circle of light
so that no one can see you any more.

There Is A Road Always Beckoning



There is a road
always
beckoning.

When you see
the two sides

Chardin's Matter reminds me of Rilke's allusion to Jacob and the Angel:

The Man Watching
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is...

this powerful poem led me to find another lovely one by this great modern Christian mystic;
AND a cool photo of him twirling an umbrella.
...

Hymn to Matter


Blessed be you harsh matter, barren rock; you who yield only
to violence, you who force us to work if we would eat. Blessed
be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untamable...

How to Climb a Mountain


Make no mistake. This will be an exercise in staying vertical.
Yes, there will be a view, later, a wide swath of open sky,
but in the meantime: tree and stone. If...

As You Have Done for Me




There is treasure in you.
Joi Sharp

What will the dead say . . .

to those who mourn the restless souls
who died alone and drowning
hands held by surrogates—

free us from these chains of neglect
and abuse by the many who...

The Facts of Life 


That you were born
and you will die.


That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.

Winter’s Tale


Even from my study at the back
of the house I can hear an orange drop
upstairs, one of the last to grow


on the dwarf tree you bought me
thirty years ago. When it tried

Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light


Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness

Inaugural

We were told that it is dangerous to touch
And yet we journeyed here, where what we believe
Meets what must be done. You want to see, in spite
Of my mask, my face. We imagine, in time...

The Hill We Climb

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.

We braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve...

The Hill We Climb
by Amanda Gorman


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz4YuEvJ3y4Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world, when day comes, we ask...

You've outdone yourself today, Larry old boy!
THANK you!
THANK you, Maya Angelou!
(THIS is what the Silence is saying!
THIS IS our salvation!
This is the cure for all our ills,
I do believe!)...

On the Pulse of Morning




A Rock, A River, A Tree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9nTt2F0Kdc
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens

It's a beautiful thing, isn't it, to see the synching of intentions to both take care of ourselves and each other, community, unfold with some grace. May everyone enjoy a ride in "the stream of...

Thank you, everybody, for your kind words! They have really warmed my heart and given me a sweet afterglow for this endeavor. Big Smile:waccosun:




I am very happy to hear this! I've been in...

In This Place
(An American Lyric)


There’s a poem in this place—

in the footfalls in the halls

in the quiet beat of the seats.

It is here, at the curtain of day,

where America writes a...

The New Horizon




There’s a storm coming
the air changes subtly
something inside
shifts
turns

Quilts


for Sally Sellers

Like a fading piece of cloth
I am a failure


No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter

The Ear That Speaks

I have been a standing self in this world.
I have braved both pleasure and disgust.
I have lived my words.
The stranger appeared and I did not look away.
The crazy youth...

It’s Time


Stop the digging
There is no pony down here
Despite the stink


It’s time to look upward
At the narrow ribbon of sky

If any of you who read my poetry posts would like to receive them in your in-box after the demise of Wacco, you can send me a message at [email protected] and I will add you to the mailing list.
...

Too Many Names




Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays
and the week with the whole year.
Time cannot be cut
with your weary scissors,
and all the names of the day

My Wish For You




I wish you happiness
Each and every day
Mornings filled with pink golden clouds
Laden with unlimited possibilities

Having some involvement with Wacco since its inception and observing its growth and evolution through its time it saddens me to bid adieu. I'll particularly miss the daily poem provided with such...

Trying to Be Thoughtful in the First Brights of Dawn

I am thinking, or trying to think, about all the
imponderables for which we have
no answers, yet endless interest all the
range of our...

Waves, Oceans and Flip-flopping


think of a wave and then also, the ocean,
a young branch and the trunk of a tree,
a spent blossom and the stem of a rose,
a broken heart and an...

In God’s Time

A platitude meant to calm
But what can it mean?


God’s time is geologic,
Susan says. Frustrated wishes and demands tell her this.
She is right.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939

by W.H. Auden


Auden: A poet for our times
by Christopher Hitchens

​I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and...

26-1-1939




When Barcelona fell, the darkened glass
turned in the world and immense ruinous gaze,
mirror of prophecy in a series of mirrors.
I meet it in all the faces that I see.

Burning the Old Year




Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

Navaho Basket:
50795

Waccobb is closing; I'm sure you have all read Barry's post. I want to thank Barry for all the work he put into this site. It was a great contribution to the Sebastopol community.

For those who...

Hozho


And you will see hozho all around you, inside of you.”
This morning she is teaching me the meaning of HOZHO.
It is dawn.
The sun is conquering the sky and my grandmother and I
are...

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2021-01-04_14-32-02.png

The time has come to close the WaccoBB.net website.



Lots of factors have converged to make this the appropriate...

Cento Between the Ending and the End




Sometimes you don’t die


when you’re supposed to

After the crickets
have left for winter quarters
the clock ticks louder

Joyce W. Webb -- American Haiku, Vol. II, No. 2, 1964

I Think That When I Die


I think that when I die,
I can breathe back the breath that made me live.
I can give back to the world all that I didn't do.
All that I might have been and couldn't...

Such a fine first dream . . .
But they laughed at me . . . they said
I had made it up.

Takuchi -- Translated by Peter Beilenson, A Haiku Garland, 1968

In traditional Japan the first dream of...

50776

All of us sitting
At the foot of the world-tree:
First day of the year.

Shirao -- Translated by Robin Gill, 'The Fifth Season', edited by Jim Wilson

A year of loss and chaos draws to a close.

Stories from a thousand cultures remind us that the cosmos is born - and reborn again and again - from chaos.

We have passed the darkest night of...

I won't miss this year --
Perhaps its gifts will appear
A decade from now.

Jim Wilson -- December 2020