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Yes
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out—no guarantees in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now,
like noon,
like evening.
William Stafford
Source: Passwords
"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts." - Wendell Berry
Sacrifice
Can you feel that straining
Open the eyes within your eyes
Every particle of this and that
The leaves and cigarette butts and
The pavement
Just trying to keep themselves intact
Just trying to stay beautiful
For you
Fuchsia concentration is required
To assume that same and pleasant form
So that
If every piece were to take even one breath
They would scatter
And expand
All becoming all, signifying nothing
To us
Those delicate forms
Who break
And rearrange
Ourselves
And burn up in the friction
Standing still, ancient trees watch us pass.
As mothers
watching children weep must abstain from their own tears,
They are resolute in their suffering
Crying out
In silence
"we must hold on"
- Khalil Laltoo
In a Neighborhood in Los Angeles
I learned
Spanish
from my grandma
mijito
don’t cry
she’d tell me
on the mornings
my parents
would leave
to work
at the fish
canneries
my grandma
would chat
with chairs
sing them
old
songs
dance
waltzes with them
in the kitchen
when she’d say
niño barrigón
she’d laugh
with my grandma
I learned
to count clouds
to recognize
mint leaves
in flowerpots
my grandma
wore moons
on her dress
Mexico’s mountains
deserts
ocean
in her eyes
I’d see them
in her braids
I’d touch them
in her voice
smell them
one day
I was told:
she went far away
but still
I feel her
with me
whispering
in my ear:
mojito
- Francisco X. Alarcón
(translated by Francisco Aragon)
En un barrio de Los Ángeles
el español
lo aprendí
de mi abuela
mijito
no llores
me decía
en las mañanas
cuando salían
mis padres
a trabajar
en las canerías
de pescado
mi abuela
platicaba
con las sillas
les cantaba
canciones
antiguas
les bailaba
valses en
la cocina
cuando decía
niño barrigón
se reía
con mi abuela
aprendí
a contar nubes
a reconocer
en las macetas
la yerbabuena
mi abuela
llevaba lunas
en el vestido
la montaña
el desierto
el mar de México
en sus ojos
yo los veía
en sus trenzas
yo los tocaba
con su voz
yo los olía
un día
me dijeron:
se fue muy lejos
pero yo aún
la siento
conmigo
diciéndome
quedito al oído:
mijito
What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—
something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.
The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.
- Brad Aaron Modlin
Thank you... this one hit some deep place, where the real assignments were meted out. Like the one to watch the yellow jacket circle the piece of chicken we left out for him, and finally get lift off, but not be able to lift off high enough to fly back to the others. Circling lower and lower until he was down on the dirt. How that piece of chicken took him down. How he went down rather than let go. Seeing ants begin to gather and reach out and pull. And the other yellow jacket coming in, finding and circling round the downed one, his brother or his cousin, seeing him tugged on by ants. The ants, a line to the scene and a line away, and a cluster in motion around the downed yellow jacket, getting the right grip for pulling. His brother cousin still coming in, circling, crying out...
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart
How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.
- Jack Gilbert
The One Thing That Can Save America
Is anything central?
Orchards flung out on the land,
Urban forests, rustic plantations, knee-high hills?
Are place names central?
Elm Grove, Adcock Corner, Story Book Farm?
As they concur with a rush at eye level
Beating themselves into eyes which have had enough
Thank you, no more thank you.
And they come on like scenery mingled with darkness
The damp plains, overgrown suburbs,
Places of known civic pride, of civil obscurity.
These are connected to my version of America
But the juice is elsewhere.
This morning as I walked out of your room
After breakfast crosshatched with
Backward and forward glances, backward into light,
Forward into unfamiliar light,
Was it our doing, and was it
The material, the lumber of life, or of lives
We were measuring, counting?
A mood soon to be forgotten
In crossed girders of light, cool downtown shadow
In this morning that has seized us again?
I know that I braid too much on my own
Snapped-off perceptions of things as they come to me.
They are private and always will be.
Where then are the private turns of event
Destined to bloom later like golden chimes
Released over a city from a highest tower?
The quirky things that happen to me, and I tell you,
And you know instantly what I mean?
What remote orchard reached by winding roads
Hides them? Where are these roots?
It is the lumps and trials
That tell us whether we shall be known
And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.
All the rest is waiting
For a letter that never arrives,
Day after day, the exasperation
Until finally you have ripped it open not knowing what it is,
The two envelope halves lying on a plate.
The message was wise, and seemingly
Dictated a long time ago, but its time has still
Not arrived, telling of danger, and the mostly limited
Steps that can be taken against danger
Now and in the future, in cool yards,
In quiet small houses in the country,
Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets.
- John Ashbery
Eve
In our mythology, our literature, our world,
There is at least one woman
Who never experienced the loss of her mother.
And that would be Eve.
I say “at least” because
The same would be true of Lilith.
But, that’s another story, more hidden,
And not Official, as it were.
Not just the loss.
The experience of a mother.
Our unconscious memories of womb,
Our infant’s recollection of face.
To say nothing of how she fed us,
Raised us, taught us, created us.
As we flailed through adolescence,
Repeating her own personal mistakes.
Our rebellion and disavowal,
Our rejections of her, her life experience.
How it all came together, one way or another,
And we finally saw her, the woman that she is.
Perhaps too late? Or maybe not?
But, Eve never knew her mother,
Never had a mother, any mother.
She was the only one, the only woman.
Imagine having to figure that out
On your own. No one before you
To tell you it was normal, alas.
And tell you to be proud of what you are.
No wonder she wanted out!
- Jon Jackson
Forgiveness Is the Cash
Forgiveness
Is the cash you need.
All the other kinds of silver really buy
Just strange things.
Everything has its music.
Everything has genes of God inside.
But learn from those courageous addicted lovers
Of glands and opium and gold –
Look,
They cannot jump high or laugh long
When they are whirling.
And the moon and the stars become sad
When their tender light is used for
Night wars.
Forgiveness is part of the treasure you need
To craft your falcon wings
And return
To your true realm of
Divine freedom.
- Hafiz
(translation by Daniel Ladinsky)
Creighton Ridge Fire-Cazadero
August, 1978
Wednesday was hot, and so we thought we'd go to Goat Rock
Me and Laurie and the kids were in the van
But we looked back along the ridge and it was burning
We grabbed our back pumps and our boots and then we ran
Up Creighton Ridge to fight the fire a-comin' towards us
Comin' faster, spreading' farther than we could
The day we hoped we'd never see was all around us
But we’ve got strength enough to do the things we should
- Sara Scott
Dear poetry lovers,
I have been hiking in the Himalayas for the past week, out of internet range but acutely aware of the suffering of my Sonoma County community from the fires devastating our region. Before I left for the mountains I learned that many friends had lost their homes and others had been ordered to evacuate not knowing if they would have homes to return to.
I offer this poem by John O' Donohue as medicine for all my friends and neighbors whose lives have been touched by this tragedy.
Larry
For Courage
When the light around you lessens
And your thoughts darken until
Your body feels fear turn
Cold as a stone inside,
When you find yourself bereft
Of any belief in yourself
And all you unknowingly
Leaned on has fallen,
When one voice commands
Your whole heart,
And it is raven dark,
Steady yourself and see
That is your own thinking
That darkens your world,
Search and you will find
A diamond-thought of light,
Know that you are not alone
And that this darkness has purpose;
Gradually it will school your eyes
To find the one gift your life requires
Hidden within this night-corner.
Invoke the learning
Of every suffering
You have suffered.
Close your eyes.
Gather all the kindling
About your heart
To create one spark.
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark
Of its weight of festered fear.
A new confidence will come alive
To urge you toward higher ground
Where your imagination
Will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!
-John O'Donohue
"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts." - Wendell Berry
Kunzang Ahor, a 13 century Buddha in honor of Larry Robinson. —Ronaldo
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
After the Seventh Night of the Northern California Wildfires
For seven nights there were no stars, only sky
muted by smoke. On the first night, the dry bones
of the past rattled the eaves of valley oaks
on the hillside. Then, raging, hot-throated wind stirred
and sparked flames. Until the mountain
cracked open: red-lava heart pouring down.
A man or a woman is most alone
when he or she looks at the moon stained red,
at the hillside glowing hot as a stoked furnace.
Every house feels to be a single cell
of the same beast: fragile and ignitable.
And the days drift on – safety looming off
horizon, a far-off ship. But so long
as we can see far enough we never tire.
- Iris Dunkle
Fire Poem
A piece of paper
Drifted down
From the sky
Amidst the ash and dirt.
The paper was part of a dictionary.
It landed by the sanctuary door.
The words defined were
Tempest
And
Temple
And so it was,
From the tempest to the temple
From the storm of fire to the sanctuary
And on the edge of the page
Partially charred
The word
Temporary…
Scattered over rooms and fields
The pieces of my life
Are not to be gathered
“Take your valuables,” they say.
They are scattered
They cannot be gathered.
Ceaseless roaming
Scattered memories
Can all of what I care about
Fit on this memory stick?
- Barbara Hirschfield
Hope haiku
A bird
A bit of burnt string in her beak
Weaves a smoldering nest.
C.Dec 2017
Night Without Sleep
The world's as the world is; the nations rearm and prepare to change; the age of tyrants returns;
The greatest civilization that ever existed builds itself higher towers on breaking foundations.
Recurrent episodes; they were determined when the ape's children first ran in packs, chipped flint to an edge.
I lie and hear dark rain beat the roof, and the blind wind.
In the morning
perhaps I shall find strength again
to value the immense beauty of this time of the world, the flowers of decay
their pitiful loveliness, the fever dream
tapestries that back the drama and are called the future.
This ebb of vitality feels the ignoble and cruel
Incidents, not the vast abstract order.
I lie and hear dark rain beat the
roof, and the night-blind wind.
In the Ventana country darkness and rain and the roar of waters fill the
deep mountain throats.
The creekside shelf of sand where we lay last August under a slip of stars
And firelight played on the leaning gorge-walls, is drowned and lost. The
deer of the country huddle on a ridge
In a close herd under madrone-trees; they tremble when a rock-slide goes
down, they open great darkness-
Drinking eyes and press closer.
Cataracts of rock
Rain down the mountain from cliff to cliff and torment the stream-bed.
The stream deals with them. The laurels are wounded.
Redwoods go down with their earth and lie thwart the gorge. I hear the
torrent boulders battering each other,
I feel the flesh of the mountain move on its bones in the wet darkness.
Is this more beautiful
Than man's disasters? These wounds will heal in their time; so will
humanity's. This is more beautiful...at night...
- Robinson Jeffers
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Mourning
That other fire started from a love letter
an irate forest service worker
whose passion got the best of her
in a CO campground with woodpeckers digging for worms a hawk
wheeling above some scattered stars.
This might have been a kiss from the earth
a wake-up call, to evacuate our ways
to get out of those metal boxes heating up atmosphere and oceans, if
only we don’t hang up pretend it’s an aberration, if only
we’d sit up and listen to the crackle, like so many, fleeing for their lives.
How far can a crisis extend before ash turns to
blackened dust in our hands and we forget
what’s at stake? Eyes sting, throat raw, the lungs
thick with days of smoke. Animals and people, gone.
Homes full of photo albums, junk drawers, rubber bands, gone. Streets,
hotels, lampposts, businesses, gone.
Where will they sleep, in a county with a 1% vacancy rate before the
calamity, this place within but not outside, that has no name,
no residence, no country?
This is our Syria, our war zone, racing from smoke and flames, waking up
at 3am to check
evacuation updates, fire containment, no power, boiling water, trying to
locate friends and family, those who couldn’t run, elders on stretchers,
glued to the radio, shelters overflowing. The language of disaster, a
vocabulary none of us
knew how to fit in our mouths, now rolling out fluently, like the masks
covering our faces, ubiquitous, as if we have
forgotten how to breathe in a world un-dominated by chaos.
For hours at the shelter, I sort clothes, and toiletries,
box them up, bring them in, go back for more.
Trucks with supplies stop and unload: shoes, sun hats, diapers,
hand sanitizer, shampoo, underwear, towels, soap. Generosity opens up my
lungs,
smoke closes them down. Grief and love, excitement
and fear live in the same part of the brain, she says
the heart burns up into tiny scraps and the only salve is
more giving and this gratitude of breathing
from sink to desk, back to phone, aimless, unmoored, wandering in
unfamiliar territory
the body exhausted
these people, my community,
suffering.
- Claire Drucker
beautiful...thank you
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
For A New Beginning
In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
- John O’Donohue
Ordinary Heartbreak
She climbs easily on the box
That seats her above the swivel chair
At adult height, crosses her legs, left ankle over right,
Smooths the plastic apron over her lap
While the beautician lifts her ponytail and laughs,
"This is coarse as a horse's tail."
And then as if that's all there is to say,
The woman at once whacks off and tosses
its foot and a half into the trash.
And the little girl who didn't want her hair cut,
But long ago learned successfully how not to say
What it is she wants,
Who, even at this minute cannot quite grasp
her shock and grief,
Is getting her hair cut. "For convenience," her mother put it.
The long waves gone that had been evidence at night,
When loosened from their clasp,
She might secretly be a princess.
Rather than cry out, she grips her own wrist
And looks to her mother in the mirror.
But her mother is too polite, or too reserved,
So the girl herself takes up indifference,
While pain follows a hidden channel to a deep place
Almost unknown in her,
Convinced as she is, that her own emotions are not the ones
her life depends on,
She shifts her gaze from her mother's face
Back to the haircut now,
So steadily as if this short-haired child were someone else.
- David Levine
Falling
In these awe-filled days of fire and flood
We watch and wait and wonder
When that fierce hand
Might reach at last for us.
Those of us not yet touched by calamity
Quake, knowing in our bones
That though we may be spared
This time, time will level us all.
No magic amulets, no prayers,
Good deeds or good looks
Can promise protection
From our terminal condition.
And those who have watched a child
Swept forever from our arms
Or fled the flames that swallowed
Our hopes and our memories
Or hid from the bombs
Or the predator’s gaze
Know that nothing now will ever be the same -
As if anything ever were.
For all of us are falling
Like ashes, like rain,
Like petals or leaves;
But we all are falling together.
And if we knew, in truth,
There was nowhere to land,
Tell me: could we know the difference
Between falling and flying?
- Larry Robinson
Very fine! Very much appreciated! In my opinion, an iconic poem for our time. One of those poems that gets inside me and reveals some of my private train of thought! I will share this onward (giving proper credit, of course)
:heart:
In Blackwater Woods
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things;
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it’
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
- Mary Oliver
God Bless The Grass
God bless the grass that grows thru the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru,
And God bless the grass
.
God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies up over it and think that it is done.
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
And God bless the grass.
God bless the grass that grows through cement.
It's green and it's tender and it's easily bent.
But after a while it lifts up its head,
For the grass is living and the stone is dead,
And God bless the grass.
God bless the grass that's gentle and low,
Its roots they are deep and its will is to grow.
And God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the wild grass growing at the poor man's door,
And God bless the grass.
- Malvina Reynolds
Scrolling back through days of poems, I discovered what I'd missed... For Courage hit deep and fit, moved me to tears and fired another solid moment of courage moving it from belly through heart and throat. Bless all the reminders, as hard as they hit us, of why we stay, to remember it's the fire that gets us moving in the direction of what's true.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Ronaldo:Kunzang Ahor, a 13 century Buddha in honor of Larry Robinson. —Ronaldo
The Words
white hot and insufficient
continue to fly the words fly
from the corners of
forgotten
not-forgotten houses the
words
flame red and inconsistent
insist
on being said the words
insist on resolutions
vaguely made
sometime last … do you remember?
that fall flat
jet black
and incandescent the words
refuse to be
lifted
refuse our reasons refuse to be used
the words fail us fail me fail October
yet everyone is talking about the fire
my seven-year-old quietly says
- Amy Elizabeth Robinson
Choosing A Dog
"It's love," they say. You touch
the right one and a whole half of the universe
wakes up, a new half.
Some people never find
that half, or they neglect it or trade it
for money or success and it dies.
The faces of big dogs tell, over the years,
that size is a burden: you enjoy it for awhile
but then maintenance gets to you.
When I get old I think I'll keep, not a little
dog, but a serious dog,
for the casual, drop-in criminal —
My kind of dog, unimpressed by
dress or manner, just knowing
what's really there by the smell.
Your good dogs, some things that they hear
they don't really want you to know —
it's too grim or ethereal.
And sometimes when they look in the fire
they see time going on and someone alone,
but they don't say anything.
- William Stafford
Ash Mothers
We travel on the wings
of the wind. We cover
you. Part of us flies.
Part falls. You cannot
Ignore us. We come
From the soul of fire.
We are the remains
Of your civilization,
Of your obsession
With the material.
You cannot shoo us
Away like you would
A buzzing whirring
Annoying yellow jacket.
We are all over you
And inside you now.
We are white. We
Are grey as elders.
We are the particulate
Of what you thought
You owned, possessed.
You touch us and we
Cling to you insisting
You remember Earth
Is home to all of us
Not a burned house.
We are flying. We are
Falling from the winds of
Caprice in the ever arching
Smoke. We make it hard for
Any one to see. You must
Look with your third eyes
Into the worlds of Spirit.
We infiltrate eyes, lungs
With the toxicity you have
Let loose upon our Earth.
We make it hard to breathe.
All the creatures feel the weight
Of us although we are so light.
The earthly beings sneeze
And wheeze. We are the
Remains of the fires. We
Travel on fickle winds, reminding
You we are all connected. We
Cover your cars, your windows,
Your benches, your plans, your hopes,
Your dreams. We are Star Dust. We are
Called your Ash Mothers. You can write
Your life and death on essence. You can
Choke on our redeeming power. You have
No choice but to touch us and receive
Our path. Follow us. We are returning
You to your beginnings. We are taking
You to your endings. We are all the Earth.
You think we are disposable. We are that
Of which you were created and to which
You shall return. We cannot be undone.
We cover you with the essence of all
That has been incinerated. We are what
Remains of the humans, the animals
Fleeing the fires, of the insects humming,
Birds singing, flowers blooming, grass
Waving, coyotes howling, pumas lurking.
We are telling you be ready. Admit we
Are witnesses bound together in grief,
fallen from the sky, blanketed with love,
Landing on Earth, signalling rebirth.
- Patria Brown
Fire On The Hills
The deer were bounding like blown leaves
Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brushfire;
I thought of the smaller lives that were caught.
Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror
Of the deer was beautiful; and when I returned
Down the black slopes after the fire had gone by, an eagle
Was perched on the jag of a burnt pine,
Insolent and gorged, cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders.
He had come from far off for good hunting
With fire for his beater to drive the game; the sky was merciless
Blue and the hills merciless black,
The somber-feathered great bird sleepily merciless between them.
I thought, painfully, but the whole mind,
The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy.
- Robinson Jeffers
When I Thought My House Would Burn
When I thought
It would burn, my house
Would certainly join the
Fire, become fuel
Like so many others
I imagined those papers
Settled in deep boxes
Slumbering in a storm
And I was grateful
I’d have no chore to undertake,
No decisions to make.
I imagined the roof, flat
And sieve-like allowing
Fire, like winter rains, to pour
In and mercifully
Choose what goes, what
If anything, stays.
I imagined books, photos,
Paintings surrounded and
Surrendered to the insatiable
Appetite of destruction, so like
My appetite for acquisition
That leaves little to imagine,
To fill with emptiness.
Two years ago, I sifted
Through years
Of greeting cards Rich
Could not part with until
He parted with his life
And left behind treasure
Of no meaning to others.
Returning home, I saw
My own small history,
Quietly cluttering corners
Swallowing the present.
Like fire, I swept through
Drawers and cupboards,
Clearing away the moments,
The mementos of times
Lived and asking remembrance.
When I thought my house
Had burned, was burning
As I climbed out of Paro’s
Narrow valley towards Tiger’s Nest
I carried, not birthday cards,
Not books or grandmother’s quilts and paintings,
But the rabbits and squirrels,
The pumas and skunks, deer
And trees, tucked in my heart.
I knew then what I loved.
I know now what I will
Carry when, like others
Before me, I flee this life
For the unknown, fires
Of living fading behind me.
- Rebecca del Rio