Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

HOW TO GO TO THE WOODS

Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend,
for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable

I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying,
as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unbearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.

Mary Oliver

Why Then Do We Not Despair?


Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?


By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
At night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.


And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses --
Something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.

- Anna Akhmatova

needed this one today, thanks...it helped me get out of......despair..

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

Why Then Do We Not Despair?


Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?


By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
At night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.


And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses --
Something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.

- Anna Akhmatova

---

The Spiral Stairway


The spiral stairway
went nowhere,
though it once went
from ground floor to
second floor before
the wild fires that
taught them what
wild really felt like,
what fire really looked like,
when they evacuated
in the night, managed to
take only their cat,
her computer
and their car which took them
beyond the flames in the
forest bright
brought them to safety and the
memory of that spiral stairway
that conveyed them up and down
for decades with cat, with
computer and the sounds of the
forest now stilled by the fury
of the fire.


- Jonah Raskin

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

Lovely poem, Larry. I'm pretty sure you meant to type "mijito" for the last word of the English translation, not "mojito" which is an alcoholic beverage. :-)

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

In a Neighborhood in Los Angeles...
mijito

---

The Gates of Hope


Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.

Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of
“Everything is gonna’ be all right.”

But a different, sometimes lonely place,
The place of truth-telling,
About your own soul first of all and its condition.
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
As it will be;

The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,
But the joy of the struggle.
And we stand there, beckoning and calling,
Telling people what we are seeing
Asking people what they see.

- Victoria Safford

Advice from a Five Year Old

Audra asks my dog’s middle name.
I say it’s Super Star. She says,

“What’s her last name?”
I say it’s Wing, like me.

She spins twice on one sneakered toe,
says she likes my wedding ring.

She asks, “What’s her name?”
a chin nod towards the woman last

at my side. “That’s Sabrina, my wife.
But our last names are not the same.”

She twists one long strand of hair.
“Are you a boy?” I say no.

“Is she a boy?” I say no again.
Her face pulls into a puzzle.

“Then how can she be your wife?”
I say a girl can marry a girl.

Her shoulders reach to her ears,
eyes wide. “That’s crazy!”

I say, “A girl can marry a girl,
or a boy can marry a boy.”

She rocks, heel to toe, heel
to toe. She says, “My dad

said I have to marry a boy.”
I shrug, say, “It’s up to you.

Boy or girl.” She twists the fabric
of her t-shirt at the belly, thinking,

then announces she is hungry,
makes her way to the buffet table.

Audra returns with a plate of cut-up
pears, apples, peaches, sits down

again at my side. She says,
“Your wife helped me.” I lift my

hat to rub my head. She drops her
fork. “You don’t have any hair!”

I tell her I shaved it off. “Does your
wife have hair?” Yes, yes she does,

I say. It’s just short, under her cap.
She says, “I want to keep mine.”

That’s fine, I say. It looks nice.
She finishes her fruit, then turns,

brows knit tight. “I don’t think
you should shave your dog.”

- Michele Wing

(Recently published in Manzano Mountain Review)

You Learn

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth…

And you learn and learn…

With every good-bye you learn.

- Jorge Borges

Before The Election

I am trying to recall those
Hope filled times when the lilacs
Knew exactly when to blossom
And the figs always produced
In the same months
I count on those like my grandmother’s
Gentle voice or my mother’s sturdy hands
When we knew we would be safe
Even after that terrible earthquake
When the chimney bricks tumbled down
Even when a father’s anger could make
The whole house crumble
I could still cry out and someone
would touch my cheek
I am trying to recall
When civility mattered
When our leaders were dignified
When the entire house of a nation felt safe
Even after terrible fires, floods and shootings
When tragedy stirred up a mighty compassion
I am trying to recall those
Times when we could lie out exposed
All day warming ourselves in the truth of a sun
My underbelly safe atop
A large solid boulder
Overlooking the precipice
Just ahead.

- Kristy Hellum

Pray for Peace

Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah, raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, Record Keeper
of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Bow down
to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Pray to the bus driver who takes you to work,
pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus
and for everyone riding buses all over the world.
If you haven't been on a bus in a long time,
climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already a prayer.
Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile case we are poured into,
each caress a season of peace.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.
Pray to the angels and the ghost of your grandfather.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves
we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas, pray for peace.

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust
of prayer, scoop your prayer water from the gutter.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

- Ellen Bass

Obituary

Tim Hicks died expectedly at some moment in the future
not yet determined but certain.
He died at the center of the universe
surrounded by everyone and everything.
He died as he lived, apologetic for his inadequacies,
proud of his uncertainties, and
very appreciative of the opportunity.

The cause of death was living,
worn out before his time by time,
unfortunately.
There was so much more he wished to do.

Among his accomplishments were surviving and
occasional laughter, over-serious as he was.
He built several gardens and was on his way
to mastering happiness, if only he’d had a bit
more time.

He is survived by the rest of the world that
follows him as reluctantly as he followed the others,
and by those few who taught him patiently about the
meaning of love, his children especially, who knew him well
and partially, and his dear sweet partners, who chose
to travel with him, for better and for worse.
He was a slow student, but diligent and well-meaning.

Services will be held somewhere. In lieu of flowers,
memorial thoughts of wonder may be offered up.

- Tim Hicks

45 Years of My Words Away

So how do I write about something
that took 45 years of my words & art away?

Journals, articles, poems, drawings, paintings, manuscripts,
travel sketches, a library & research files, every letter
and post card from the three kids, Margaret, family friends.

A goldrush mine of memory
that I wanted to dig into in retirement
to shovel, rake, sift, pan and separate
all the nuggets from the general debris.

After the fire
only the rammed earth adobe walls
still standing.

Everything else melted or
bent or pulverized into
soft fine ash.

Even the half dozen
cords of wood
in the open field
that were chain sawed, split, stacked
neatly in geometric rows

patiently waiting through
the drought-dried summer simmering heat
to perform their duty
in the Vermont Casting wood stove

as soon as the first beautiful
silver frost wolves of winter
came running down
the slopes
of the Sierra

now sit
but a handful
of delicate fine ash.

The power of the flame
to totally dissolve
a refrigerator,
liquify glass
and melt machines.

All those hundreds of hours
spent getting beyond clearance
with the undergrowth
inching my way through
oak, manzanita, cedar, pine,
miners' misery, poison oak, star thistle

Now beyond - beyond clearance.

Every nook, valley, slope, hill
creek, drainage on the acreage

nakedly exposed
beyond all my years
of intimacy with them.

There were some ghost books
that lay on their backs,
binders spread open,
at a hundred and eighty degrees

an accordion of pages
eerily beckoning
to be picked up
and played
one last time

collapsing with their final breath
when delicately touched
by a finger cautiously seeking
that final secretive tale.

Somehow family history
still clung to the walls
reminding me of archeological sites
I visited around the world.

I first thought
of leaving the walls
to be buried
by moss, lichens, vines

a new forest monument
to my family living
for a short period together
at the edge of the grid
my mother's ashes
spread around the property
weaving a genetic thread
from the Old World to the New.

When Margaret and I drove back the first time
and got out of the car., both of us thought
one of us whispered , The silence - it's so quiet here.

Unimaginably quiet
beyond the cherished silence
that had nurtured us
all these years.

No tracks of squirrel, skunk, raccoon, bear, coyote,
mountain lion, wild turkey, wild pig, dog, cat.

No bird. Songs.

One set-one set
out of dozens before
of deer tracks
clearly imprinted
in the ash-sealed road.

Of course,
the walls did have to come down
the land did have to be cleared

leaving an open, empty field.

A haunted forest?

Or, a fresh, new
field of dreams?

Yet to be written.

- Conrad Levasseur

Song: The Kiss

We were walking through
A department store in Paris,
Escaping the rain,
The sort of French rain
That changes in intensity
If you look at it,
Then changes back if you don't.
You went to lingerie,
And I to electronics,
And then we met again. It was there
That you noticed them, in furnishings,
Relaxing on a couch, his arm
Draped around her shoulder.
She pecked him on the cheek.
He didn't seem to notice.
Practicing for marriage,
You said, a bit too wryly
I thought, then stared at them
With You. He was pompadoured,
Italian, rough and beautiful,
With muscles so prominent
They seemed to be tattooed,
And you must have felt a twinge
Moving up your throat
To your face, for it settled
Into a smile, half adoration,
Half resignation. And she, Italianate,
Shapely as that ivory statue
Pygmalian called "my virgin beauty,"
With hair so long and black
I could almost see myself
Reflected in it, and behind me
You watching me watching
Her small breasts move
Beneath her black t-shirt.
Then on we went, you to where
The silk scarves were,
All the rage that year,
And I to toys to see
What passed for toys those days,
And then we met again,
By the escalator, and out
The revolving doors we went,
Hand in hand, for this was Paris,
Where even the middle-aged
Will behave like young lovers
In the rain, waiting for bad weather
To bring them to their youth again.
And there they were, standing
In the rain that hadn't changed
For an hour. They were kissing,
Their tongues wrestling
In that eternal battle
No one wins or loses.
His hand was on her breast,
Cupping it; her hand on top of his,
As if to keep it there forever
Were a commitment they'd just now taken on.
And you said, laughing,
If you let me kiss him
I'll let you kiss her!
Then we set out again,
Hand in hand, thirty years married,
Across the busy Seine,
And then I was the one laughing,
And you, I thought for a moment
You were crying,
But it was only the rain in Paris,
Relentless and unchanging.

- Steve Orlen

The Curator

We thought it would come, we thought the Germans would come,
were almost certain they would. I was thirty-two,
the youngest assistant curator in the country.
I had some good ideas in those days.

Well, what we did was this. We had boxes
precisely built to every size of canvas.
We put the boxes in the basement and waited.

When word came that the Germans were coming in,
we got each painting put in the proper box
and out of Leningrad in less than a week.
They were stored somewhere in southern Russia.

But what we did, you see, besides the boxes
waiting in the basement, which was fine,
a grand idea, you’ll agree, and it saved the art—
but what we did was leave the frames hanging,
so after the war it would be a simple thing
to put the paintings back where they belonged.

Nothing will seem surprised or sad again
compared to those imperious, vacant frames.

Well, the staff stayed on to clean the rubble
after the daily bombardments. We didn’t dream—
You know it lasted nine hundred days.
Much of the roof was lost and snow would lie
sometimes a foot deep on this very floor,
but the walls stood firm and hardly a frame fell.

Here is the story, now, that I want to tell you.
Early one day, a dark December morning,
we came on three young soldiers waiting outside,
pacing and swinging their arms against the cold.
They told us this: in three homes far from here
all dreamed of one day coming to Leningrad
to see the Hermitage, as they supposed
every Soviet citizen dreamed of doing.
Now they had been sent to defend the city,
a turn of fortune the three could hardly believe.

I had to tell them there was nothing to see
but hundreds and hundreds of frames where the paintings had hung.

“Please, sir,” one of them said, “let us see them.”

And so we did. It didn’t seem any stranger
than all of us being here in the first place,
inside such a building, strolling in snow.

We led them around most of the major rooms,
what they could take the time for, wall by wall.
Now and then we stopped and tried to tell them
part of what they would see if they saw the paintings.
I told them how those colors would come together,
described a brushstroke here, a dollop there,
mentioned a model and why she seemed to pout
and why this painter got the roses wrong.

The next day a dozen waited for us,
then thirty or more, gathered in twos and threes.
Each of us took a group in a different direction:
Castagno, Caravaggio, Brueghel, Cézanne, Matisse,
Orozco, Manet, da Vinci, Goya, Vermeer,
Picasso, Uccello, your Whistler, Wood, and Gropper.
We pointed to more details about the paintings,
I venture to say, than if we had had them there,
some unexpected use of line or light,
balance or movement, facing the cluster of faces
the same way we’d done it every morning
before the war, but then we didn’t pay
so much attention to what we talked about.
People could see for themselves. As a matter of fact
we’d sometimes said our lines as if they were learned
out of a book, with hardly a look at the paintings.

But now the guide and the listeners paid attention
to everything—the simple differences
between the first and post-impressionists,
romantic and heroic, shade and shadow.

Maybe this was a way to forget the war
a little while. Maybe more than that.
Whatever it was, the people continued to come.
It came to be called The Unseen Collection.

Here. Here is the story I want to tell you.

Slowly, blind people began to come.
A few at first then more of them every morning,
some led and some alone, some swaying a little.
They leaned and listened hard, they screwed their faces,
they seemed to shift their eyes, those that had them,
to see better what was being said.
And a cock of the head. My God, they paid attention.

After the siege was lifted and the Germans left
and the roof was fixed and the paintings were in their places,
the blind never came again. Not like before.
This seems strange, but what I think it was,
they couldn’t see the paintings anymore.
They could still have listened, but the lectures became
a little matter-of-fact. What can I say?
Confluences come when they will and they go away.

- Miller Williams

What an exquisite reminder of how universal dark nights for the collective can affect us. This poem is such a wonderful reminder -- (to paraphrase many): That Love loves what it loves... and even when 'tall trees are falling down,' it saves what can be saved... and remembers.... those things that are important reminders of our potential and what is in our hearts. Thank you, Larry.

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

The Curator

We thought it would come, we thought the Germans would come,
...

- Miller Williams

---

The Beautiful Changes

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

- Richard Wilbur

The Longing

Do not pretend that The Longing
has not also lived in you
swinging like a pendulum.
You have been lost
and thieved like a criminal
your heart
into the darkness.
But life is tired, Dear Friend
of going on
without you.
It is like the hand of the mother
who has lost the child.
And if you are anything like me, you have been afraid.
And if you are anything like me
You have known your own courage.
There is room in this boat:
take your seat.
Take up your paddle, and all of us
All of us
shall row our hearts
back
home.

- Em Claire

When Fire Swept West

When fire swept west in Annadel Park
there appeared no stopping it
from descending to devour our street and house
and when it halted, we wept
with gratitude then went silent
in the knowledge of what others were loosing.

Then came a long-planned
trip to the land of my wife's ancestors.
One evening in Kyoto in an
elegant old hilltop home

our hostess presented us
with poems hand-written
on rice paper. Mine, by an
anonymous 9th century poet, read

How clear and bright the moon this autumn night!
White clouds float in the crystal firmament.
I see clearly even the shadows of a flight of geese.

But I couldn't take it in, and rewrote it in my mind:

How red and scorched the moon this autumn night.
Black smoke floats in the inky sky
blotting everything out -- even lost geese
and their invisible shadows.

In Shinto there are a thousand deities;
Here are two we must speak to now:


First, Rai-den, God of Destruction. He stands fiercely,
fire in his right hand, a sword in his left.
Enough. You ravage the world and now you've ravaged us.
Leave us. We don't want you her again, ever.

Then there is Kan-non, Goddess of Mercy and Compassion.
She stands serene and focused, in her left hand a lotus blossom.
Welcome. We need you now. Show us that while pain's roots go deep, those of healing go deeper. That loss can choke us but cannot inhibit hope -- we won't let it, now or ever.

And finally, remind us that love is strong as death. It lives in
community, and it's just here that
we will hold it, and each other, tight.

- David Beckman

The Beauty Of Hopelessness

You are hanging from a branch
by your teeth. No
way to save yourself
or others who hang, too.
Arms that cannot reach
any branch, legs stretch but
cannot find the smooth safe trunk.

All around, your loved ones,
friends, strangers hang--
teeth clamp bony twigs
that suspend necessary hopes
and plans.

It is hopeless. No rescue will arrive.
So you relax, taste the clean,
unfamiliar tang of sap,
feel the forgiving wind against
your waving arms, arms
that swim through emptiness.

Without hope, life is
focused, fluid, a ledge
of fragile earth suspended
over the ocean of unknowing, the end
of the branch. Life is
the glorious moment
before the fall when all
plans are abandoned,
the love you give
as you hang, loving
those who hang with you.

- Rebecca del Rio

Perhaps The World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat
to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it
has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at
the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to
be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around
our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down
selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the
table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in
the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents
for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering
and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying,
eating of the last sweet bite.


- Joy Harjo

Thanksgiving Day

Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather’s house we go;
The horse knows the way
To carry the sleigh
Through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood—
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes
And bites the nose
As over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring
“Ting-a-ling-ding”,
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood
Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting-hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate.
We seem to go
Extremely slow,—
It is so hard to wait!

Over the river and through the wood—
Now grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun!
Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!

- Lydia Maria Child

For Us, The Living
(Thanksgiving Poem)

On this day, we join our lives
In thanksgiving feast and light
But let us not forget
The other days, the other loves,
Whom we have long passed by.
Give thanks, O my friends,
For the living and the dead
For those who have gone before
To show us the way – or perhaps,
A way we do not want to go.
The instructions are clear for us,
My friends: To live until we die
To taste the sweet and the bitter
To love and to lose…
To forge our own way
Through thicket and briar
To build our own mountain-tops
To traverse our own valleys.
We are made, my friends,
Not to go alone!
Our hands were made for holding
Our hearts were made for love
Our souls were made to search
The daytime skies for stars,
The nighttime sky for dawn.
Reach your fingers out, ungloved
For thorns and roses both
Hold your sadness close inside
Your grief as much a gift
As joy; we need both rain
And sun to grow; we need
Forests to get lost in,
And dreams to lead us on.
Rejoice, my friends, in life
Which so many are denied
Bless the broken pieces
The memories that haunt
The children of our spirit
Who toss the autumn leaves
And leap into their piles
Releasing clouds of dust
The sweet piercing stems and sticks
Embracing the wholeness of life
From start to finish
And beyond.
So, give thanks, my friends,
For one another, the strangers
And the known, for those
Who look for stars at dawn
For those with races still un-run.
For here we are, the living
With hearts’ desires unmet
We find those in each others’ hands
And smiles, the comfort
Of joining lives today
And all the days to come.

- Susan S. Standen

Black Friday

While families bleed their wallets
into big-box stores
my son and I flee to the forest.

We visit our favorite campsite
walk the plank bridge
gambol in the puckers of the tunnel tree.

We imbibe a trunkful of memories
in the clutch of thousand-year-old redwoods
gulping wisps of minted air.

I show him a photo of himself at three—
white Mowgli poised among the Steller’s Jays—
screaming to the world I am.

We commune with turkeys and white-tailed deer
visit the damned-up creek—our former swimming hole
closed for the season or lack of interest.

I ask if he’ll pose against the tallest tree
flower at the ease of his assent.
Pointing the camera toward its black-green limbs

I catch a penumbra of cross-hatched light
beaming bands of magenta-gold
that frame him like a pale Pieta.

Light is anesthetic;
we’re held in its eternal grasp.
At twenty-four he’s lost the concept of shun.

The day marries us to a new genre.

- Sandra Anfang

Eating The Bones

The women in my family
strip the succulent
flesh from broiled chicken,
scrape the drumstick clean;
bite off the cartilage chew the gristle,
crush the porous swellings
at the ends of each slender baton.
With strong molars
they split the tibia, sucking out
the dense marrow.
They use up love, they swallow
every dark grain,
so at the end there’s nothing left,
a scant pile of splinters
on the empty white plate.

- Ellen Bass

Cutting Greens

curling them around
i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.
collards and kale
strain against each strange other
away from my kissmaking hand and
the iron bedpot.
the pot is black.
the cutting board is black,
my hand,
and just for a minute
the greens roll black under the knife,
and the kitchen twists dark on its spine
and i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.

- Lucille Clifton

hashtag youtoo

#youtoo
remember how it started
#youtoo
recall how far it went

#youtoo
mistook fear for fascination
overtaken by the scent
of your own pounding flesh
so caught in the obsession
you wanted her to know
somehow shaken by the sight
of a girl, of a woman

#youtoo
sought domination, even then
saying “it will be our secret”
(cause she knows what’s good)
and she wants a door held open
she will comply
she’ll be complicit
perhaps lose track of who
did what
and when

#youtoo
will count on her confusion
#youtoo
will twist the facts to suit your sin

when she starts to lose her compass
in the vortex of your spin

- Fran Carbonaro

What We Packed at 3 A.M.


The dog
the drugs

The cash
the cards

The elder neighbors who couldn’t drive

We packed our fear
though it couldn’t be contained

We crawled in our cars
as the fire raced
through its feast
of everything
of everyone
or everyone’s dreams

Everywhere we looked
RED RED

We called friends in the hills
No answer

We cried Jesus Christ!
No answer

The fire jumped and morphed
and ate some more

Garage doors wouldn’t open

Trees blocked the roads

The red sky
grew wider and taller
and shot its off-springs
into the air
to ignite their own
smorgasbords

We unpacked our prayers
to all the gods
we don’t believe in

And when we reached safety
we watched our phones
(we packed those, too)
for news and it
wasn’t good.

Yes, we had each other.

Yes, we were alive.

But our world,
our beautiful Sonoma County world

What we packed
wasn’t the mountains
wasn’t the deer
the coyotes, the quail
wasn’t the mountain lions
or mountain lakes
wasn’t Willi’s
or Fountaingrove
wasn’t Coffey Park
or the field of larks
or the knowledge
it would take two weeks

to get back home
or that home would still
be there
or that the gorgeous golden grass
just outside our windows
would change overnight
into candles waving
their virgin wicks


- Katherine Hastings

Same as a Seed

In everything, its opposite.
In the sun’s ascendancy,
its downfall.
In darkness, light
not yet apprehended.

At night in bed, I fear the falling-off.
Though falling, I will rise.
I fear. Fall arriving now.
In any word so small, the world.
In the world I walk in, a wild wood.

- Elizabeth Spires

Consent

Late in November, on a single night
Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees
That stand along the walk drop all their leaves
In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind
But as though to time alone: the golden and green
Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday
Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light.

What signal from the stars? What senses took it in?
What in those wooden motives so decided
To strike their leaves, to down their leaves,
Rebellion or surrender? and if this
Can happen thus, what race shall be exempt?
What use to learn the lessons taught by time.
If a star at any time may tell us: Now.

- Howard Nemerov