Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

All Souls

Did someone say that there would be an end,
An end, Oh, an end, to love and mourning?
Such voices speak when sleep and waking blend,
The cold bleak voices of the early morning
When all the birds are dumb in dark November -
Remember and forget, forget, remember.

After the false night, warm true voices, wake!
Voice of the dead that touches the cold living,
Through the pale sunlight once more gravely speak.
Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:
“Dear child, what has been once so interwoven
Cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungiven.”

Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,
Mother and child, lover and lover mated,
Are wound and bound together and enflowing.
What has been plaited cannot be unplaited—
Only the strands grow richer with each loss
And memory makes kings and queens of us.

Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
When all the birds have flown to some real haven,
We who find shelter in the warmth within,
Listen, and feel new-cherished, new-forgiven,
As the lost human voices speak through us and blend
Our complex love, our mourning without end.

- May Sarton

All That is Gold Does Not Glitter

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

- JRR Tolkien

Truth

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

- Gwendolyn Brooks

The Dream

I cried a lot today,
in a way I wish we all could cry.
I cried because
I am part of something
that is dangerously
out of control,
something that started so long ago
none of us can remember.

It seems we have come apart, Beloved.
We have named the distance
between us
and so have given it meaning.

We have turned our backs
on one another
and pretend we just can't help it.

We have fallen asleep in the midst
of such incredible beauty
that even the angels
are crying
for the tragedy of our blindness.

Wake up, Beloved, wake up to the soulful
energy that rises within you right now,
this very moment.

Wake up to the dream we all share.

- Rabon Saip

The Wolves

At my gate, I'll always greet you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luI3F8_CgaA

At my door, you’re welcome in
There can be no transgression
As a means to an end
On the wind, the wolves are howling
Open arms are closed in fear
Helping hands are clenched in anger
Broken hearts beyond repair
Everything's so great, can't get better, makes me wanna cry
That I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight

There she stands, so tall and mighty
With her keen and watchful eye
And the heart of a mother
Holding out her guiding light
Well, it's a hard road to travel
Solid rock from end to end
The sun, it rises on her brow
And sets upon the great expanse
Everything's so great, can't get better, makes me wanna cry
That I'll go out howling at the moon tonight

There she stands, so tall and mighty
Her gaze facing the east
At her back, our doors are closing
As we grin and bare our teeth
On the wind the wolves are howling
She cries to draw him near
Well, turn around, turn around my darling
Oh, the wolves are here
Everything's so great, can't get better, makes me wanna cry
That I'll go out howling at the moon tonight
Yeah, I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight

- Mandolin Orange

Walking by Stolen Creek


the meaning of its name forgotten,

the word remembered.

Whatever happened here

is recalled

in another time and it’s remembered

inside the stolen self

that my blood river passes through

in thin and beautiful veins, not gold

but only a mere human heartbeat,

a circle of people

standing, talking, making their plans

as water passes by.

Something, someone is still alive, telling.

They think these are only stories

not what holds the world together

in its balance.



- Linda Hogan

Anasazi

How can we die when we're already
prone to leaving the table mid-meal
like Ancient Ones gone to breathe
elsewhere. Salt sits still, but pepper's gone
rolled off in a rush. We've practiced dying
for a long time: when we skip dance or town,
when we chew. We've rounded out
like dining room walls in a canyon, eaten
through by wind—Sorry we rushed off;
the food wasn't ours. Sorry the grease sits
white on our plates, and the jam that didn't set—
use it as syrup to cover every theory of us.

- Tacey M. Atsitty

As Fall Approaches


As fall approaches.
The distillation of summer’s sun
Overflows like golden syrup
Down the mountainside

Insects suck the last sustenance,
Now turned to molasses
Before inevitable cooling winds interrupt their busyness
And make way for thunder and rain

Colors of autumn burst forth,
Transition visible to the human eye
And always, change, the only constant.

As you gaze around
Pay attention!
Savor these halcyon days
And all those you’re gifted to encounter

Stand still in wonder,
Notice what stirs within
Welcome the coruscation of your senses

Vibrant life will surely reemerge from death’s compost
Now pungent with the rotting of summer flora.
Decay’s elemental richness will infuse
The roots of trees for branches yet to be born

For now, the copper haze of this shortened afternoon
Clutches briefly at the warmth of a sleeveless day
Having lived this long, you know the sudden evening cooling
Waits to enfold you with promise of darkened months

You are a part of the vicissitudes
One season to the next
Within this very moment,
The persistence of change cries out to be known within you.

- Lynn Robinson

Carrying Our Words


We travel carrying our words.
We arrive at the ocean.
With our words we are able to speak
of the sounds of thunderous waves.
We speak of how majestic it is,
of the ocean power that gifts us songs.
We sing of our respect
and call it our relative.

- Ofelia Zepeda
(Translated into English from O’odham by the poet.)



’U’a g T-ñi’okı˘


T-ñi’okı˘ ’att ’an o ’u’akc o hihi
Am ka:ck wui dada.
S-ap ‘am o ’a: mo has ma:s g kiod.
mat ’am ’ed.a betank ’i-gei.
’Am o ’a: mo he’es ’i-ge’ej,
mo hascu wud. i:da gewkdagaj
mac ’ab amjed. behě g ñe’i.
Hemhoa s-ap ‘am o ’a: mac si has elid, mo d. ’i:mig.

- Ofelia Zepeda

José Dominguez, the First Latino in Outer Space

In that very first episode
the transmission is received on the starship Enterprise
that Space Commander Dominguez urgently needs his supplies.
Kirk tells Uhura to assure him
that the peppers are “prime Mexican reds
but he won’t die if he goes a few more days without ’em.”
Calm down Mexican.
You can wait a few more days to get your chile peppers.

In the corner of my eye I see Uhura’s back hand twitch
and though I never see him on the screen
I image José giving Kirk a soplamoco to the face.

But this is the year 2266 and there are Latinos in Outer Space!
We never see them, but they’ve survived with their surnames
and their desire, deep in the farthest interplanetary reaches,
for a little heat to warm the bland food on the starbase at Corinth 4.
As it is on earth so it shall be in heaven.

Ricardo Montalbán will show up 21 episodes later
to play a crazy mutant Indio,
superhuman and supersmart
who survived two centuries
to slap Kirk around and take over his ship.

- Dan Vera

Body of Rags, International Bridge Between the U.S. and Mexico


Is it alive?
—neither a head,
legs nor arms!
...................
... torpid against
the flange of the supporting girder . ?
an inhuman shapelessness,
knees hugged tight up into the belly
Egg-shaped!
—William Carlos Williams, 1950 visit to El Paso, from “Desert Music”

---

Yes, I am a body of rags lying
here on the bridge waiting for

a hot rain to wash me open,
dissolve me off the bridge

because this border is closed.
I rot on the boundary line

and can’t enter Juarez,
pennies thrown at me

when a drunk El Pasoan
returns in the darkness

and sees my shape that
makes him hurry across.

No head, decades ago they threw
it in the river without my screams.

My arms were the first to go
when I couldn’t climb the wall.

I can never leave this bridge.
I live on the pure line that divides

countries and grabs my hunger
from sliding into Mexico with

my outstretched hands.
I still have my knees.

I used to be sold in Juarez and
smuggled into El Paso, the egg

that floated down the Rio Grande
to break hundreds of miles away

before being thrown back.
I stay on the bridge and can’t move.

Do not cross to El Paso without wiping
your shoes of me, one foot on US

concrete, the other scraping away
at my Mexican rags.

When I struggle against the wire fence,
I make sure I salute two flags.

- Ray Gonzalez

The Well


Every Day
We drop our biggest buckets down
On the strongest ropes we have,
Hoist up as much cool and soothing water as we can lift.


We love,
So the water level never falls.


It’s not that we don’t get enough to drink and keep our lives clean.
It’s not that the water is bad.


It is knowing about the existence of the deeper liquid:
Most, pure, clear, mysterious.
Dark, actually, it is so rarely seen (though it is not rare itself).


I want THAT.
It can only be retrieved by the many,
And only when you drink together
Does it change all of you,
Sending you down the swiftest rivers
To the sea
That is connected
To all seas.


- BSue Stephenson

November

From the sky in the form of snow
comes the great forgiveness.
Rain grown soft, the flakes descend
and rest; they nestle close, each one
arrived, welcomed and then at home.


If the sky lets go some day and I'm
requested for such volunteering
toward so clean a message, I’ll come.
The world goes on and while friends touch down
beside me, I too will come.


- William Stafford

Gratitude Goulash


Take down your biggest pot,
bigger than you think you need.
Slice, dice or cut into manageable pieces
the desiccated remains
of all your life's
calamitous events.


Look around for missed ingredients.
Add clean water, local honey and vinegar.
Bring this mess to a rolling boil then
simmer on a back burner for several days.


When your kitchen smells good,
Ask a close friend to come over.
Get out two old bowls,
they need not match.
Just before serving add a dollop of success
and a smidgen of failure.
Then be very liberal with paprika.


Solemnly bless the goulash,
and take a few bites…
Laugh together, forgive yourself,
then gratefully
go out to eat.


- Doug von Koss

Earth Your Dancing Place


Beneath heaven's vault
remember always walking
through halls of cloud
down aisles of sunlight
or through high hedges
of the green rain
walk in the world
highheeled with swirl of cape
hand at the swordhilt
of your pride
Keep a tall throat
Remain aghast at life


Enter each day
as upon a stage
lighted and waiting
for your step
Crave upward as flame
have keenness in the nostril
Give your eyes
to agony or rapture


Train your hands
as birds to be
brooding or nimble
Move your body
as the horses
sweeping on slender hooves
over crag and prairie
with fleeing manes
and aloofness of their limbs


Take earth for your own large room
and the floor of the earth
carpeted with sunlight
and hung round with silver wind
for your dancing place

- May Swenson

Grace


Thanks and blessing be
to the Sun and the Earth
for this bread and this wine,----
this fruit, this meat, this salt,
---------------this food;
thanks be and blessing to them
who prepare it, who serve it;
thanks and blessing to them
who share it
-----(and also the absent and the dead.)
Thanks and blessing to them who bring it
--------(may they not want),
to them who plant and tend it,
harvest and gather it
--------(may they not want);
thanks and blessing to them who work
--------and blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want — for their hunger
------sours the wine
----------and robs the salt of its taste.
Thanks be for the sustenance and strength
for our dance and the work of justice, of peace.

- Rafael Jesús González-



Gracias


Gracias y benditos sean
el Sol y la Tierra
por este pan y este vino,
-----esta fruta, esta carne, esta sal,
----------------este alimento;
gracias y bendiciones
a quienes lo preparan, lo sirven;
gracias y bendiciones
a quienes lo comparten
(y también a los ausentes y a los difuntos.)
Gracias y bendiciones a quienes lo traen
--------(que no les falte),
a quienes lo siembran y cultivan,
lo cosechan y lo recogen
-------(que no les falte);
gracias y bendiciones a los que trabajan
-------y bendiciones a los que no puedan;
que no les falte — su hambre
-----hace agrio el vino
-----------y le roba el gusto a la sal.
Gracias por el sustento y la fuerza
para nuestro bailar y nuestra labor
--------por la justicia y la paz.

- Rafael Jesús González

Thanksgiving

The feast of life
asks nothing of us
but our death,


our final giving back
for all the death
that feeds us

It’s only what we ask
of ourselves that makes
this day holy

only what we praise -
how brightly
the parsley gleams

only what we bless -
the hands, so many hands
that brought abundance

to our laden tables,
our warm nests of instinct
and care

only what we give -
to the hungry, the
desperate, the homeless

as winter scents
rich with coming rain
bask in the waning light

and resins nipped awake
by wind’s cold teeth
ride the quickened air

only what we revere –
as Sun hums another close
to Earth’s turning

and pulsing multitudes
of leaf and grass
shift into silence


- Cynthia Poten

Giving Thanks At The Turning Of The Seasons


At times I’ve imagined that there lived a little
man, a gnome, that having awakened from his
quarterly nap, rubbed his eyes, and from his
underground hollow festooned with oak
leaves and prayer grottos, tugged upon a rope
that shifted a huge gear and so transformed
the bewildering heat of Indian summers into
crisp fall mornings where persimmon trees
started dropping their orange leaves as they
offered us the perfect gift of their seasonal fruit.


Then I remembered the earth’s tilt, and the
predictable gambit of light and dark and our
planet’s precise distance from the star at the
center of our galaxy that sustains humans,
the curious fruits of this corner of the cosmos.
And I reflected upon the scientists revealing
these machinations and remembered that,
somehow, even those sober physicists with
skinny black ties, knew that the whirling of
moons and seasons and galaxies were a part
of some great ongoing feast, and that this
turning should be called the Milky Way.


And that gnome living under this hallowed
earth is the gatekeeper who, like us, lives
between the bewildering questions of this
world and the open arms of a great loving
mother who feeds so many, but not all of
us. So this prayer of thanksgiving comes
with a caveat.


- Bruce Silverman

Van Gogh at sunset


After the first rain storm of the season,

three days of record setting,

moderate to heavy rain,

accompanied by

a fierce north west wind,

I walked into our backyard

as the sun was sinking low

in the western sky, around five o’clock,

the giant white oak which filled

the crystalline, cloudless, azure sky,

the oak whose deep green leaves,

just weeks before had been silhouetted

against the white, smoke-filled sky

of the Eagle Creek fire,

had morphed into a Van Gogh pallet

of yellows, gold, burnt sienna and browns,

so astonishing, so breathtaking

I stood in stunned silence,

absorbing its beauty,

knowing beyond a single doubt

how precious this gift of life,

how important to steward

our small, shrinking,

beautiful planet.

- Bill Denham

In the Art Gallery After the 2017 Fires

Inside the gallery bright color is everywhere
as a medicine of happiness or as
a uniquely distilled garden.

Outside evening streetlights start
to come on. Safe in here
we remember together the fierce
walls of fire that can, and have
taken so much, from friends.

Not like the golden flowers of light,
in the twilight streets, warm like stars,
but closer, like tiny camp fires
warming nearby hands and hearts
warming the darkness and
making it friendly and soft as velvet.

A knowing fortune teller thinks it best
to let this moment be. Next winter’s
flooding will come soon enough, and
make a lake of these streets. Children
in kayaks will float by like water lilies.
This gallery and all its gardens of color
will be exiled in rising water.


- Judith Stone

Dusting


Thank you for these tiny
particles of ocean salt,
pearl-necklace viruses,
winged protozoans:
for the infinite,
intricate shapes
of submicroscopic
living things.


For algae spores
and fungus spores,
bonded by vital
mutual genetic cooperation,
spreading their
inseparable lives
from equator to pole.


My hand, my arm,
make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore,
for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.


- Marilyn Nelson

I Live in Town Now


We heard
the rains were coming.


Around midnight a slow drizzle
and that wonderful new-rain smell,
and then, by 3,
a steady, hard rain,
continuous,
a deluge.


We lay in bed listening.


Silvia worried
about the sump-pump screen
in the driveway,
and we were up,
rain jackets,
hats and boots,
flashlights in our mouths.


I turned the power off,
Silvia held the corners
of the hardware cloth,
I lifted the two sections of grate,
leaned them against the house.


It was pouring.
We were getting wet.


Silvia cleaned the screen
with the hose.


I rolled the right arm of my jacket
as far up as I could,
reached down into the sump,
and swung the pump out.


Cold water ran past my shoulder
into my underarm
and down onto my chest.


I pulled twigs, leaves
and a crush of privet berries
from the intake,
and reached back down into
the sump.


I pulled more leaves from the water.
A dozen screen scoops
of silt below that.


Rain running under my jacket.


I swung the pump
back into place.


Silvia held the corners
of the cloth,
while I refitted the heavy grates.


We swept the nearby concrete
clear of leaves, berries, and dirt.


We were soaked.


I remembered the years
I’d lived at Slide,
and before that
below Windmill Pasture:
a flashlight or a head-lamp,
patrolling all night
with a long pole
and a McLeod,
following the rain’s
unequivocal demand:
keep the culverts clear,
or you’ll get a washout.


And one long afternoon
standing waist deep in
a redwood water tank,
completely drenched by rain,
reaching again and again
into the cold water
to fix a clogged valve.


Finally done,
Boissesvain
and I looked at each other
with huge grins,
and agreed that this work,
uncomfortable to the bone,
doing what has to be done,
and getting it done,
was somehow
the best.


I live in town now.


Silvia and I smiled
as we turned from the driveway
and climbed the back stairs
into our home.


- Trout Black

Alina Candeleria



I.
I thought it was an incantation, her name,
the way she said it in the singsong voice of a proud 5 year old.
alinaramondiazamorosacalenderia


Or a jingle, the way her lips pursed
perfectly in a subtle smile, vowels accentuated.


She waits in the salon while mother gets her hair cut.
Shows me her leopard print vinyl coat with bubble gum pink polyester lining.
Crosses her ankles, feet in ballet slippers.
Hair, a cape down her back. Quizzical brown eyes.
alinaramondiazamorosacalenderia


II.
Alina tells me her brother, Hector is in 4th grade and he’s 16.
Her father, Ernesto is 16 too. Alina says,“They are very old.”
She tells me a story.


Once upon a time there was a little girl named Alina. Her mother, Silvia, is having her hair cut so Alina has to wait in the salon. Her mother cooks. Her father builds fences. Her brother eats pizza and tacos.


I ask her to draw a picture.
Square lines create a house.
Windows radiate light.
Stick figure of Alina waving.
Figure of Hector eating a taco.


III.
But the house is sinking.
Glass on the ground.
Broken door.
Tacos are burning.
Stick figures disappear.


IV.
Will Alina know about the deep rivers
and that her mother had to learn to swim
right then and there, never falter?
Clothes on her back like skin.
Father in detention camp on floor cold as fear.
Alina Ramon Diaz Amorosa Calenderia




- Pamela Stone Singer

Enemies


If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,


how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then


is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?
From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go


free of you, and you of them;
they are to you as sunlight
on a green branch. You must not


think of them again, except
as monsters like yourself,
pitiable because unforgiving.


- Wendell Berry

Bearing Witness


Sometimes we are asked to stop and bear witness:
this, the elephants say to me in dreams
as they thunder through the passageways
of my heart, disappearing
into a blaze of stars. On the edge
of the 6th mass extinction, with species
vanishing before our eyes, we’d be a people
gone mad, if we did not grieve.

This unmet grief,
an elder tells me, is the root
of the root of the collective illness
that got us here. His people
stay current with their grief—
they see their tears as medicine—
and grief a kind of generous willingness
to simply see, to look loss in the eye,
to hold tenderly what is precious,
to let the rains of the heart fall.

In this way, they do not pass this weight on
in invisible mailbags for the next generation
to carry. In this way, the grief doesn’t build
and build like sets of waves, until,
at some point down the line—
it simply becomes an unbearable ocean.

We are so hungry when we are fleeing
our grief, when we are doing all
we can to distract ourselves
from the crushing heft of the unread
letters of our ancestors.
Hear us, they call. Hear us.

In my dreams, the elephants stampede
in herds, trumpeting, shaking the earth.
It is a kind of grand finale, a last parade
of their exquisite beauty. See us, they say.
We may not pass this way again.

What if our grief, given as a sacred offering,
is a blessing not a curse?
What if our grief, not hidden away in corners,
becomes a kind of communion where we shine?
What if our grief becomes a liberation song
that returns us to our innocence?
What if our fierce hearts
could simply bear witness?

- Laura Weaver

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

- Walt Whitman

Speaking Tree


I had a beautiful dream I was dancing with a tree.
- Sandra Cisneros


Some things on this earth are unspeakable:
Genealogy of the broken—
A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre,
Or the smell of coffee and no one there—

Some humans say trees are not sentient beings,
But they do not understand poetry—

Nor can they hear the singing of trees when they are fed by
Wind, or water music—
Or hear their cries of anguish when they are broken and bereft—

Now I am a woman longing to be a tree, planted in a moist, dark earth
Between sunrise and sunset—

I cannot walk through all realms—
I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—

What shall I do with all this heartache?

The deepest-rooted dream of a tree is to walk
Even just a little ways, from the place next to the doorway—
To the edge of the river of life, and drink—

I have heard trees talking, long after the sun has gone down:

Imagine what would it be like to dance close together
In this land of water and knowledge. . .

To drink deep what is undrinkable.

- Joy Harjo

Writing To Iraq


It would
take them
no trouble
to approve
your next
hour
by seconds
and minutes


with a
rag tied
over
your eyes


The next
morning
could be
put into
a rubber
hose


and used
to beat
you


When you
march
in the streets
together


when you
ask them
to give
you back
your country


And then
many
are shot /
killed
and wounded
around you


They tell you
there is
still time
to turn back
into history


But instead you
keep moving


And the streets
under your
sky
continue to
gather


to swell
with even
more voices


All pain
can be
doubled


But you
see a way
to welcome
another future
into your
hands


And that
keeps you moving forward




- Beau Beausoleil

Possibilties


I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.


- Wisława Szymborska

Everything Has a Deep Dream

I’ve spent many years learning
how to fix life, only to discover
at the end of the day
that life is not broken.

There is a hidden seed of great wholeness
in everyone and everything.
We serve life best
when we water it and befriend it.
When we listen before we act.

In befriending life,
we do not make things happen
according to our own design.
We uncover something that is already happening
in us and around us and
create conditions that enable it.

Everything is moving toward its place of wholeness,
always struggling against odds.

Everything has a deep dream of itself and its fulfillment.

- Rachel Naomi Remen