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Home to Roost
The chickens
are circling and
blotting out the
day. The sun is
bright, but the
chickens are in
the way. Yes,
the sky is dark
with chickens,
dense with them.
They turn and
then they turn
again. These
are the chickens
you let loose
one at a time
and small -
various breeds.
Now they have
come home
to roost - all
the same kind
at the same speed.
- Kay Ryan
Copyright © 2005 from the collection "The Niagara River" (Grove Press)
A Contribution to Statistics
Out of a hundred people
those who always know better
- fifty-two
doubting every step
- nearly all the rest,
glad to lend a hand
if it doesn't take too long
- as high as forty-nine,
always good
because they can't be otherwise
- four, well maybe five,
able to admire without envy
- eighteen,
suffering illusions
induced by fleeting youth
- sixty, give or take a few,
not to be taken lightly
- forty and four,
living in constant fear
of someone or something
- seventy-seven,
capable of happiness
- twenty-something tops,
harmless singly, savage in crowds
- half at least,
cruel
when forced by circumstances
- better not to know
even ballpark figures,
wise after the fact
- just a couple more
than wise before it,
taking only things from life
- thirty
(I wish I were wrong),
hunched in pain,
no flashlight in the dark
- eighty-three
sooner or later,
righteous
- thirty-five, which is a lot,
righteous
and understanding
- three,
worthy of compassion
- ninety-nine,
mortal
- a hundred out of a hundred.
Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.
- Wislawa Szymborska
The Gift
Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.
It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.)
You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come - maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.
It's a balance, the taking and passing along,
the composting of where you've been and how people
and weather treated you. It's a country where
you already are, bringing where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours."
- William Stafford
Breeze in the Apple Orchard
This breeze, the hussy, has traveled around the world,
gathering smoke from cook-fires in Afghanistan, stealing the sweat of lovers in London,
the stink of traffic in Marrakech,
blowing her hot breath through your threadbare heart,
huffing up your skirt,
roughening your genius hair,
hot with the stench of battlefields,
cool and sweet with the cries of gulls.
Breeze! Tell me it's me
and me alone that you love.
How can I tell you that
when I have just caressed the seashell ears of a baby
and caught, with equal care,
the parched last breath of the woman
whose strangled, abandoned body
won't be found for months to come?
When this morning I whipped veils against the foreheads
of that long line of refugees
carrying their lives on their backs
through an endless gray-and-white newspaper desert?
And this afternoon recorded the wheeze
of the bull elephant as he chased through the underbrush
trumpeting after his mate,
and listened just as intently
to the cricket, fiddling her delicate desire?
Well, then, what do you want with me?
I want one stray hair from your scalp,
one drop of sweat from under your armpit.
Give me that short breath you just took without thinking,
the blood-blister on your toe, inside your gritty sandal,
the fleeting impulse too swift to write down.
- Alison Luterman
Standing Deer
As the house of a person
in age sometimes grows cluttered
with what is
too loved or too heavy to part with,
the heart may grow cluttered.
And still the house will be emptied,
and still the heart.
As the thoughts of a person
in age sometimes grow sparer,
like a great cleanness come into a room,
the soul may grow sparer;
one sparrow song carves it completely.
And still the room is full,
and still the heart.
Empty and filled,
like the curling half-light of morning,
in which everything is still possible and so why not.
Filled and empty,
like the curling half-light of evening,
in which everything now is finished and so why not.
Beloved, what can be, what was,
will be taken from us.
I have disappointed.
I am sorry. I knew no better.
A root seeks water.
Tenderness only breaks open the earth.
This morning, out the window,
the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.
- Jane Hirschfield
Something I've Not Done
Something I’ve not done
is following me
I haven’t done it again and again
so it has many footsteps
like a drumstick that’s grown old and never been used
In late afternoon I hear it come closer
at times it climbs out of a sea
onto my shoulders
and I shrug it off
losing one more chance
Every morning
it’s drunk up part of my breath for the day
and knows which way
I’m going
and already it’s not done there
But once more I say I’ll lay hands on it
tomorrow
and add its footsteps to my heart
and its story to my regrets
and its silence to my compass.
- W.S. Merwin
Paradise
I used to live there. Every morning
The downtown streets were cobbled with gold, honey
Flowed—all that stuff. I'm not kidding. Summers
Lasted a lifetime, broken by Christmas
And New Year's.
Mornings were like waking to someone's scent
You hadn't yet met and married for life,
Though I didn't know that then—the night-cooled
Muskmelons rolling belly up to the stars,
And by late afternoon the dusk-colored
Dust of apricots on everything.
From that earth, my body
Assembled itself, and when the veil dropped,
I tried to say what I saw. The light winds
Around me died, the sheers of summer wavered
As though all of it were mirage. Cantaloupes,
Grapes, clusters of ruby flames like champagne,
Though I didn't know that then—
Nectarines like morphine—didn't know that either.
Oranges, almonds, rainbows,
Tangs—rolling in all year long, that bounty.
You tell people that, over and over,
And it's really crazy, they won't believe you.
All that sugar coaxed out of clay, and you
Can't even give it away—and each dawn
More is just piled on. I took in as much
As I could, like larder, and walked away.
- Arthur Smith
Just Walking Around
What name do I have for you?
Certainly there is not name for you
In the sense that the stars have names
That somehow fit them. Just walking around,
An object of curiosity to some,
But you are too preoccupied
By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
To say much and wander around,
Smiling to yourself and others.
It gets to be kind of lonely
But at the same time off-putting.
Counterproductive, as you realize once again
That the longest way is the most efficient way,
The one that looped among islands, and
You always seemed to be traveling in a circle.
And now that the end is near
The segments of the trip swing open like an orange.
There is light in there and mystery and food.
Come see it.
Come not for me but it.
But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other.
- John Ashbery
Odysseus' Decision
The great man turns his back on the island.
Now he will not die in paradise
nor hear again
the lutes of paradise among the olive trees,
by the clear pools under the cypresses. Time
begins now, in which he hears again
that pulse which is the narrative
sea, ar dawn when its pull is stongest.
What has brought us here
will lead us away; our ship
sways in the tined harbor water.
Now the spell is ended.
Give him back his life,
sea that can only move forward.
- Louise Gluck
Mulching
Me in my bugproof netted headpiece kneeling
to spread sodden newspapers between broccolis,
corn sprouts, cabbages and four kinds of beans,
prostrate before old suicide bombings, starvation,
AIDS, earthquakes, the unforeseen tsunami,
front-page photographs of lines of people
with everything they own heaped on their heads,
the rich assortment of birds trilling on all
sides of my forest garden, the exhortations
of commencement speakers at local colleges,
the first torture revelations under my palms
and I a helpless citizen of a country
I used to love, who as a child wept when
the brisk police band bugled Hats off? The flag
is passing by, now that every wanton deed
in this stack of newsprint is heartbreak,
my blackened fingers can only root in dirt,
turning up industrious earthworms, bits
of unreclaimed eggshell, wanting to ask
the earth to take my unquiet spirit,
bury it deep, make compost of it.
- Maxine Kumin
Moon Fishing
When the moon was full they came to the water.
some with pitchforks, some with rakes,
some with sieves and ladles,
and one with a silver cup.
And they fished til a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
to catch the moon you must let your women
spread their hair on the water --
even the wily moon will leap to that bobbing
net of shimmering threads,
gasp and flop till its silver scales
lie black and still at your feet."
And they fished with the hair of their women
till a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
do you think the moon is caught lightly,
with glitter and silk threads?
You must cut out your hearts and bait your hooks
with those dark animals;
what matter you lose your hearts to reel in your dream?"
And they fished with their tight, hot hearts
till a traveler passed them and said,
"Fools,
what good is the moon to a heartless man?
Put back your hearts and get on your knees
and drink as you never have,
until your throats are coated with silver
and your voices ring like bells."
And they fished with their lips and tongues
until the water was gone
and the moon had slipped away
in the soft, bottomless mud.
- Lisel Mueller
The Final Poem
Bread Loaf, late August, the chemistry
of a New England fall already
inviting the swamp maples to flare.
Magisterial in the white wicker rocker
Robert Frost at rest after giving
a savage reading
holding nothing back, his rage
at dying, not yet, as he barged
his chair forth, then back, don't sit
there mumbling in the shadows, call
yourselves poets? All
but a handful scattered. Fate
rearranged us happy few at his feet.
He rocked us until midnight.
I took away these close-lipped dicta. Look
up from the page. Pause between poems.
Say something about the next one.
Otherwise the audience
will coast, they can't take in
half of what you're giving them.
Reaching for the knob of his cane
he rose, and flung this exit line:
Make every poem your final poem.
- Maxine Kumin
Reminds me of that Rumi night that I so look forward to every year.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
- R
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
- Ranier Maria Rilke
Rilke always REALLY gets me. I guess I should buy a book or something...Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Thanks, Larry.
- R
A Story
Sad is the man who is asked for a story
and can't come up with one.
His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
In a room full of books in a world
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.
Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
the day this boy will go. Don't go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!
But the boy is packing his shirts,
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,
the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?
But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy's supplications
and a father's love add up to silence.
- Li-Young Lee
I Am a Madman
My thatched cottage stands
just west of Thousand Mile Bridge
this Hundred Flower Stream
would please a hermit fisherman
bamboo sways in the wind
graceful as any court beauty
rain makes the lotus flower
even more red and fragrant
but I no longer hear from friends
who live on princely salaries
my children are always hungry
with pale and famished faces
does a madman grow more happy
before he dies in the gutter?
I laugh at myself -- a madman
growing older, growing madder.
- Du Fu (712 - 770)
Come to Hiroshima
to those who with no shame condone
annihilation of whole cities or nations
please come to Hiroshima
come in early August when the heat is worst
make sure you're there on the sixth
when the sweat running down your back
somehow feels appropriate
see the museum - learn what you can
imagine as deeply as possible what happened
and try to understand - why
to those who think we need atomic bombs
newer better more useable ones
as certain leaders now claim
please come to Hiroshima
walk through Peace Park
this epicenter - cemetery of ironic serenity
contemplate - meditate - try to understand
would we have done this to whites - dear Christians
here by the riverside thousands staggered to water
"mizu! mizu!" some couldn't even ask
for what could possibly relieve the burning
to those who think that war is still okay
sleepy as people used to be about slavery
come see the shattered wrecked dome
left in jagged shambles to remind us
see at sunset the paper lanterns
red blue and gold - inscribed with dreams
people lovingly made in the park all day
watch them float downstream candles aglow
like thousands of vanished souls
or beautiful hopes - for what might be possible
please come to Hiroshima
and bring pictures of your loved ones
- Ron Hertz
2008 Nagasaki-Hiroshima Remembrance
2 Events at the Glaser Center, 547 Mendocino Ave, Santa Rosa
Saturday, August 9th, Reception at 6pm, Program at 7pm
BUILDING TOWARD A NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD
Speakers: Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka, Nagasaki survivor
Sabina Peres, Int’l People’s Coalition against Military Pollution
Adrian Drummon-Cole, Tri Valley Cares
Shepherd Bliss, SSU teacher & writer
Sonoma County Taiko
Children’s Chorus with Heather Collins
Elliot Kallen, Japanese shakuhachi flute
Jeff Edelheit, Gong
Under the Mushroom Cloud, Mayors for Peace Exhibit
July 26 - August 24, Sunday - Friday, 10am - 4pm
The exhibit of photographs & drawings bring together the realities of the atomic bombings
and the present status of nuclear issues. The exhibit was assembled by the Mayors for Peace which was founded by the Mayors of Hiroshima & Nagasaki in 1982, in the hope of arousing international sentiment towards nuclear weapons abolition.
Cosponsors: Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County, Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Sonoma Chapter Japanese American Citizens League, Department of Peace, Sonoma County.
Target, 8 AM
The floors so clean and shiny
I can see my face.
The elves of the night
have done their job well.
Every speck of litter
has been swept away,
every trash bin emptied,
each scattered piece
of merchandise guided
back to the proper shelf or rack,
reunited with its own kind.
A new day at Target,
cleansed as a beach
washed overnight
by fresh tides,
a beach
where all the world’s product
has washed up neat and orderly,
arranged for us, a cornucopia
for the kings and queens of Creation
as we stroll these Eden aisles.
- Max Reif
A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their
happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
- James Wright
an old man's view of a young war
and its promise for the future
at least in this new one there'll
be advanced technologies at our disposal,
we've storehouses of antibiotics,
not just penicillin to treat the suffering maimed,
up-to-date research on the effects of radiation
along with our own preemptive
stockpile of weapons of mass destruction,
nuclear and biological,
an early warning system against cruise missiles
and a promise of star war interceptions,
of course helicopters to evacuate the wounded
and we'll have satellite photo evidence
not just a good pair of binoculars
to help blast whole villages into oblivion,
certainly enough air delivered fire power
to make Dresden memories a recollection picnic
and how about our Homeland Securities
to give us comfort on sleepless nights
knowing that terrorist lookalikes are
impounded out of reach of law and order.
I'm looking backward at the sorry state of
old war technology which so many survived,
and forward to the right envisioned
right employment
right destruction
right annihilation of...
of...of...of...
hell, you ain't seen nothing yet!
- Doug Stout
The Rapture
All summer
I wandered the fields
that were thickening
every morning,
every rainfall,
with weeds and blossoms,
with the long loops
of the shimmering, and the extravagant-
pale as flames they rose
and fell back,
replete and beautiful-
that was all there was-
and I too
once or twice, at least,
felt myself rising,
my boots
touching suddenly the tops of the weeds,
the blue and silky air-
listen,
passion did it,
called me forth,
addled me,
stripped me clean
then covered me with the cloth of happiness-
I think there is no other prize,
only rapture the gleaming,
rapture the illogical the weightless-
whether it be for the perfect shapeliness
of something you love-
like an old German song-
or of someone-
or the dark floss of the earth itself,
heavy and electric.
At the edge of sweet sanity open
such wild, blind wings.
- Mary Oliver
Twin Sheep
My new neighbor
was wheeled in late last night
babbling and unwell
He turned the TV on.
I fumed and cursed.
A nurse gave me some plugs
How we snored!
Like two grizzled old sheep
bedded in a pen
- Raphael Block
Just found this site and my eyes wandered through a few of your poems. Wanted to say thanks and hope to read some more.
Diana:):
Passport
They did not recognize me in the shadows
That suck away my color in this Passport
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist Who loves to collect photographs
They did not recognize me,
Ah . . . Don't leave
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognize me
All the songs of the rain recognize me
Dont' leave me pale like the moon!
All the birds that followed my palm
To the door of the distant airport
All the wheatfields
All the prisons
All the white tombstones
All the barbed boundaries
All the waving handkerchiefs
All the eyes
were with me,
But they dropped them from my passport
Stripped of my name and identity?
On a soil I nourished with my own hands?
Today Job cried out
Filling the sky:
Don't make an example of me again!
Oh, gentlemen, Prophets,
Don't ask the trees for their names
Don't ask the valleys who their mother is
From my forehead bursts the sword of light
And from my hand springs the water of the river
All the hearts of the people are my identity
So take away my passport!
- Mahmoud Darwish
(1941 - 2008)
SELF-PORTRAIT
It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.
- David Whyte
Love Comes Quietly
Love comes quietly,
Finally drops around me,
On me, in the old way.
What did I know,
Thinking myself able to go alone
All the way?
- Robert Creely
I must apologize for the numerous typos in yesterday's poem. Here is the correct version.
Larry
SELF-PORTRAIT
It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.
- David Whyte
Democracy
It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that it ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming through a crack in the wall,
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the sorrow on the street
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of G-d in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
o mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
past the Reefs of Greed
through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on
It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
that the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming to the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
o mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
past the Reefs of Greed
through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on
I'm sentimental if you know what I mean:
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
- Leonard Cohen
When a country obtains great power,
it becomes like the sea:
all streams run downward into it.
The more powerful it grows,
the greater the need for humility.
Humility means trusting the Tao,
thus never needing to be defensive.
A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.
If a nation is centered in the Tao,
if it nourishes its own people
and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,
it will be a light to all nations in the world..
- Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching
(Stephen Mitchell translation)
The superior man:
When he sees good in others, he imitates it; when he finds faults in himself, he rids himself of them.
I Ching
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
I Come From There
I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.
***
I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland...
- Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish died on August 9 after a heart surgery at a US hospital. He was often called the Palestinian “national poet”. In his poems, he used Palestine as “a metaphor -- for the loss of Eden, for the sorrows of dispossession and exile, for the declining power of the Arab world in its dealings with the West.”
Darwish's official website is at:
https://www.mahmouddarwish.com/english/index.htm Some of his poems can be found online at:
https://www.dhfaf.com/poetry.php?nam...p=lsq&diwid=17
Seers
Suddenly it springs forth,
the slanted shadow over the nose,
the observant eyes,
lilac lips set,
throat full and resolute,
cast, features,
prominences and declivities,
mirror image of what is.
And then it folds back
and becomes
something no longer clear:
eyes peering from wrinkled flesh of bark,
crumbling ancient mask,
the space where a crow once hunched and waited.
- Dorothy Walters
The Speed Of Light
So gradual in those summers was the going
of the age it seemed that the long days setting out
when the stars faded over the mountains were not
leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew
glittered in the webs it appeared then that the clear morning
opening into the sky was something of ours
to have and keep and that the brightness we could not touch
and the air we could not hold had come to be there all the time
for us and would never be gone and that the axle
we did not hear was not turning when the ancient car
coughed in the roofer's barn and rolled out echoing
first thing into the lane and the only tractor
in the village rumbled and went into its rusty
mutterings before heading out of its lean-to
into the cow pats and the shadow of the lime tree
we did not see that the swallows flashing and the sparks
of their cries were fast in the spokes of the hollow
wheel that was turning and turning us taking us
all away as one with the tires of the baker's van
where the wheels of bread were stacked like days in calendars
coming and going all at once we did not hear
the rim of the hour in whatever we were saying
or touching all day we thought it was there and would stay
it was only as the afternoon lengthened on its
dial and the shadows reached out farther and farther
from everything that we began to listen for what
might be escaping us and we heard high voices ringing
the village at sundown calling their animals home
and then the bats after dark and the silence on its road
- W. S. Merwin
The Great Explosion
The universe expands and contracts like a great heart.
It is expanding, the farthest nebulae
Rush with the speed of light into empty space.
It will contract, the immense navies of stars and galaxies,
dust clouds and nebulae
Are recalled home, they crush against each other in one
harbor, they stick in one lump
And then explode it, nothing can hold them down; there is no
way to express that explosion; all that exists
Roars into flame, the tortured fragments rush away from each
other into all the sky, new universes
Jewel the black breast of night; and far off the outer nebulae
like charging spearmen again
Invade emptiness.
No wonder we are so fascinated with
fireworks
And our huge bombs: it is a kind of homesickness perhaps for
the howling fireblast that we were born from.
But the whole sum of the energies
That made and contain the giant atom survives. It will
gather again and pile up, the power and the glory--
And no doubt it will burst again; diastole and systole: the
whole universe beats like a heart.
Peace in our time was never one of God's promises; but back
and forth, live and die, burn and be damned,
The great heart beating, pumping into our arteries His
terrible life.
He is beautiful beyond belief.
And we, God's apes--or tragic children--share in the beauty.
We see it above our torment, that's what life's for.
He is no God of love, no justice of a little city like Dante's
Florence, no anthropoid God
Making commandments,: this is the God who does not care
and will never cease. Look at the seas there
Flashing against this rock in the darkness--look at the
tide-stream stars--and the fall of nations--and dawn
Wandering with wet white feet down the Caramel Valley to
meet the sea. These are real and we see their beauty.
The great explosion is probably only a metaphor--I know not
--of faceless violence, the root of all things.
- Robinson Jeffers
Snake
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.
He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.
- D.H. Lawrence
Taormina, 1923
The Two Longings
Late August snowmelt,
Dropping down from the Crystal Range,
Feeding penstemon, pussypaw and lupine
Fills Barrett Lake, then cascades to a quiet pool.
The sudden arc
Of a rainbow trout, drawn upward, drawn homeward
By a call it may not refuse and cannot fulfill,
Catches the eye, catches the heart, catches the imagination.
And the water,
Answering a summons of its own,
Supporting the trout even in its defeat,
Reaches down to the American River, the Delta,
through the Golden Gate... home.
- Larry Robinson
Yeah, it's nice to see a Larry Robinson poem every once in awhile in this "Poem For The Day..."
Thanks!
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Atlas
Extreme exertion
isolates a person
from help,
discovered Atlas.
Once a certain
shoulder-to-burden
ratio collapses,
there is so little
others can do:
they can't
lend a hand
with Brazil
and not stand
on Peru.
- Kay Ryan
Ripeness
*
Ripeness is
what falls away with ease.
Not only the heavy apple,
the pear,
but also the dried brown strands
of autumn iris from their core.
*
To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness,
with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.
*
And however sharply
you are tested --
this sorrow, that great love --
it too will leave on that clean knife.
*
- Jane Hirshfield
Invitation
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude–
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
- Mary Oliver
The Man Born To Farming
The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?
- Wendell Berry
The Fountain
*
Don’t say, don’t say there is no water
To solace the dryness at our hearts.
I have seen
*
The fountain springing out of the rock wall
And you drinking there. And I too
Before your eyes
*
Found footholds and climbed
to drink the cool water.
*
The woman of that place, shading her eyes,
Frowned as she watched—but not because
she grudged the water,
*
Only because she was waiting
to see we drank our fill and were
refreshed.
*
Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.
That fountain is there among its scalloped
green and gray stones,
*
It is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,
up and out through the rock.
- Denise Levertov
I Cannot Tell You
I do not know
if god us a thing
or a process,
or a being
or a presence.
I cannot tell you
how the world
was constructed,
or when it began
or by whom.
I cannot unravel
the tables of meaning,
the diagrams
and the scales of comparison,
the charts and the long explanations
of everything
that has ever been.
What I know is this:
this moment,
this kiss,
this infinite longing,
endless loving and being loved
by no one
who has a name
in a place
that does not exist.
- Dorothy Walters
Skater
She was all in black but for a yellow pony tail
that trailed from her cap, and bright blue gloves
that she held out wide, the feathery fingers spread,
as surely she stepped, click-clack, onto the frozen
top of the world. And there, with a clatter of blades,
she began to braid a loose path that broadened
into a meadow of curls. Across the ice she swooped
and then turned back and, halfway, bent her legs
and leapt into the air the way a crane leaps, blue gloves
lifting her lightly, and turned a snappy half-turn
there in the wind before coming down, arms wide,
skating backward right out of that moment, smiling back
at the woman she'd been just an instant before.
- Ted Kooser
I found this piece and wanted to reach out and say thank you. Thank you for your heart-mind - one that would choose such a piece. You have choosen many pieces and this one speaks to me - as it always has - it was lovely to say hello to "it" again.
Thank you for your heart-mind, Larry.
Jo
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
ARTICLES OF FAITH
Faith is a priceless treasure which some would invest in money and power, seeking private gain. Others of us invest in a vision of a world which may yet come to be: a world of justice, peace and beauty. We place our faith in life itself.
We Believe
Life is infinitely creative, resourceful, reliable and ultimately good.
Human beings are an expression of that life force and, as such, are creative, resourceful, reliable and fundamentally good.
All life is inextricably connected - what happens to any of us happens to all of us.
Evil exists as a potential in all human beings and it derives from the illusion that we are separate from each other and from the fountain of life.
Evil cannot be vanquished by force of arms or by fear. It can only be conquered by love.
In the power of love and direct non-violent action to
transform institutions, social systems and the human heart.
The arc of human history moves toward democracy, justice and an appreciation for our wondrous multiplicity of expression.
It is the right of all people to enjoy life, liberty and the security of person; to be treated equally under the law; to enjoy freedom of thought, conscience and religion; to free expression and association; to have free access to clean water and air.
It is possible for all human beings to be free from economic want and poverty and to live with dignity.
Peace among and within nations is only possible when these rights are assured to everyone.
The most fundamental responsibility of government is to ensure the health and well-being of the land and of all its inhabitants.
Individual rights must be balanced with responsibility for the well-being of the community.
The success and survival of our civilization and, possibly, that of the human race are in increasing jeopardy because of our commitment to an unsustainable pattern of resource consumption, particularly our dependence upon fossil fuels.
While our planet’s physical resources are finite, the resources of love and imagination are without end.
It is indeed possible to create a society which lives sustainably and harmoniously within the parameters of our planetary life support systems.
We have a responsibility to live in such a way that we do not diminish the opportunity for future generations to enjoy the same quality of life which we enjoy.
A human birth is a precious gift that is accompanied by a responsibility to act with generosity, sensitivity and compassion for all living beings.
In doing our best to leave a better world for our children.
All people, individually and collectively, are capable of learning from their mistakes.
Life inherently includes suffering, but we have a responsibility as members of the human family to do what we can to ease that suffering and to structure our social institutions in such a way as to minimize unnecessary suffering due to poverty, disease, war, injustice and environmental degradation.
Joy is also an inherent feature of life and it is possible to participate joyfully in the suffering of the world.
Each and every life has inherent value and is worthy of respect.
In poetry, art, music, dancing and the spirit of play.
In the power of truth.
At the heart of all things is an ineffable mystery worthy of awe and wonder.
It is this faith which informs, guides and sustains our work in the world.
- Larry Robinson
what to do with your goat in a drowning world
hear the helicopters come over the roof
water's up to my attic windows
and I'm stuck here with my goat
I can see my neighbor in the hole on his roof
he's got two dachsies and a tomcat
just across the rushing river is his sister
she's cradling her baby and a rooster
circling helicopters circling helicopters
will take me but not my goat
will lift me up from muck and flood
but they won't take my neighbor's dogs or cat
or his sister's baby's rooster
helicopters overhead nation to the rescue
take the people damn their friends
I'm not going without my goat
he's not going without his pets
baby won't leave without her rooster
lord oh lord why don't we have an ark
that's the helicopters leaving
that's the nation to the rescue
leaving us here in the dark
- Andrei Codrescu
Men Gardening
Men gardening, knees bent as if
In prayer to something forgotten, trying
To be remembered.
Men gardening, centuries of civilization
Dropping off them like husks, shadows of
Stalks, leaves, laying across them
Like tribal tattoos.
Men gardening, brows muddy
Painted with sweat, soil, swirling designs of
Passion and desire.
Men planting, knees bent in submission
In some remembered act of insemination
Some means of participating in a miracle.
Flowers spring forth from frustration of
Days in offices, from days behind the wheels of cars.
Vegetables growing, plumping from the pain of
Days arguing in court rooms and nights
Pouring over accounts.
Men gardening, knees bent as if in prayer,
For something better, for something different.
Praying for something forgotten
And trying
To be remembered.
- Rebecca del Rio-Ruso
The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
- Theodore Roethke
There I No One But Us
There is no one but us.
There is no one to send,
nor a clean hand nor a pure heart
on the face of the earth,
but only us,
a generation comforting ourselves
with the notion that we have come at an awkward time,
that our innocent fathers are all dead
- as if innocence had ever been -
and our children busy and troubled,
and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready,
having each of us chosen wrongly,
made a false start, failed,
yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures,
and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved.
But there is no one but us.
There never has been.
- Annie Dillard