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The Supple Deer
The quiet opening
between fence strands
perhaps eighteen inches.
Antlers to hind hooves,
four feet off the ground,
the deer poured through.
No tuft of the coarse white belly hair left behind.
I don't know how a stag turns
into a stream, an arc of water.
I have never felt such accurate envy.
Not of the deer:
To be that porous, to have such largeness pass through me.
- Jane Hirshfield
Having Come This Far
I've been through what my through was to be
I did what I could and couldn't
I was never sure how I would get there
I nourished an ardor for thresholds
for stepping stones and for ladders
I discovered detour and ditch
I swam in the high tides of greed
I built sandcastles to house my dreams
I survived the sunburns of love
No longer do I hunt for targets
I've climbed all the summits I need to
and I've eaten my share of lotus
Now I give praise and thanks
for what could not be avoided
and for every foolhardy choice
I cherish my wounds and their cures
and the sweet enervations of bliss
My book is an open life
I wave goodbye to the absolutes
and send my regards to infinity
I'd rather be blithe than correct
Until something transcendent turns up
I splash in my poetry puddle
and try to keep God amused.
- James Broughton
Into These Knots
Tell us how the soul is bound and bent
into these knots, and whether any ever
frees itself from such imprisonment.
—Canto XII, Inferno
I say, Without a God there is no hell.
There’s only this—. She rustles for her keys.
The apple tree sheds petal after petal.
She says, Let’s take you to the hospital.
The petals spin like sparks. I close my eyes
and say, Without a God there is no hell,
and there is only this. It’s just as well.
The lawn is red and white. She asks, Who says?
How do you know? The wind fells every petal.
She says, Let’s take you to the hospital.
I cannot breathe. I cannot tell her, Yes—.
Because without a God there is no hell,
as she whispers, Talk to me, I know I will
clamber—but not toward heaven, toward the sky,
eyes winking behind petal after petal.
The rope-burnt bark will flake away and fall.
Knot on my neck, the rest would be so easy:
I’ll pray, Without a God there is no hell,
then slip through petals—through petal after petal.
- Ashley Anna McHugh
The Sign in My Father's Hands
- for Frank Espada
The beer company
did not hire Blacks or Puerto Ricans,
so my father joined the picket line
at the Schaefer Beer Pavilion, New York World’s Fair,
amid the crowds glaring with canine hostility.
But the cops brandished nightsticks
and handcuffs to protect the beer,
and my father disappeared.
In 1964, I had never tasted beer,
and no one told me about the picket signs
torn in two by the cops of brewery.
I knew what dead was: dead was a cat
overrun with parasites and dumped
in the hallway incinerator.
I knew my father was dead.
I went mute and filmy-eyed, the slow boy
who did not hear the question in school.
I sat studying his framed photograph
like a mirror, my darker face.
Days later, he appeared in the doorway
grinning with his gilded tooth.
Not dead, though I would come to learn
that sometimes Puerto Ricans die
in jail, with bruises no one can explain
swelling their eyes shut.
I would learn too that “boycott”
is not a boy’s haircut,
that I could sketch a picket line
on the blank side of a leaflet.
That day my father returned
from the netherworld
easily as riding the elevator to apartment 14-F,
and the brewery cops could only watch
in drunken disappointment.
I searched my father’s hands
for a sign of the miracle.
- Martin Espada
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
- Wallace Stevens
Hatred
See how efficient it still is,
how it keeps itself in shape -
our century's hatred.
How easily it vaults the tallest obstacles.
How rapidly it pounces, tracks us down.
It's not like other feelings.
At once both older and younger.
It gives birth itself to the reasons
that give it life.
When it sleeps, it's never eternal rest.
And sleeplessness won't sap its strength; it feeds it.
One religion or another -
whatever gets it ready, in position.
One fatherland or another -
whatever helps it get a running start.
Justice also works well at the outset
until hate gets its own momentum going.
Hatred. Hatred.
Its face twisted in a grimace
of erotic ecstasy.
Oh these other feelings,
listless weaklings.
Since when does brotherhood
draw crowds?
Has compassion
ever finished first?
Does doubt ever really rouse the rabble?
Only hatred has just what it takes.
Gifted, diligent, hard working.
Need we mention all the songs it has composed?
All the pages it has added to our history books?
All the human carpets it has spread
over countless city squares and football fields?
Let's face it:
it knows how to make beauty.
The splendid fire-glow in midnight skies.
Magnificent bursting bombs in rosy dawns.
You can't deny the inspiring pathos of ruins
and a certain bawdy humor to be found
in the sturdy column jutting from their midst.
Hatred is a master of contrast -
between explosion and dead quiet,
red blood and white snow.
Above all, it never tires
of its leitmotif - the impeccable executioner
towering over its soiled victim.
It's always ready for new challenges.
If it has to wait awhile, it will.
They say it's blind. Blind?
It has a sniper's keen sight
and gazes unflinchingly at the future
as only it can.
- Wislawa Szymborska
Inclination
One's throat must be like a garden
And one's eyes like windows
through which love passes;
And one's stature
Must be like a tree
that rises out of rocks;
And poetry must be like a singing bird,
Perching on the highest branch of a tree,
Breaking the heavy silence of the world.
- Hamid Reza Rahimi
Overland to the Islands
Let's go—much as that dog goes,
intently haphazard. The
Mexican light on a day that
‘smells like autumn in Connecticut’
makes iris ripples on his
black gleaming fur—and that too
is as one would desire—a radiance
consorting with the dance.
Under his feet
rocks and mud, his imagination, sniffing,
engaged in its perceptions—dancing
edgeways, there's nothing
the dog disdains on his way,
nevertheless he
keeps moving, changing
pace and approach but
not direction—‘every step an arrival.’
- Denise Levertov
An Affirming Flame
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
- W.H. Auden
Listening
You wept in your mother’s arms
and I knew that from then on
I was to forget myself.
Listening to your sobs,
I was resolved against my will
to do well by us
and so I said, without thinking,
in great panic, To do wrong
in one’s own judgment,
though others thrive by it,
is the right road to blessedness.
Not to submit to error
is in itself wrong
and pride.
Standing beside you,
I took an oath
to make your life simpler
by complicating mine
and what I always thought
would happen did: I was lifted up in joy.
- David Ignatow
How Beautiful It Is
It flows out of mystery into mystery: there is no beginning—
How could there be? And no end—how could there be?
The stars shine in the sky like the spray of a wave
Rushing to meet no shore, and the great music
Blares on forever, but to us very soon
It will be blind. Not we, nor our children nor the human race
Are destined to live forever, the breath will fail,
The eyes will break—perhaps of our own explosive vile
Vented upon each other—or a stingy peace
Makes parents fools—but far greater witnesses
Will take our places. It is only a little planet
But how beautiful it is.
- Robinson Jeffers
The Old Interior Angel
Young, male and
immortal as I was,
I stopped at the first sight
of that broken bridge.
The taut cables snapped
and the bridge planks
concertina-ed
into a crazy jumble
over the drop,
four hundred feet
to the craggy
stream.
I sat and watched
the wind shiver
on the broken planks,
as if by looking hard
and long enough
the life-line
might spontaneously
repair itself
-- but watched in vain.
An hour I sat
in the clear silence,
checking each
involuntary movement
of the body toward
that trembling
bridge
with a fearful mind,
and an emphatic
shake of the head.
Finally, facing defeat
and about to go back
the way I came
to meet the others.
Three days round
by another pass.
Enter the old mountain woman
with her stooped gait,
her dark clothes
and her dung basket
clasped to her back.
Small feet shuffling
for the precious
gold-brown
fuel for cooking food.
Intent on the ground
she glimpsed my feet
and looking up
Said "Namaste"
"I greet the God in you"
the last syllable
held like a song.
I inclined my head
and clasped my hands
to reply, but
before I could look up
she turned her lined face
and went straight across
that shivering chaos
of wood
and broken steel
in one movement.
One day the hero
sits down,
afraid to take
another step,
and the old interior angel
limps slowly in
with her no-nonsense
compassion
and her old secret
and goes ahead.
"Namaste"
you say
and follow.
- David Whyte
When Your Ship
When your ship, long moored in harbor
gives you the illusion of being a house,
put out to sea.
Save your boat’s journeying soul,
and your own pilgrim soul,
cost what it may.
- Helder Camara
Animal Is Spiritual
she calls out in a loud bark
from her doorstep as she sees me walk her way,
still halfway up the block. It’s Nika,
the German Shepherd
who greets and licks everyone,
her slow, arthritic walk
and coat worn bare
to the black skin of her back, sign
of the sloughing off of the flesh.
I try to understand
what she means by this.
Animal is Spiritual,
she barks again and again, and as I approach
she walks out to the street,
does not look for traffic,
crosses to my side and waits for me.
She nuzzles my pant leg, I pet her and say,
You have a point—
the survival advantage of softened interpersonal boundaries
among kin in social animals could well drive a pleasure response
that might be conditioned by the touch of a hand, the nave of a
church, or a voice howling a hymn to the moon.
She licks my cool hand with her warm tongue.
But surely you would admit,
I go on,
the Animal embraces more
than the Spiritual and the Spiritual may well embrace more
than the Animal.
She looks up at me as if I have lost my mind.
I can read it in her eyes: Animal is Spiritual.
But then, what can I expect of anyone
with the limited symbolic capacity
of a Canis familiaris?
And I am embarrassed
to have even talked with her.
I take her by the collar back to her doormat,
tell her to be a good
spiritual dog and stay on her
side of the street. I go on with my walk.
At the end of the block I turn to see
a truck and a car stop and she
in the middle of the road,
as if she does not care
if she lives or dies. The drivers gesture,
but she pays them no mind. She just looks at me
with those eyes again—I,
another animal, a fifty-eight-year-old biped,
in the middle of the street, yelling,
Oh saint among dogs,
please get out of the road!
I, who still don’t know what
Animal is, what
Spiritual is.
- Len Anderson
To die singing!
To die singing! To pass into death through song!
I can think of no better way to die.
Let it be beautiful when I sing the last song.
Let it be day.
I would stand with my two feet singing,
I would look upward with my eyes singing,
I would have the winds envelop my body,
I would have the sun to shine upon my body,
Let it be beautiful when you would slay me,
(Thou wouldst)
O Shining One,
Let it be day when I sing the last song.
- Thomas Aquinas
(From 'Adore te devote')
Sonnet
The stars come out; the fragrant shadows fall
About a dreaming garden still and sweet,
I hear the unseen bats above me bleat
Among the ghostly moths their hunting call,
And twinkling glow-worms all about me crawl.
Now for a chamber dim, a pillow meet
For slumbers deep as death, a faultless sheet,
Cool, white and smooth. So may I reach the hall
With poppies strewn where sleep that is so dear
With magic sponge can wipe away an hour
Or twelve and make them naught. Why not a year,
Why could a man not loiter in that bower
Until a thousand painless cycles wore,
And then—what if it held him evermore?
- C.S. Lewis
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling your emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young agin with energy and dream,
A path of plentitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
- John O'Donohue
Life in a Body
Francis, who never intended
To be a saint, called his "Brother Ass",
An affectionate name for the beast
That houses our hearts and all the muscle, tissue,
Sinew and joints that grow drier and older,
Like late-summer grass, every day.
"I stretch every morning before
I get out of bed." She throws one leg
Over the other, by way of demonstration
And she is limber as her words
Are not, coming from vocal cords
Dry and salty as the Sonoran Desert
At the Sea of Cortez. My grandmother,
That same ninety-something years old,
Fell and broke a hip at sixty.
My mother, sixty-something then, tells
Me the story—an old woman as limber
As I am—all of twenty-something.
So I stretch and keep
Stretching until I reach
Central America, then east to Europe.
- Rebecca del Rio
Touched by An Angel
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
- Maya Angelou
Becoming
Nowhere is it the same place as yesterday.
None of us is the same person as yesterday.
We finally die from the exhaustion of becoming.
This downward cellular jubilance is shared
by the wind, bugs, birds, bears and rivers,
and perhaps the black holes in galactic space
where our souls will all be gathered in an invisible
thimble of antimatter. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Yes, trees wear out as the wattles under my chin
grow, the wrinkled hands that tried to strangle
a wife beater in New York City in 1957.
We whirl with the earth, catching our breath
as someone else, our soft brains ill-trained
except to watch ourselves disappear into the distance.
Still, we love to make music of this puzzle.
- Jim Harrison
Moral Proverbs and Folks Songs
(The Countryside of Castile)
1
I love Jesus, who said to us:
Heaven and earth will pass away.
When heaven and earth have passed away,
my word will remain.
What was your word, Jesus"
Love? Affection? Forgiveness?
All your words were
one word: Wakeup.
2
It is good know that glasses
are to drink from;
the bad thing is not to know
what thirst is for.
3
You say nothing is created new?
Don't worry about it, with the mud
of the earth, make a cup
from which your brother can drink.
4
All things die and all things live forever;
but our task is to die,
To die making roads,
Roads over the sea.
5
To die...To fall like a drop
of water into the big ocean?
Or to be what I've never been:
a man without a shadow, without a dream,
a man all alone, walking,
without a mirror, and with no road?
6
Mankind owns four things
That are no good at sea:
rudder, anchor, oars,
and the fear of going down.
- Antonio Machado
(translated by Robert Bly)
__________________________________________________
De Proverbios y Cantares
1
Yo amo a Jesús, que nos dijo:
Cielo y tierra pasarán.
Cuando cielo y tierra pasen
mi palabra quedará.
¿Cuál fue, Jesús, tu palabra?
¿Amor? ¿Perdón? ¿Caridad?
Todas tus palabras fueron
una palabra: Velad.
2
Bueno es saber que los vasos
nos sirven para beber;
lo malo es que no sabemos
para qué sirve la sed.
3
¿Dices que nada se crea?
No te importe, con el barro
de la tierra, haz una copa
para que beba tu hermano.
4
Todo pasa y todo queda,
pero lo nuestro es pasar,
pasar haciendo caminos,
caminos sobre la mar.
5
Morir... ¿Caer como gota
de mar en el mar inmenso?
¿O ser lo que nunca he sido:
uno, sin sombra y sin sueño,
un solitario que avanza
sin camino y sin espejo?
XLVI
Anoche soñé que oía
a Dios, gritándome: ¡Alerta!
Luego era Dios quien dormía,
y yo gritaba: ¡Despierta!
6
Cuatro cosas tiene el hombre
que no sirven en la mar:
ancla, gobernalle y remos,
y miedo de naufragar.
- Antonio Machado
On the Nature of Understanding
Say you hoped to
tame something
wild and stayed
calm and inched up
day by day. Or even
not tame it but
meet it halfway.
Things went along.
You made progress,
understanding
it would be a
lengthy process,
sensing changes
in your hair and
nails. So its
strange when it
attacks: you thought
you had a deal.
- Kay Ryan
A Memory Of TheFuture
I will say tree, not pine tree.
I will say flower, not forsythia.
I will see birds, many birds,
flying in four directions.
Then rock and cloud will be
lost. Spring will be lost.
And, most terribly,
your name will be lost.
I will revel in a world
no longer particular.
A world made vague,
as if by fog. But not fog.
Vaguely aware,
I will wander at will.
I will wade deeper
into wide water.
You'll see me, there,
out by the horizon,
an old gray thing,
who finally knows
gray is the most beautiful color.
- Elizabeth Spires
In the Elementary School Choir
I had never seen a cornfield in my life,
I had never been to Oklahoma,
But I was singing as loud as anyone,
“Oh what a beautiful morning. . . . The corn
Is as high as an elephant’s eye,”
Though I knew something about elephants I thought,
Coming from the same continent as they did,
And they being more like camels than anything else.
And when we sang from Meet Me in St. Louis,
“Clang, clang, clang went the trolley,”
I remembered the ride from Ramleh Station
In the heart of Alexandria
All the way to Roushdy where my grandmother lived,
The autos on the roadway vying
With mule carts and bicycles,
The Mediterranean half a mile off on the left,
The air smelling sharply of diesel and salt.
It was a problem which had dogged me
For a few years, this confusion of places,
And when in 5th grade geography I had pronounced
“Des Moines” as though it were a village in France,
Mr. Kephart led me to the map on the front wall,
And so I’d know where I was,
Pressed my forehead squarely against Iowa.
Des Moines, he’d said. Rhymes with coins.
Now we were singing “zippidy-doo-dah, zippidy-ay,”
And every song we’d sung had in it
Either sun or bluebirds, fair weather
Or fancy fringe, O beautiful America!
And one tier below me,
There was Linda Deemer with her amber waves
And lovely fruited plains,
And she was part of America too
Along with sun and spacious sky
Though untouchable, and as distant
As purple mountains of majesty.
“This is my country,” we sang,
And a few years ago there would have been
A scent of figs in the air, mangoes,
And someone playing the oud along a clear stream.
But now it was “My country ‘tis of thee”
And I sang it out with all my heart
And now with Linda Deemer in mind.
“Land where my fathers died,” I bellowed,
And it was not too hard to imagine
A host of my great uncles and -grandfathers
Stunned from their graves in the Turkish interior
And finding themselves suddenly
On a rock among maize and poultry
And Squanto shaking their hands.
How could anyone not think America
Was exotic when it had Massachusetts
And the long tables of thanksgiving?
And how could it not be home
If it were the place where love first struck?
We had finished singing.
The sun was shining through large windows
On the beatified faces of all
Who had sung well and with feeling.
We were ready to file out and march back
To our room where Mr. Kephart was waiting.
Already Linda Deemer had disappeared
Into the high society of the hallway.
One day I was going to tell her something.
Des Moines, I was saying to myself,
Baton Rouge. Terre Haute. Boise.
- Gregory Djanikian
(from Falling Deeply into America. Copyright © 1989 Carnegie Mellon University Press)
Litany
"You are the bread and the knife
The crystal goblet and the wine."
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass,
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is no way you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in the boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's teacup.
But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--
the wine.
- Billy Collins
Can somebody out there explain this poem to me please? :wink:
Day Dream
One day people will touch and talk perhaps easily,
And loving be natural as breathing and warm as sunlight,
And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
And work will be simple and swift as a seagull flying,
And play will be casual and quiet as a seagull settling,
And the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder or care or notice,
And people will smile without reason, even in winter, even in the rain.
- A. S. J. Tessimond
Working Together
We shape our self
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
in common cause,
to produce
the miraculous.
I am thinking of the way
the intangible air
passed at speed
round a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So may we, in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and look for the true
shape of our own self
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.
- David Whyte
Hi Marc,
I LOVE this poem, and here's what I think it means--a wild guess, of course, based on ever so subjective gut reaction.
We are both many-sided, with some real beauties but not all of them.
I think the particular images are not really interpretable, but I get the sense that, feeling-wise, they are ACCURATE. By accurate I mean true to his perception, and I believe (without any rational reason but truly) that he's right, both about the perception and the reality.
kathy
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by marcwordsmith:
I was referring to the Billy Collins one, "Litany"
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by kpage9:
What Never Changes
What never changes, always
Changes, remains an aftertaste
Or forethought. The sand always
Arrives, changing grain by grain.
We sit,
We watch through half-closed lids or
Listen, our hands itching
To plunge into the clay of
Creation, make it our own.
Always, and no matter,
We are the recipient, the Giver
Goes before us, adoring
Our clumsy intentions.
- Rebecca del Rio
To Begin With, the Sweet Grass
1.
Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat
of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or
forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?
Behold, I say - behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings
of this gritty earth gift.
2.
Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
thrillingly gluttonous.
For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.
And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs….
4.
Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
The dancer, the potter,
To make me a begging bowl
Which I believe
My soul needs.
And if I come to you,
To the door of your comfortable house
With unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
Will you put something into it?
I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.
5.
We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we change.
Congratulations, if
You have changed.
6.
Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some fabulous reason?
And if you have not been enchanted by this adventure-
Your life-
What would do for you?
7.
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
through with difficulty.
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another).
And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.
And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.
- Mary Oliver
Your Blinded Hand
Suppose that
everything that greens and grows
should blacken in one moment, flower and branch.
I think that I would find your blinded hand.
Suppose that your cry and mine were lost among numberless cries
in a city of fire when the earth is afire,
I must still believe that somehow I would find your blinded hand.
Through flames everywhere
consuming earth and air
I must believe that somehow, if only one moment were offered,
I would
find your hand.
I know as, of course, you know
the immeasurable wilderness that would exist
in the moment of fire.
But I would hear your cry and you’d hear mine and each of us
would find
the other’s hand.
We know
that it might not be so.
But for this quiet moment, if only for this
moment,
And against all reason,
let us believe, and believe in our hearts,
that somehow it would be so.
I’d hear your cry, you mine –
And each of us would find a blinded hand.
- Tennessee Williams
Thinking Ahead To Possible Options And A Worst-Case Scenario
I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel
in the center of the road and that's when
the deer came charging out of the forest
and forced me to hit the brakes for all I
was worth and I careened back to the other
side of the road just as a skunk came toddling
out of Mrs. Bancroft's front yard and I swung
back perhaps just grazing it a bit. I glanced
quickly in the rearview mirror and in that
instant a groundhog waddled from the side
of the road and I zigzagged madly and don't
know if I nipped it or not because up ahead I
could see a coyote stalking the Collier's
cat. Oh well, I said, and drove the rest
of the way home without incident.
- James Tate
When They Sleep
All people are children when they sleep.
There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
- God, teach me the language of sleep.
- Rolf Jacobsen (Norway, 1907-1994)
(The Roads Have Come to an End Now, translation by Robert Hedin)
Our Voices When We Wake
Our voices when we wake
are light and soft
and young
When we awake from sleep
from the place of deep breathing
the safe space
in the warm dark
Could we stay so undefended
in the daylight world
the world of hard edges
that our tight voices mimic?
If we could approach one another
soft-voiced, light, easy
still connected to
the small flowing child-self within
We would be like those gentle visitors
we imagine
from some evolved other world.
We could create that world here.
- Nina Mermey Klippel
A blind man was riding an unheated train,
From Bryansk he was traveling home with his fate.
Fate whispered to him so the whole car could hear:
And why should you care about blindness and war?
It’s good, she was saying, you’re sightless and poor.
If you were not blind, you’d never survive.
The Germans won’t kill you, you’re nothing to them.
Allow me to lift that bag on your shoulder—
The one with the holes, the empty torn one.
Let me just raise your eyelids wide open.
The blind man was traveling home with his fate,
Now thankful for blindness. Happy about it.
- Arseny Tarkovsky
(Written in a cargo train, between Bryansk and Zhivodovka, 1943
Translated from the Russian by Philip Metres & Dimitri Psurtsev)
Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
- Mary Oliver
Ode to the Tomato
The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
the light
splits
in two halves
of tomato,
the juice
runs
through the streets.
In June
the tomato
cuts loose,
invades
the kitchens,
takes over lunches,
sits down
comfortably
on sideboards,
among the glasses,
the butter dishes,
the blue saltshakers.
It has its own light,
a benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we have to
assassinate it;
the knife plunges
into its living flesh,
it is a red
viscera,
a cool,
deep,
inexhaustible
sun
fills the salads
of Chile,
is cheerfully married
to the clear onion
and to celebrate,
oil lets itself
fall,
son and essence
of the olive tree,
onto the half-open hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism:
it is the day's
wedding,
parsley
raises
little flags,
potatoes
vigorously boil,
with its aroma
the steak
pounds
on the door,
it's time!
let's go!
-*Pablo Neruda, translated by Stephen Mitchell
Oda al tomate
La calle
se llenó de tomates,
mediodía,
verano,
la luz
se parte
en dos
mitades
de tomate,
corre
por las calles
el jugo.
En diciembre
se desata
el tomate
invade
las concinas,
entra por los almuerzos,
se sienta
reposado
en los aparadores,
entre los vasos,
las mantequilleras,
los saleros azules.
Tiene
luz propia,
majestad benigna.
Debemos, por desgracia
asesinarlo;
se hunde
el cuchillo
en su pulpa viviente,
en una roja
vícera,
un sol
fresco,
profundo,
inagotable,
llena las ensalades
de Chile,
se casa alegremente
con la clara cebolla,
y para celebralo
se deja
caer
aceite,
hijo
esencial del olivo,
sobre sus hemisferios entreabiertos,
agrega
la pimienta
su fragancia,
la sal su magnetismo:
son las bodas
del día
el perejil
levanta
banderines,
las papas
hierven vigorosamente,
el asado
golpea
con su aroma
en la puerta,
es hora!
vamos!
-*Pablo Neruda
Fresh
To move
Cleanly.
Needing to be
Nowhere else.
Wanting nothing
From any store.
To lift something
You already had
And set it down in
A new place.
Awakened eye
Seeing freshly.
What does that do to
The old blood moving through
Its channels?
-Naomi Shihab Nye
The Light By The Barn
The light by the barn that shines all night
pales at dawn when a little breeze comes.
A little breeze comes breathing the fields
from their sleep and waking the slow windmill.
The slow windmill sings the long day
about anguish and loss to the chickens at work.
The little breeze follows the slow windmill
and the chickens at work till the sun goes down--
Then the light by the barn again.
- William Stafford
Hay for the Horses
He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."
- Gary Snyder
For Jean Koda
(March 19, 1919 - July 13, 2011)
My Japanese-American Mother-in-law
Born in America
Tough with brokers
A smart trader,
Grew up working barefoot
in the Delta, on the farm.
Doesn't like Japan.
Sits in the early morning
By the window, coffee in hand,
Gazing at cherry blossoms.
Needing no poem.
- Gary Snyder
No Ordinary Sun
for lost M'whera Miners & Korea North & South
Tree let your arms fall:
raise them not sharply in supplication
to the bright enhaloed cloud.
Let your arms lack toughness and
resilience for this is no mere axe
to blunt nor fire to smother.
Your sap shall not rise again
to the moon's pull.
No more incline a deferential head
to the wind's talk, or stir
to the tickle of coursing rain.
Your former shagginess shall not be
wreathed with the delightful flight
of birds nor shield
nor cool the ardour of unheeding
lovers from the monstrous sun.
Tree let your naked arms fall
nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
This is no gallant monsoon's flash,
no dashing trade wind's blast.
The fading green of your magic
emanations shall not make pure again
these polluted skies . . . for this
is no ordinary sun.
O tree
in the shadowless mountains
the white plains and
the drab sea floor
your end at last is written.
- Hone Tuwhare
Lastness
A black bear sits alone
in the twilight, nodding from side
to side, turning slowly around and around
on himself, scuffing the four-footed
circle into the earth. He sniffs the sweat
in the breeze, he understands
a creature, a death-creature,
watches from the fringe of the trees,
finally he understands
I am no longer here, he himself
from the fringe of the trees watches
a black bear
get up, eat a few flowers, trudge away,
all his fur glistening
in the rain.
And what glistening! Sancho Fergus,
my boychild, had such great shoulders,
when he was born his head
came out, the rest of him stuck. And he opened
his eyes: his head out there all alone
in the room, he squinted with pained,
barely unglued eyes at the ninth-month’s
blood splashing beneath him
on the floor. And almost
smiled, I thought, almost forgave it all in advance.
When he came wholly forth
I took him up in my hands and bent
over and smelled
the black, glistening fur
of his head, as empty space
must have bent
over the newborn planet
and smelled the grasslands and the ferns.
- Galway Kinnell
The Moon
The moon can be taken in teaspoons
or as a capsule every two hours.
It is a good hypnotic or narcotic
and relieves, too,
hangovers of those drunk on philosophy.
*
A piece of the moon tucked in the pocket
is a better good luck charm than a rabbit’s foot;
It works as a love charm,
to get rich without connections
and to ward off doctors.
*
It can be given as a treat to children
when they can’t sleep.
A few moon drops in the eyes of the elderly
help them die well.
*
Put a tender new moon leaf
under your pillow
and you will see your heart’s desire.
*
Always carry a small jar of moon air
for when you are drowning,
And give a*key tothe moon
to prisoners and the disillusioned,
to those condemned to death
and those condemned to life.
*
There is no better tonic than the moon
given in precise, controlled doses.
* - Jaime Sabines (1926-99)
(Translated by Rebecca Del Rio)
Appassionata
After the rising dissonance
with the trumpet and the sax
trying to out-shout each other
and the drums, the drums,
trying to shut them both down,
came the silence-- two, three, five--
one hardly dared to count--
eight, thirteen...
and the cello began
in such pure and hesitant
sweetness
that the tears began to rise
and the flowers of tenderness
opened slowly
and we saw each other again
in our various and awkward beauty.
- Barbara Hazard
Blackberries
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks—
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.
- Sylvia Plath
A Color of the Sky
Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.
I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.
Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.
Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,
which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.
Last night I dreamed of X again.
She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I’m glad.
What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.
Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;
overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,
dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,
so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.
- Tony Hoagland
First thought: "Too long!"
My attempt to escape was unsuccessful.
Subconscious forced me to scan and my eyes caught
What I thought...
What I thought...
What I thought...
The chorus hooks me in.
As he says...
And now I'm glad.
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