Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

In a Dark Time


In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood—
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.


What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks—is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.


A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is—
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.


Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.


- Theodore Roethke

Voyage


I feel as if we opened a book about great ocean voyages
and found ourselves on a great ocean voyage:
sailing through December, around the horn of Christmas
and into the January Sea, and sailing on and on


in a novel without a moral but one in which
all the characters who died in the middle chapters
make the sunsets near the book's end more beautiful.


—And someone is spreading a map upon a table,
and someone is hanging a lantern from the stern,
and someone else says, "I'm only sorry
that I forgot my blue parka; It's turning cold."


Sunset like a burning wagon train
Sunrise like a dish of cantaloupe
Clouds like two armies clashing in the sky;
Icebergs and tropical storms,
That's the kind of thing that happens on our ocean voyage—


And in one of the chapters I was blinded by love
And in another, anger made us sick like swallowed glass
& I lay in my bunk and slept for so long,


I forgot about the ocean,
Which all the time was going by, right there, outside my cabin window.


And the sides of the ship were green as money,
and the water made a sound like memory when we sailed.


Then it was summer. Under the constellation of the swan,
under the constellation of the horse.


At night we consoled ourselves
By discussing the meaning of homesickness.
But there was no home to go home to.
There was no getting around the ocean.
We had to go on finding out the story
by pushing into it—


The sea was no longer a metaphor.
The book was no longer a book.
That was the plot.
That was our marvelous punishment.


- Tony Hoagland

The Grounding of Stone



Precious earth

I feel your pulse, solid under my feet



Our Mother carrying on her rhythms

of day and night

tide and wave


In the wax and waning of her moon

on into seasons – turning the wheel


of another year nearly gone


We wait

we shelter

we dream

we hold tight to what we love

we wholly wrap hope around our fear

feeling in through our toes

the ache of what matters



we stand unbroken

and dream our way to the other side

grounded, solid and still

unshakably trusting in each other



- M. Mariette

Try to Praise the Mutilated World


Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.


- Adam Zagajewski
(Translation by Clare Cavanaugh)

Full Moon on the Fourth Day


The days are tiring since we undertook the journey but because of that no less amazing. I often ask myself if my companions and I have not spent too much time in our observatories looking for causes in the stars. Since we left we have seen so much suffering, so much misery, so much kindness, so much joy in the common folk that has nothing to do with the stars.

What is it that I will remember of the trip? The four birdies we heard sing on arriving at the village this evening? The moon so big and bright that it dims the star itself? The misery and the kindness of the people?

Who knows what the memory chooses to keep. On the way we discussed so much the why of the trip itself. Who is this princeling who merits a star to announce his birth? Will he perhaps grow to be the king who will free his people from the yoke of the empire? ¿Or, like the present king, one who will accommodate to the yoke and under it prosper making himself more rich?

Well, at least we are assured a great welcome by his parents. Without doubt they will feast us and load us with gifts even more rich than those we bring, and we shall set out on the return journey burdened with more riches than our three offerings.

Be that as it may, I imagine that it will be this trip itself that is worth the trouble, what we learned of the suffering — and the capacity for joy —of the people. Or the singing of the four little birds. Or this moon, so near, so full, so brilliant that it overshadows the star itself and does not let me sleep.


© Rafael Jesús González 2020

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Luna llena en el cuarto día


Son cansados los días desde que empeñamos el viaje aunque no por eso menos asombrosos. A menudo me pregunto si yo y mis compañeros no hemos gastado demasiado tiempo en nuestros observatorios buscando causas en las estrellas. Desde que salimos hemos visto tanto sufrir, tanta miseria, tanta bondad, tanta alegría en la gente común que nada tiene que haber con las estrellas.

¿Qué es lo que recordaré del viaje? Los cuatro pajarillos que oímos cantar al llegar a la aldea esta tarde? ¿La luna tan grande y luminosa que ofusca a la estrella misma? ¿La miseria y la bondad de la gente?

Vayamos a saber que es lo que escoge para guardar la memoria. Discutimos tanto en camino del porque del viaje mismo. ¿Quién este principillo que merece un lucero para anunciar su nacer? ¿Tal vez crecerá a ser el rey que libere a su pueblo del yugo del imperio? ¿O como el rey actual uno que se acomode al yugo y bajo él prospere haciéndose más rico?

Bueno, a lo menos se nos asegura una gran bienvenida de sus padres. Sin duda nos festejarán y nos colmarán de regalos aun más ricos de los que traemos y saldremos en el viaje de regreso cargados de más riquezas que nuestras tres ofrendas.

Sea como sea, me imagino que será este viaje mismo que valga la pena, lo que aprendimos del sufrimiento — y capacidad de alegría — de la gente. O el cantar de los cuatro pajarillos. O esta luna tan cerca, tan llena, tan brillante que opaca el lucero mismo y me espanta el sueño.

© Rafael Jesús González 2020

A year of loss and chaos draws to a close.

Stories from a thousand cultures remind us that the cosmos is born - and reborn again and again - from chaos.

We have passed the darkest night of the year but the light only returns slowly.

The old order has passed as well but the new is not yet apparent.

Life does renew itself and new forms emerge as old ones pass away.

It has always been this way.

For all the misery of the past year, we have also seen astounding acts of beauty and courage and generosity.

This liminal space we inhabit is a time to dream, to imagine and to plan.

There are times when seemingly small acts can have out-size impacts.

I believe that we are in one of these times - actually a hopeful time, a time of possibilities.

Cynicism is as perilous a path as naïveté.

Hope is a choice, not a feeling; we create it through our actions and through our words.

At this turning of the wheel I invite and challenge you to dream grandly of the world you wish to bequeath, to proclaim it proudly and boldly and to join with your brothers and sisters to take the practical steps to make it real.

Remember that every act of kindness bends the curve of our shared life toward love.




A New Year’s Blessing

Unhurried mornings, greeted with gratitude;
good work for the hand, the heart and the mind;
the smile of a friend, the laughter of children;
kind words from a neighbor, a home dry and warm.

Food on the table, with a place for the stranger;
a glimpse of the mystery behind every breath;
some time of ease in the arms of your lover;
then sleep with a prayer of thanks on your lips;

May all this and more be yours this year
and every year after to the end of your days.

- Larry Robinson

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...1_09-45-56.png

Wonderful! Grateful for such a perfectly-articulated "Firstie" for 2021!
And what a visionary phot! Best one yet!
:heart:

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On Some Other Day



on some other day

i might sense the

drift of jasmine

breathing

through my being



on some other day

i might feel the soft cool of fog

the warmth of autumn-slanted sun

dancing their magic

on the skin of my hopes


on some other day

i might feel the love of my beloveds

coursing through my veins

as if they are

my very being



on some other day

i might be hopeful

for my progeny’s tomorrows



on some other day

i might know the nearness of angels



perhaps

some other day

rises soon

- Vilma Ginzberg

I Think That When I Die


I think that when I die,
I can breathe back the breath that made me live.
I can give back to the world all that I didn't do.
All that I might have been and couldn't be.
All the choices I didn't make.
All the things I lost and spent and wasted.
I can give them back to the world.
To the lives that haven't been lived yet.
That will be my gift to the world
that gave me the life I did live,
the love that I loved,
the breath that I breathed.


- Ursula LeGuin

Cento Between the Ending and the End




Sometimes you don’t die


when you’re supposed to


& now I have a choice


repair a world or build


a new one inside my body


a white door opens


into a place queerly brimming


gold light so velvet-gold


it is like the world


hasn’t happened


when I call out


all my friends are there


everyone we love


is still alive gathered


at the lakeside


like constellations


my honeyed kin


honeyed light


beneath the sky


a garden blue stalks


white buds the moon’s


marble glow the fire


distant & flickering


the body whole bright-


winged brimming


with the hours


of the day beautiful


nameless planet. Oh


friends, my friends—


bloom how you must, wild


until we are free.


- Cameron Awkward-Rich

Hozho


And you will see hozho all around you, inside of you.”
This morning she is teaching me the meaning of HOZHO.
It is dawn.
The sun is conquering the sky and my grandmother and I
are heaving prayers at the horizon.
“Show me something unbeautiful,” she says,
“and I will show you the veil over your eyes and take it away.

There is no direct translation from Diné Bizaad,
the Navajo language, into English
but every living being knows what hozho means.
Hozho is every drop of rain,
every eyelash, every leaf on every tree,
every feather on the bluebird’s wing.
Hozho is undeniable beauty.
Hozho is in every breath that we give to the trees.
And in every breath they give to us in return.
Hozho is reciprocity.
My grandmother knows the meaning of hozho well.
For she speaks a language that grew out of the desert floor
like red sandstone monoliths that rise like arms out of the earth
praising creation for all its brilliance.
Hozho is remembering that you are a part of this brilliance.
It is finally accepting that, yes, you are a sacred song that
brings the Diyin Dine’é, the gods, to their knees
in an almost unbearable ecstasy.
Hozho is remembering your own beauty.
My grandmother knows hozho well
For she speaks the language of a Lukachukai snowstorm
the sound of hooves hitting the earth on birthdays.
For my grandmother is a midwife and she is fluent in the
language of suffering mothers
of joyful mothers
of handing glowing newborns to their creator.
Hozho is not something you can experience on your own,
the eagles tell us as they lock talons in the stratosphere
and fall to the earth as one.
Hozho is interbeauty.
My grandmother knows hozho well
for she speaks the language of the male rain
that shoots lightning boys through the sky,
pummels the green corn children,
and huddles the horses against cliff sides in the afternoon.
She also speaks the language of the female rain
that sends the scent of dust and sage into our homes
and shoots rainbows out of and into the earth.
The Diné know what hozho means!
And you know what hozho means!
And deep down we know what hozho is not.
Like the days you walk in sadness.
The days you live for money.
The days you live for fame.
The days you live for tomorrow.
Like the day the Spaniards climbed down from their horses
and asked us if they could buy the mountains.
We knew this was not hozho.
But we knew we could make it hozho once again.
So we took their swords and their silver coins
and melted them

with fire and buffalo hide bellows
and reshaped them into squash blossom jewelry pieces
and strung it around their necks.
Took the helmets straight off their heads
and turned it into fearless beauty.
Hozho is the healing of broken bones.
Hozho is the prayer that carried us
through genocide and disease,
It is the prayer that will carry us through global warming
and through this global fear that has set our hearts on fire.
This morning my grandmother is teaching me
that the easiest (and most elegant) way to defeat an army of
hatred,
is to sing it beautiful songs
until it falls to its knees and surrenders.
It will do this, she says, because it has finally
found a sweeter fire than revenge.
It has found heaven.
It has found HOZHO.
This morning my grandmother is saying
to the colors of the sky at dawn:
hózhǫ́náházdlíí’ hózhǫ́náházdiíí’
hózhǫ́náházdlíí’
beauty is restored again...
It is dawn, my friends.
Wake up. The night is over.


- Lyla June Johnston

Navaho Basket:

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Burning the Old Year




Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.


So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.


Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.


Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.


- Naomi Shihab Nye

26-1-1939




When Barcelona fell, the darkened glass
turned in the world and immense ruinous gaze,
mirror of prophecy in a series of mirrors.
I meet it in all the faces that I see.


Decisions of history the radios reverse;
Storm over continents, black rays around the chief,
Finished in lightning, the little chaos raves.
I meet it in all the faces that I see.


Inverted year with one prophetic day,
high wind, forgetful cities, and the war,
the terrible time when everyone writes “hope.”
I meet it in all the faces that I see.


When Barcelona fell, the cry on the roads
assembled horizons, and the circle of eyes
looked with a lifetime look upon that image,
defeat among us, and war, and prophecy,
I meet it in all the faces that I see.


- Muriel Rukeyser

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
(Excerpt from his longer poem "September 1, 1939")

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939

by W.H. Auden


Auden: A poet for our times
by Christopher Hitchens

​I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

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.

In God’s Time

A platitude meant to calm
But what can it mean?


God’s time is geologic,
Susan says. Frustrated wishes and demands tell her this.
She is right.


So to know this particular God,
We must become as patient as mountains,
Sand or the very evolving beasts
We already are. To know


This odd God. We must shrug off
Hurry and fearful fantasies,
Learn to love the Unknown.
To feel this God’s presence


Learn to wait, wishing
For no more than the waiting,
Sweet for itself, for the
Exquisite taste of timelessness.


Learn to see God as
The gourd that holds
Gaseous new stars, baby birds, Wind and water.
Watch how God’s time cradles felons
Walking four square feet
And refugees scaling fences Into the Unknown Present.


This specific God’s time is geologic, despite Time’s
Cruel evidence etched
In the aging bodies
We inhabit reluctantly.
Silly how our egos demand
We resolve the problems
We create in our tiny time,


While all around us
Evidence of eternity
Spins and sparkles
If only we see and come
To know we, too, are
Geologic and timeless.


- Rebecca del Rio

Glacier illustration 1875:


In-God's-Time.pdf

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Waves, Oceans and Flip-flopping


think of a wave and then also, the ocean,
a young branch and the trunk of a tree,
a spent blossom and the stem of a rose,
a broken heart and an act of forgiveness.


each a willing sacrifice, a dying, a birthing,
a doing what each was ordained to do.


the branch, the perfect broken wing of the limb,
the blossom, emitting the flower’s last fragrance,
and forgiveness, the ultimate human reckoning.


how can we be both the fallen branch and
the sturdy tree itself, the rose and its fragrant
scent, the broken heart and the one forgiving?


by remembering that we are both human and divine,
flip-flopping between tiny ephemeral splashes near
the shore and then, in a moment, the vast expanse
of the great ocean.

of the great ocean itself.


- Bruce Silverman

Trying to Be Thoughtful in the First Brights of Dawn

I am thinking, or trying to think, about all the
imponderables for which we have
no answers, yet endless interest all the
range of our lives, and it's

good for the head no doubt to undertake such
meditation; Mystery, after all,
is God's other name, and deserves our

consideration surely. But, but -
excuse me now, please; it's morning, heavenly bright,
and my irrepressible heart begs me to hurry on
into the next exquisite moment.

- Mary Oliver

My Wish For You




I wish you happiness
Each and every day
Mornings filled with pink golden clouds
Laden with unlimited possibilities


May this New Year
Open doors in unexpected ways
Bringing you renewed abundance
Grace, ease and satisfaction


May you be blessed with good health
In mind, body and soul
Untouched by the pandemic
Still in the air around us


May you always see rainbows
Stretching across the heavens
Leading your imagination
Towards unknown treasures awaiting


May the sunlight warm you
Like the golden orange poppies
Opening fully when touched by light
Greeting the new day once again


May the winds of time
Blow softly from behind
Gently moving you forward
With strong, loving support

May nature beckon you
Venturing forth often into forests
Meadows, beaches, anywhere nearby
Reconnecting with the wonder of all


May the waters run deep
Clear, cool, rushing along
Carrying you around all obstacles
Flowing with life’s good intentions


But most of all
I wish you Love
Love felt from within
And from all your relations


Knowing that you are always loved
By family, special friends, community
Loved by each breathe of air
Graciously filling your body each moment


In deep Gratitude
I wish you Love
From the depths of my heart
And a New Year worth living


- David Lieberstein

Too Many Names




Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays
and the week with the whole year.
Time cannot be cut
with your weary scissors,
and all the names of the day
are washed out by the waters of night.


No one can claim the name of Pedro,
nobody is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain under rain.
They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,
of Chiles and of Paraguays;
I have no idea what they are saying.
I know only the skin of the earth
and I know it is without a name.


When I lived amongst the roots
they pleased me more than flowers did,
and when I spoke to a stone
it rang like a bell.


It is so long, the spring
which goes on all winter.
Time lost its shoes.
A year is four centuries.


When I sleep every night,
what am I called or not called?
And when I wake, who am I
if I was not while I slept?


This means to say that scarcely
have we landed into life
than we come as if new-born;
let us not fill our mouths
with so many faltering names,
with so many sad formallities,
with so many pompous letters,
with so much of yours and mine,
with so much of signing of papers.


I have a mind to confuse things,
unite them, bring them to birth,
mix them up, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the oneness of the ocean,
a generous, vast wholeness,
a crepitant fragrance.


- Pablo Neruda


(English version by Anthony Kerrigan)




Demasiados nombres


Se enreda el lunes con el martes
y la semana con el año:
no se puede cortar el tiempo
con tus tijeras fatigadas,
y todos los nombres del día
los borra el agua de la noche.


Nadie puede llamarse Pedro,
ninguna es Rosa ni María,
todos somos polvo o arena,
todos somos lluvia en la lluvia.
Me han hablado de Venezuelas,
de Paraguayes y de Chiles,
no sé de lo que están hablando:
conozco la piel de la tierra
y sé que no tiene apellido.


Cuando viví con las raíces
me gustaron más que las flores,
y cuando hablé con una piedra
sonaba como una campana.


Es tan larga la primavera
que dura todo el invierno:
el tiempo perdió los zapatos:
un año tiene cuatro siglos.


Cuando duermo todas las noches,
cómo me llamo o no me llamo?
Y cuando me despierto quién soy
si no era yo cuando dormía?


Esto quiere decir que apenas
desembarcamos en la vida,
que venimos recién naciendo,
que no nos llenemos la boca
con tantos nombres inseguros,
con tantas etiquetas tristes,
con tantas letras rimbombantes,
con tanto tuyo y tanto mío,
con tanta firma en los papeles.




Yo pienso confundir las cosas,
unirlas y recién nacerlas,
entreverarlas, desvestirlas,
hasta que la luz del mundo
tenga la unidad del océano,
una integridad generosa,
una fragancia crepitante.


- Pablo Neruda

If any of you who read my poetry posts would like to receive them in your in-box after the demise of Wacco, you can send me a message at [email protected] and I will add you to the mailing list.

Larry

When Larry recently offered the poem "Dawn" I shared it with friends I thought would appreciate it as I do. They forwarded back the author speaking the poem aloud: https://asusjournal.org/issue-1/lyla...n-spoken-word/

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Oh, thank you sooo much for sharing this beautiful video of this beautiful poem. I watched and listened to it several times. I find so much peace and hope in it in these difficult times. "Wake Up--the night is OVER!!" Lilith

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It’s Time


Stop the digging
There is no pony down here
Despite the stink


It’s time to look upward
At the narrow ribbon of sky
The climb will be steep—expect slippage
Widen the ribbon until clouds appear


Rain will come—more slippage
Find the toe-holds and the handles
Until the ribbon widens to a sash
And the ascent reveals the true panorama
Of sea-level possibilities
The stars, the green earth


Breathe deeply
We have been disinterred
Arising from a would-be grave
The will to live surfacing
And enabling a new shot at adventure
And a new ability to recognize an abyss


- Katherine Foster

The Ear That Speaks

I have been a standing self in this world.
I have braved both pleasure and disgust.
I have lived my words.
The stranger appeared and I did not look away.
The crazy youth wandered by and I sometimes followed him.
The virgin cried and I investigated her tears.

I am a man, a person, an elder, shining and wise.
I am someone who happily discovered the use of my ears.
I am someone who happily discovered the use of my mind.
I am someone who happily discovered the use of my heart.

I meet the young people, the soldiers, the prisoners,
The students, the poor people, the people of color,
The Indians and the women of the planet,
And I am not afraid of them.
And for their part, they do not seem to be afraid of me.

I sit and eat quietly the bread of resistance
On the wrong side of the barricade.

I am an elder, shining and wise.
I have lived my words.
I have discovered the use of my heart, my mind, my tongue.
And for that reason alone, I have become devout,
A listener devoted to the sound of the human voice.

I have lived long enough to be able to tell you
That I prefer it to sound happy.
For the sake of the generations, I have become magic.
I have become the ear that speaks.

- Alice Walker

Quilts


for Sally Sellers

Like a fading piece of cloth
I am a failure


No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter
My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able
To hold the hot and cold


I wish for those first days
When just woven I could keep water
From seeping through
Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave
Dazzled the sunlight with my
Reflection


I grow old though pleased with my memories
The tasks I can no longer complete
Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past


I offer no apology only
this plea:


When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm


And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers


And cuddle
near


- Nikki Giovanni

"Why has there never been a coup in Washington D.C.? Because there is no U.S. Embassy in Washington D.C.”
- Ira Kurzban attorney, following the 2004 U.S. Coup deposing Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti.

The Domino Apocalypse

Albania, Argentina, Afghanistan,
Guatemala, Ghana, Greece,
Somalia, Syria,El Salvador,
Haiti, Honduras,Palestine,
Iran, Iraq, Indonesia
Congo, Kosovo, Cambodia, Chile,
Laos, Libya, Mexico, Myanmar,
Panama, Pakistan, the Philippines,
Brazil, Turkey, Zaire,
the United States of
America.**

Looking for Four Horsemen,
Babylon's Whore or
A beast bearing a sign of
XXX, we look for symbols where

A mirror will suffice.
The end times have arrived
Have always been here, have come
Home.

- Rebecca del Rio

**a partial list of the countries in which United States government officials, including presidents, have supported, authorized and/or engineered fascist coups.

The New Horizon




There’s a storm coming
the air changes subtly
something inside
shifts
turns
twists toward a new horizon


Sleepers awake
change is at our doors
promising a new deal
and all our comforts
wither
in the misery
of our reluctance


Fear anger grief
calling us
from our couches and beds
screens cocktails jobs
our desperate diversions
May we find the courage
each day to welcome
this new horizon
even meet with gladness
whatever strange guest
may arrive at our door


No one can rob
what I have offered
freely
No one can strip me
of what is most essential


I love what is
even
when it’s devastation
everything made sacred
by my welcoming



- Kay Crista

In This Place
(An American Lyric)


There’s a poem in this place—

in the footfalls in the halls

in the quiet beat of the seats.

It is here, at the curtain of day,

where America writes a lyric

you must whisper to say.



There’s a poem in this place—

in the heavy grace,

the lined face of this noble building,

collections burned and reborn twice.

There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square

where protest chants

tear through the air

like sheets of rain,

where love of the many

swallows hatred of the few.

There’s a poem in Charlottesville

where tiki torches string a ring of flame

tight round the wrist of night

where men so white they gleam blue—

seem like statues

where men heap that long wax burning

ever higher

where Heather Heyer

blooms forever in a meadow of resistance.

There’s a poem in the great sleeping giant

of Lake Michigan, defiantly raising

its big blue head to Milwaukee and Chicago—

a poem begun long ago, blazed into frozen soil,

strutting upward and aglow.

There’s a poem in Florida, in East Texas

where streets swell into a nexus

of rivers, cows afloat like mottled buoys in the brown,

where courage is now so common

that 23-year-old Jesus Contreras rescues people from floodwaters.

There’s a poem in Los Angeles

yawning wide as the Pacific tide

where a single mother swelters

in a windowless classroom, teaching

black and brown students in Watts

to spell out their thoughts

so her daughter might write

this poem for you.

There's a lyric in California

where thousands of students march for blocks,

undocumented and unafraid;

where my friend Rosa finds the power to blossom

in deadlock, her spirit the bedrock of her community.

She knows hope is like a stubborn

ship gripping a dock,

a truth: that you can’t stop a dreamer

or knock down a dream. 



How could this not be her city

su nación

our country

our America,

our American lyric to write—

a poem by the people, the poor,

the Protestant, the Muslim, the Jew,

the native, the immigrant,

the black, the brown, the blind, the brave,

the undocumented and undeterred,

the woman, the man, the nonbinary,

the white, the trans,

the ally to all of the above

and more?

Tyrants fear the poet.

Now that we know it

we can’t blow it.

We owe it

to show it

not slow it

although it

hurts to sew it

when the world

skirts below it.

Hope—

we must bestow it

like a wick in the poet

so it can grow, lit,

bringing with it

stories to rewrite—

the story of a Texas city depleted but not defeated

a history written that need not be repeated

a nation composed but not yet completed.

There’s a poem in this place—

a poem in America

a poet in every American

who rewrites this nation, who tells

a story worthy of being told on this minnow of an earth

to breathe hope into a palimpsest of time—

a poet in every American

who sees that our poem penned

doesn’t mean our poem’s end.

There’s a place where this poem dwells—

it is here, it is now, in the yellow song of dawn’s bell

where we write an American lyric

we are just beginning to tell.

- Amanda Gorman

(Amanda Gorman is America’s first Youth Poet Laureate. This poem was written for the inaugural reading of Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith at the Library of Congress.)

On the Pulse of Morning




A Rock, A River, A Tree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9nTt2F0Kdc

Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.


But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow,
I will give you no hiding place down here.


You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Facedown in ignorance,
Your mouths spilling words


Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today,
You may stand upon me;
But do not hide your face.


Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song. It says,
Come, rest here by my side.


Each of you, a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.


Come, clad in peace,
And I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the Rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The River sang and sings on.


There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say they Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.


They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today.
Come to me,
Here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside the River.


Each of you, descendant of some passed-
On traveler, has been paid for.


You, who gave me my first name, you,
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.


You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede,
The German, the Eskimo, the Scot,
The Italian, the Hungarian, the Pole,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.


Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I, the River, I, the Tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.


Lift up your eyes
Upon this day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.


Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands,
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For a new beginning.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.


The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space
To place new steps of change
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me,
The Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.


Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
And into your brother's face,
Your country,
And say simply
Very simply
With hope--
Good morning.


- Maya Angelou

You've outdone yourself today, Larry old boy!
THANK you!
THANK you, Maya Angelou!
(THIS is what the Silence is saying!
THIS IS our salvation!
This is the cure for all our ills,
I do believe!)
:heart::heart::heart:

The Hill We Climb

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.

We braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow we do it.

Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.

We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.

And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge our union with purpose.

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.

We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.

That even as we grieved, we grew.

That even as we hurt, we hoped.

That even as we tired, we tried.

That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.

Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.

If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.

That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.

It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.

It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

And this effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption.

We feared at its inception.

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.

But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.

Our blunders become their burdens.

But one thing is certain.

If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.

Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the golden hills of the West.

We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.

We will rise from the sun-baked South.

We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.

And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.

The new dawn balloons as we free it.

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

- Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman is rightly the "poet of the day", this post-Inauguration Thursday, but I want to share a Comment under my re-posting of Maya Angelou's masterpiece on my Facebook page yesterday (as I often do with Larry's poems):
My friend Douglas wrote:
"One of the greatest poems ever written on the earth. I have read it, and explored the meaning of it’s vast and multi-layered words, three to four hundred times, with my drug-treatment and mental health patients"
And I replied, "I agree 100%!"

Quote:

---

Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

·

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Inaugural

We were told that it is dangerous to touch
And yet we journeyed here, where what we believe
Meets what must be done. You want to see, in spite
Of my mask, my face. We imagine, in time
Of disease, our grandmothers
Whole. We imagine an impossible
America and call one another
A fool for doing so. Grown up from the ground,
Thrown out of the sea, fallen from the sky,
No matter how we’ve come, we’ve come a mighty
Long way. If I touch any of you, if I
Shake one hand, I am nearer another
Beginning. Can’t you feel it? The trouble
With me is I’m just like you. I don’t want
To be hopeful if it means I’ve got to be
Naïve. I’ve bent so low in my hunger,
My hair’s already been in the soup,
And when I speak it’s just beneath my self-
Imposed halo. You’ll forgive me if you can
Forgive yourself. I forgive you as you build
A museum of weapons we soon visit
Just to see what we once were. I forgive us
Our debts. We were told to wake up grateful,
So we try to fall asleep that way. Where, then,
Shall we put our pains when we want rest?
I don’t carry a knife, but I understand
The desperation of those who do,
Which is why I am recounting the facts
As calmly as I can. The year is new,
And we mean to use our imaginations.
One of us wants to raise George Stinney
From the dead. One of us wants a small vial
Of the sweat left on Sylvia Rivera’s
Headband. Some want to be the music made
Magical by Bill Withers’s stutter.
Others come with maps and magnifying
Glasses and graphite pencils to find
Locations beside the mind where we are not
Patrolled or surveilled or corralled or chained.
I, myself, have come to reclaim the teeth
In George Washington’s mouth and plant them
In the backyards of big houses that are not
In my name. My cousins want to share
A single bale of the cotton our mothers
Picked as children. I would love to live
In a country that lets me grow old.
I long. I long for that. We are otherwise
Easily satisfied. Where do we get
Tangerines for cheap? Can we make it
There on the Metro? How hot is the fire
Fairy blister of chocolate chipotle sauce,
And will you judge me if I taste it? But now,
We’ve put our hunger down for the time it takes
To come and reconcile ourselves to the land
Because it is holy, to the water
Because it swallowed our ancestors,
To the air because we are dumb enough
To decide on something as difficult
As love. If no one’s punishment leads to
My salvation, then accountability
Is what waits. It moves citizens, mends nations.
That’s for us to prove. That’s the deed to witness.
That’s the single item on the agenda
Read in Braille or by eye, ink drying like blood
Spilled this American hour of our lives.
- Jericho Brown

I Greet You On This New Morning
Moment by moment,
like the resurrection of the gods!
New Sun, New day, new opportunity!

If we don't get it right,
there will be another,
and another,
but let us be here now
to usher in this one
while the Light is full upon us,
new wind filling
the sails of our hearts!

And if there are any
who shrink from this sight,
let their eyes be cleansed
until they see the glory
of human brother-and-sisterhood,
the union of soul and soul,
the opening of time,
the way we need to be...
hearty, smiling, pointing the way forward
to the Realizationof our Pledge:
With Liberty and Justice for ALL!

Sail on, sail on,
Oh mighty ship of state!
Oh, farther!
Oh, farther, farther still!



- Max Reif

Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light


Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.


Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes
your heart a chapel,
an altar where
the deepest night
can be seen.
The fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.


- Jan Richardson

Winter’s Tale


Even from my study at the back
of the house I can hear an orange drop
upstairs, one of the last to grow


on the dwarf tree you bought me
thirty years ago. When it tried
to overtake the window frame


we cruelly lopped side branches and still
it blossomed and bore its bitter progeny
the size and wrinkle of walnuts.


Repotting, we tore the roots apart,
vermiculite clinging like hatchlings
of silverfish to its tendrils. It thrived,


for years you harvested a pint or more.
But as it aged the fruitage thinned
and hoping to replace it, you soaked


handfuls of seeds. Three consented to sprout.
They shot straight up like pole beans,
greedy underlings sucking in


all the light at the front of the house.
Of course they were sterile.
Today, when I hear an orange drop


I don’t let myself think back to the winters
when you’d pick a crop of twenty, thirty
oranges at once, cut each


one open, force the seeds out, add
enough sugar to make my teeth ache,
and boil and boil until the mass


congealed, sheeting off the spoon
in the drear of February while rain
fell on snow, making little pockmarks


like mattress buttons in the pasture
outside the steamy kitchen window,
and life was bleak and sweet and you


made marmalade


- Maxine Kumin

The Facts of Life 


That you were born
and you will die.


That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.

That you will lie
if only to yourself.


That you will get tired.

That you will learn most from the situations
you did not choose.

That there will be some things that move you
more than you can say.

That you will live
that you must be loved.

That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of
your attention.

That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg
of two people who once were strangers
and may well still be.

That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes better than good.

That life is often not so good.

That life is real
and if you can survive it, well,
survive it well
with love
and art
and meaning given
where meaning’s scarce.

That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.

That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constraining.

That you will probably be okay.

That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.

So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.


- Padraig Ó Tuama

What will the dead say . . .

to those who mourn the restless souls
who died alone and drowning
hands held by surrogates—

free us from these chains of neglect
and abuse by the many who fostered
deceit and chaos, our spirits like birds
trapped in nets of confusion

hear our calls as we haunt the memories
of the living who choke on tears
flooding hearts broken open to grief
and regret over how and why

stop now and listen as we sound the wind and
shroud the moon our souls drawn to the light
cast between then and forever

release us with your wailing
let us go without asking and
find us in the warmth of the sun
hear us in the waves as they break toward shore
lay us to rest in the still beating heart

- L.L. Stamps

As You Have Done for Me




There is treasure in you.
Joi Sharp



If you were here

I would put my hand

on your heart

and hold it there

until our breaths

became a single tide,

hold it there until

I could feel the moment

when you remember

your infinite value.

It¹s so easy to forget

we are treasure.

So easy to lose track

of our own immeasurable worth.

The chest rusts shut.

We think we are empty.

Amazing how easily

we are fooled into believe

we¹re paupers.

Sometimes it takes another

to remind us

we have always been

not only the treasure

but also the key.

Though the hinges

are a metaphor,

the treasure is not.

We were made to open,

to share our priceless gift,

to press our hands

to each other¹s hearts

until we all remember.


- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

How to Climb a Mountain


Make no mistake. This will be an exercise in staying vertical.
Yes, there will be a view, later, a wide swath of open sky,
but in the meantime: tree and stone. If you’re lucky, a hawk will
coast overhead, scanning the forest floor. If you’re lucky,
a set of wildflowers will keep you cheerful. Mostly, though,
a steady sweat, your heart fluttering indelicately, a solid ache
perforating your calves. This is called work, what you will come to know,
eventually and simply, as movement, as all the evidence you need to make
your way. Forget where you were. That story is no longer true.
Level your gaze to the trail you’re on, and even the dark won’t stop you.


- Maya Stein

Hymn to Matter


Blessed be you harsh matter, barren rock; you who yield only
to violence, you who force us to work if we would eat. Blessed
be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untamable passion: you who
unless we fetter you, will devour us. Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible
march, reality ever new born; you who by constantly
shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further in our
pursuit of the truth. Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable
time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations;
you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards of
measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God.


- Teilhard de Chardin
(Translation by Bernard Wall)

this powerful poem led me to find another lovely one by this great modern Christian mystic;
AND a cool photo of him twirling an umbrella.

https://alifesworkmovie.com/2015/05/...rd-de-chardin/

Chardin's Matter reminds me of Rilke's allusion to Jacob and the Angel:

The Man Watching
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can’t bear without a friend,
I can’t love without a sister.

The storm, shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and certainty.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win, it is with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler’s sinews
in the struggle, elongated like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him, as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Robert Bly

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by REALnothings:

·

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Poem to COVID

I´d turn right away from you
wherever I crossed you in the street
and as you came towards me
I´d quickly go the other way.
Until one day you made it quite clear:
there was nowhere I could go where you wouldn´t be.
Despite all the washing.
And the sanitizing.
And the spraying.
When you finally had me cornered
I was forced to soften and let you in.
Into my lungs, my veins,
my blood and my beating heart.
Now everything I touch inevitably becomes you.
Every breath an exhalation of your voracious self.
And I start to get a hint
of what it felt like to be kept away
isolated, excluded, shut off, sent back
and why you decided to go ahead
and jump over the fence with the “no trespassing” sign
into my virgin immunity.
-so much for fences.
You are running rampant in me now
And I am not planning to stop you.
You´ve made my limbs slower
and my breathing heavier.
My thoughts have condensed into dark formations
and my emotions turned oddly dull.
So I decided to become a playground
for you to go wrecklessly wild in.
All rides freely open for you!
Climb me, swirl through my veins,
turn round in my joins and slide down my bones,
bungee-jump from my head to my feet
-what the heck
Let´s turn this body into a viral funfair!
And once you´re done feasting over me
will you please accept the humble offering
of my body-mind,
and spare my soul?


- Virginia Francisco

There Is A Road Always Beckoning



There is a road
always
beckoning.

When you see
the two sides
of it
closing together
at that far horizon

and deep in
foundations
of your own
heart

at exactly
the same
time,

that’s how
you know
it's where
you
have
to go.

That’s how
you know
it’s the road
you
have
to follow.

That’s how
you know
you have
to go.

That’s
how you know.

It’s just beyond
yourself,

it’s
where you
need to be.


- David Whyte

Metaphor To Action


Whether it is a speaker, taut on a platform,
who battles a crowd with the hammers of his words,
whether it is the crash of lips on lips
after absence and wanting : we must close
the circuits of ideas, now generate,
that leap in the body's action or the mind's repose.


Over us is a striking on the walls of the sky,
here are the dynamos, steel-black, harboring flame,
here is the man night-walking who derives
tomorrow's manifestoes from this midnight's meeting ;
here we require the proof in solidarity,
iron on iron, body on body, and the large single beating.


And behind us in time are the men who second us
as we continue. And near us is our love :
no forced contempt, no refusal in dogma, the close
of the circuit in a fierce dazzle of purity.
And over us is night a field of pansies unfolding,
charging with heat its softness in a symbol
to weld and prepare for action our minds' intensity.


- Muriel Rukeyser

You Darkness


You Darkness, from which I come,
I love you more than all the fires that fence out the world.


Because the fires make a circle of light
so that no one can see you any more.


But the Darkness holds it all.
The shapes, the animals,
The flames and myself.


How it holds them.
All power, All Strength


And it is possible, a great energy is breaking into my body.


I have faith in the night


- Rainier Maria Rilke
(translation by Robert Bly)

Why I Urge You to Do What You’re Passionate About


When Rilke travelled through Russia
and studied Saint Francis
and fell in love with the married Salomé
and wrote poems for The Book of Hours,
he could not have known
that over a century later
a woman on another continent
would find herself wrestled by darkness
and find in his poems encouragement
to lean even deeper into darkness
until she could fall in love
with what she feared most.
He could not have known she would
tattoo his words into her memory
and scribe them into her blood
so whenever she walked or lay in the dark
she would have his words ever with her,
and they made her not only more brave
but more wildly alive than she’d been before.
And what if, as his parents had pushed,
Rilke had joined the military
and turned his back on poetry?
And what if he had not gotten himself expelled
from trade school so he could go on
to study literature and art?
What would have become of the woman
a hundred years later
had she not found his poem
and learned from him to love the dark?


- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

:heart:

A Modest Love






The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,

The fly her spleen, the little sparks their heat;

The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small,

And bees have stings, although they be not great;

Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs;

And love is love, in beggars as in kings.



Where rivers smoothest run, deep are the fords;

The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move;

The firmest faith is in the fewest words;

The turtles cannot sing, and yet they love:

True hearts have eyes and ears, no tongues to speak;

They hear and see, and sigh, and then they break.


- Edward Dyer

The Swan

Across the wide waters
something comes
floating--a slim
and delicate

ship, filled
with white flowers--
and it moves
on its miraculous muscles

as though time didn’t exist,
as though bringing such gifts
to the dry shore
was a happiness

almost beyond bearing.
And now it turns its dark eyes,
it rearranges
the clouds of its wings,

it trails
and elaborate webbed foot,
the color of charcoal.
Soon it will be here.

Oh, what shall I do
when that poppy-colored beak
rests in my hand?
Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:

I miss my husband’s company--
he is so often
in paradise.
Of course! the path to heaven

doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
It’s in the imagination
with which you perceive
this world,

and the gestures
with which you honor it.
Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those
white wings
touch the shore?


-Mary Oliver

A Surfeit of Swans

Floating on the river Rhine somewhere
between Amsterdam and Cologne
confronted by this surfeit of swans
do not have a clue what to do with them
as a group when one in a painting
at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum
appeared so snarlingly huge that
it was said to portray a creature
whose wings could shatter
the legs of a grown man like me
were I to dive now into their midst,
open myself to a melee of wind-whipping murder.


- Ed Coletti

A Blessing for One Who is Exhausted


When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,


The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.


Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.


The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.


You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.


At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.


You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.


Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.


Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.


Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.


Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.


Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.


Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.


- John O'Donohue

This will be my final post of Wacco. I offer profound thanks to Barry for the opportunity to share my love of poetry with this community. If any of you wish to continue to read the daily poems, you can send me an email at [email protected] and I will add you to my daily poem list serve. Many blessings to you all!
Larry