Thanks to this grieving praising poem, many more than a few thousand think of this day every year. Thanks to you, Larry. Janet
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Thanks to this grieving praising poem, many more than a few thousand think of this day every year. Thanks to you, Larry. Janet
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Foreseeing
Middle age refers more
to landscape than to time:
it’s as if you’d reached
the top of a hill
and could see all the way
to the end of your life,
so you know without a doubt
that it has an end—
not that it will have,
but that it does have,
if only in outline—
so for the first time
you can see your life whole,
beginning and end not far
from where you stand,
the horizon in the distance—
the view makes you weep,
but it also has the beauty
of symmetry, like the earth
seen from space: you can’t help
but admire it from afar,
especially now, while it’s simple
to re-enter whenever you choose,
lying down in your life,
waking up to it
just as you always have—
except that the details resonate
by virtue of being contained,
as your own words
coming back to you
define the landscape,
remind you that it won’t go on
like this forever.
- Sharon Bryan
“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”
- Wendell Berry
One of my favorite poems by one of the great poets of the age. Thanks, Larry.
Roland
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Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion
You dweller in the dark cabin,
To whom the watermelon is always purple,
Whose garden is wind and moon,
Of the two dreams, night and day,
What lover, what dreamer, would choose
The one obscured by sleep?
Here is the plantain by your door
And the best cock of red feather
That crew before the clocks.
A feme may come, leaf-green,
Whose coming may give revel
Beyond revelries of sleep,
Yes, and the blackbird spread its tail,
So that the sun may speckle,
While it creaks hail.
You dweller in the dark cabin,
Rise, since rising will not waken,
And hail, cry hail, cry hail.
- Wallace Stevens
#PHILANDOCASTILE
My granddaughter just turned four,
she holds as many fingers in the air and smiles,
our ancestral gap between her two front teeth,
her pearly face blushed.
She loves to sing and stands beside me
on a chair to help with food prep,
asks surprisingly complex questions
I often struggle to explain to her satisfaction.
I don’t know what to do with the headlines this morning.
I don’t want fear and hatred to win.
What words can I give you, Lavish,
that could possibly serve?
I can’t get out of my head,
your four-year-old girl comforting you,
you in handcuffs, partner dead.
Your courage, the facts, sir, the facts.
I see it. I hear it.
It's in my mouth, my lungs.
I cannot stop hearing her voice.
Four years old.
Four years old.
Four years, old.
- Kari Gunter-Seymour
Why I don't go to church (much)
Shit
late to kid's 1st communion mtg
(discretely) remove dripping raincoat in the empy front row
why stand in the back and not sit up front
will never understand people
kind Sr. Pat flushed shiny joyfully
gives her speil
asks 200 parents who here is "holy"?
I most minisculely tilt my head squinting ? trick question
ponder 0.7 seconds, raise my hand she grins even wider, nods at me
Shit again
I turn
of course, no other hands up
I say they all are, Sr. they just forgot
(note to kid: don't ever forget something THAT important)
- Diana Neill
Ah, Catholicism!
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@ the Crossroads—A Sudden American Poem
RIP Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Dallas police
officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith,
Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa—and all
their families. And to all those injured.
Let us celebrate the lives of all
As we reflect & pray & meditate on their brutal deaths
Let us celebrate those who marched at night who spoke of peace
& chanted Black Lives Matter
Let us celebrate the officers dressed in Blues ready to protect
Let us know the departed as we did not know them before—their faces,
Bodies, names—what they loved, their words, the stories they often spoke
Before we return to the usual business of our days, let us know their lives intimately
Let us take this moment & impossible as this may sound—let us find
The beauty in their lives in the midst of their sudden & never imagined vanishing
Let us consider the Dallas shooter—what made him
what happened in Afghanistan
what
flames burned inside
(Who was that man in Baton Rouge with a red shirt selling CDs in the parking lot
Who was that man in Minnesota toppled on the car seat with a perforated arm
& a continent-shaped flood of blood on his white T who was
That man prone & gone by the night pillar of El Centro College in Dallas)
This could be the first step
in the new evaluation of our society This could be
the first step of all of our lives
- Juan Felipe Herrera
(America’s Poet Laureate)
Finding
The Hindus tell the story
that God was trying to choose a place
where He could hide from man.
Where was the last place
that man would think to look
for Him?
And he chose
the human heart.
I have always looked for God—
for my Soul, for that matter—
within.
Psalm 46 says the Lord of Hosts is
within.
Guru Nanak, whoever he is,
said,
So doth thy Lord abide within thee,
Why search Him without?
So when I meditated
I always focused inside.
Somewhere within my heart of hearts.
The upper room.
The inner sanctum.
But, God bless us, language
is powerful.
Within.
Tiny.
Small.
The still, small voice—
barely squeaking from inside
the left ventricle.
Maybe, I thought,
it was like a black hole:
if you go within enough—
past the event horizon—
and on through to another dimension,
it opens out again.
But it never did.
Lately, however,
I have had a different experience.
It is me that is small.
It is me that is hard and tiny.
My soul is large.
My soul surrounds me
and covers me like a blanket.
That desire to have someone
hold you in his arms and
let your head rest on his chest
is what the soul is like.
For the soul is immense.
It extends.
The incarnation is small,
but the soul is huge.
Warm.
Comforting.
Healing.
I like this new vision
of my soul.
I will consider it
a spiritual breakthrough.
But that’s only me.
Little me, the ego,
consciousness,
the body.
One day, all those things
will be gone.
But my soul will remain.
Joyous.
Expansive.
Me, as well.
I have not searched Him without.
I have just reconfigured the relationship.
O My Soul.
For the Creative Forces,
The Great Spirit,
the I-am-that-I-am,
is not without,
or within.
It is everywhere.
- Kerry Lichlyter
It Doesn’t Feel Like A Time To Write
being black feels like a lot right now.
they shot a man then they shot
the people mourning the man.
they shot a man while he was
a. handcuffed
b. walking away
c. already dead
the terrorists i fear played balled with the cops
or they is the cops. i ain’t got much left to give
these poems, black folks of every kind
of body are dying, & yes at our own
hands too & before you start
pointing fingers wash yo bloody
bloody hands. if you still say
things like we need all the info,
there must be a reason
then i can’t waste
anymore time on you. the world
is burning for real for real – some
some us burning, some staying warm.
i turn to the cards, the stars,
G-d, the gods, my sweet dead, all them
say it’s an age of smoke. i pray to everything
i’ve been taught to pray towards.
i smoke a blunt, drink the last of the whiskey
but nothing brings me peace.
i got a fear of being black in public
& white folks are raised to fear of me.
niggagoraphobia has taken over the nation
& i’ve never been more afraid
of a white man’s temper.
in my dreams all the black folks
turn to ants & America is a toddler
stomping us out – she’s so damn scared
& we can’t get away.
//
i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t scared. every word
i say translate to farewell. joy feels like a kind
of revolt. sometimes i’m just your average
American: too broke & late for brunch, looking
for a new job & hungover, just trying to Netflix
& fuck a little bit then you watch the news or
you hear the worry in your mama’s voice when
she tells you to be careful driving cause the ice
is slick & the cops is bad & she know both
can lead to an accident
//
my friends are in the streets again because again
& again & so forth & how many more?
poems feel so small right now
my little machines fail me
all i’ve ever wanted to say:
1. We are tired of your reality
2. Until we are guilty the same as you
3. We beg for peace but you hear fire!
4. What you call country, we call the reaping
5. Stop killing us
//
America, my sweet boy
your lips turn into a cleaver
when you kiss my neck
//
if a white man who murdered is allowed
to be gentle & a black body murdered
is assumed at fault – if my son gets shot, who
gets mourned? him or the bullet?
//
it doesn’t feel like a time to write
when all my muses are begging
for their lives.
- Danez Smith
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
- Thomas Gray
Poem
I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane.
The news would pour out of various devices
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.
As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.
I lived in the first century of these wars.
- Muriel Rukeyser
good choice, Larry. We have indeed hit another such time...different in the particulars, but I think not in the essence. time to persevere with :heart:
Sonoma Weekend
Valley hills bake a heated welcome,
soft cat echoes ecstatic purrs,
ears of kangaroo hare watch while
Blue jay screeches questionings.
Near rustling oak and maple, newly
watered bright pink flowers lie
Reality… Possibility…
They too welcome, watch, inquire.
Ember burned memories glow in fire
winter chill grey of second day.
Silent space waits expectantly for
encountered knowing.
Furred meow leaps to glass, watches
small bird becoming. It chirps
and flits from branch to branch
from past and now to what may be.
Cat stretches now on hearth place rug
Content completion in all her moves.
I sit and rock and move unhurriedly
From past, and now, to that in need of me.
Grey then moves from muted tones to
darkness of the night.
An owl is heard in search and hunt
while fire’s coals go cold.
What wills, what needs, what wants to be
first grows in darkness, thrusts thru pain
And then Becomes through choiceful acts
in times like these.
- LynneAnne Forest
Sabbaths VI
(for Jonathan Williams)
The yellow-throated, the highest remotest voice
of this place, sings in the tops of the tallest sycamores,
but one day he came twice to the railing of my porch
where I sat at work above the river. He was too close
to see with binoculars. Only the naked eye could take him in,
a bird more beautiful than every picture of himself,
more beautiful than himself killed and preserved
by the most skilled taxidermist, more beautiful
than any human mind, so small and inexact
could hope to remember. My mind became
beautiful by the sight of him. He had the beauty only
of himself alive in the only moment of his life.
He had upon him like a light the whole
beauty of the living world that never dies.
- Wendell Berry
Open Carry
When I first heard it
I thought it was a term for liquor,
imagined a thin man
swilling in plain sight
from one of those empty amber bottles
that litter the trail
on my morning trek.
They could be almost beautiful
if you turn your head sideways,
a kind of millennial flower:
cubist, hard, transparent.
No ambiguity there.
Men pile into football stadiums
toting semi-automatics
like picnic baskets.
Families stroll the malls of America
loaded for bear.
Watching "The Free State of Jones"
I shield my face as the pigs are
ushered in to lap up the blood,
the floors are mopped with it.
Rifles blast everything that moves
in this kill-or-be-killed dystopia.
At least there was a reason,
a freedom worth fighting for,
my rational mind palavers.
The lone mother, children gathered
in the shelter of her skirts,
hunkered in the mountain's bosom
husband on the front lines,
a shotgun, her only defender.
At a military funeral
I hear the rifle's safety snapping into place
watch the words "bombs bursting in air"
leave the mouths of boys too young to shave.
My mouth is mute with shame for this,
our symbol of renown.
- Sandra Anfang
I Am a Madman
My thatched cottage stands
just west of Thousand Mile Bridge
this Hundred Flower Stream
would please a hermit fisherman
bamboo sways in the wind
graceful as any court beauty
rain makes the lotus flower
even more red and fragrant
but I no longer hear from friends
who live on princely salaries
my children are always hungry
with pale and famished faces
does a madman grow more happy
before he dies in the gutter?
I laugh at myself -- a madman
growing older, growing madder.
- Du Fu (712 - 770)
I Hear an Army
I hear an army charging upon the land,
And the thunder of horses plunging; foam about their knees:
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the Charioteers.
They cry into the night their battle name:
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.
They come shaking in triumph their long grey hair:
They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.
My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?
- James Joyce
The Second Coming
Turning and turning on the widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: Somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with a lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again, but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
- William Butler Yeats
What rough beast, indeed. But not slouching, strutting.
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Enemies
If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,
how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then
is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?
From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go
free of you, and you of them;
they are to you as sunlight
on a green branch. You must not
think of them again, except
as monsters like yourself,
pitiable because unforgiving.
- Wendell Berry
“Chin Up, Stiff Upper Lip,”
the father would intone, winking his eyes,
with the accent he pilfered from the movies of his youth,
with the demeanor of the rabbi he never became,
with the style of the Borscht-Belt comedian he couldn’t embody.
“That’s Dad,” the sons would agree, rolling their eyes,
with the sigh of the unwelcome,
with the sarcasm of the unacknowledged,
with the suppressed rage of the uninitiated.
Where does this poem need to go?
Toward the weeping mother who would rub her eyes
with undisguised longing for her carefree youth,
with the comfortable self-pity of her domestic prison,
with the dangerous hunger of an unsatisfied woman?
Or toward the happy gods who would avert their eyes
as they toyed with each other,
as they cast flame and flood down upon mortals,
as they consumed their own children?
What about the sons who pluck out their eyes
as they accept less and less,
as they tolerate more and more,
as they suck in their frozen chests?
Or the city that glazes its eyes in false innocence,
guarding its walls of imagined security,
closing its gates to the impure,
erecting its towers on unstable soil?
Or should we welcome the sons who pry open their eyes
as they demand their inheritance,
as they offer us their essence,
as they envision a world that doesn’t need this poem?
- Barry Spector
Candles in Babylon
Through the midnight streets of Babylon
between the steel towers of their arsenals,
between the torture castles with no windows,
we race by barefoot, holding tight
our candles, trying to shield
the shivering flames, crying
"Sleepers Awake!"
hoping
the rhyme's promise was true,
that we may return
from this place of terror
home to a calm dawn and
the work we had just begun.
- Denise Levertov
American Dream
American Dream,
American Nightmare
America the beautiful,
prophecy of Blake,
democratic vista of Whitman,
harbinger of a new humanity,
melting pot for Europeans,
Russians, Asians, Middle-Easterners,
Latinos, Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists,
Christians, Jews, Santaria,
Where are you bound?
You future is in your own hands,
grappling with each other
in grim clinch,
The White Mask, inflexible—
not even white, really,
more like “pinko-grey”,
as Kipling said —
firm against the Rainbow?
But is it not all One Spectrum:
under God, indivisible,
and some day with
liberty and justice
for all!
- Max Reif
Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where it is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That anyone be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free".)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the people! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today-O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home-
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free".
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay-
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again-
The land that never has been yet-
And yet must be-the land where every one is free.
The land that's mine-the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain-
All, all the stretch of these great green states-
And make America again!
- Langston Hughes
Before Evil
Before evil
my own goodness shrinks
before self-righteousness
my voice quavers
before those who know an angry God
with contempt for life
I tremble,
before those who hold
in their minds, in their hands
the lives of others
in hostage for their own,
before absolute Right
I am wrong
I am naked
without weapons
except for this determination
not to be defeated, but instead
to affirm the best in us,
to acknowledge our own power
to survive against whatever odds
and to seize the day
for love, for beauty, for humanity,
to make this day and the days following,
not theirs, not made by those who destroy,
but our own. We are the builders.
This day is in our hands.
- Doug Stout
American Tune
Many's the time I've been mistaken and many times
confused.
Yes, and often felt forsaken and certainly misused.
But I'm all right, I'm all right, I'm just weary to my
bones.
Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant so
far away from home, so far away from home.
And I don't know a soul who's not been battered I
don't have a friend who feels at ease.
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or
driven to its knees.
But it's all right, it's all right, for we've lived so
well so long.
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on, I
wonder what went wrong, I can't help but wonder what
went wrong.
And I dreamed I was dying.
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly and looking
back down at me smiled reassuringly, and I dreamed I
was flying.
And high above my eyes could clearly see the Statue of
Liberty sailing away to sea, and I dreamed I was
flying.
And we come on the ship they call the Mayflower, we
come on the ship that sailed the moon.
We come in the age's most uncertain hour and sing an
American tune
oh, but it's all right, it's all right, it's all
right, you can't be forever blessed.
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day and
I'm trying to get some rest, that's all I'm trying is
to get some rest.
- Paul Simon
"We come in the age's most uncertain hour and sing an American tune"--Yes.
Thank you, Larry. And thank you, Paul Simon.
Another Woman
Another woman
would keep her mouth shut,
not spout fervent beliefs
like a speaker on a soapbox.
Another woman
would have chosen
equity over experience,
settling down or
just plain settling.
Another woman
would have stayed the course,
refusing distraction and
the pangs of the heart
that lead to upheaval.
Another woman
would not vacillate hearing
the voices that preach security and
the voices that harp on ideals.
Another woman
would not succumb to worry,
knowing that it never helps
and only constricts.
Another woman
would revel in her children’s independence
instead of mourning
their day-to-day absence in her life.
Another woman
would live in gratitude every moment
for her sojourn on this gorgeous planet
and not slip into the mundane
routine of forgetting.
But I am not
another woman.
I am this woman,
led by my heart and
pulled by conflicting voices,
a woman who
worries,
mourns,
forgets.
I am this woman,
this aging, outspoken, heart-stirred,
frightened and sometimes grateful woman,
This woman,
with this particular life
and not another.
- Maya Spector
Well, if you had your choice between this great Paul Simon song, and an English drinking song that's really hard for most people to sing that's all about the War of 1812, which would you choose for a national anthem?
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Neither. I'd go for "America, the Beautiful." Easy to sing and more upbeat than "American Tune." JMTC
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Roland Jacopetti:
Be Angry With The Sun
That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years
Be angry with the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people,
those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.
Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies,
the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.
You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You
are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.
Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a leader and the dupes
to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.
- Robinson Jeffers
It's a powerful and universal poem! There may be a range of opinion about its precise contemporary application.
Wow. Robinson Jeffers got it! No point in being ANGRY with the sun for setting, etc., etc. Maybe sad and regretful. Not angry.
Thanks, Larry.
Janet
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Credo
I cannot find my way: there is no star
In all the shrouded heavens anywhere;
And there is not a whisper in the air
Of any living voice but one so far
That I can hear it only as a bar
Of lost, imperial music, played when fair
And angel fingers wove, and unaware,
Dead leaves to garlands where no roses are.
No, there is not a glimmer, nor a call,
For one that welcomes, welcomes when he fears,
The black and awful chaos of the night;
For through it all, -- above, beyond it all, --
I know the far-sent message of the years,
I feel the coming glory of the Light!
- Edwin Arlington Robinson
It's interesting to note that Jeffers lived 1887-1962.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by REALnothings:
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.
- Izumi Shikibu
(Translated by Jane Hirshfield )
Consider the Generosity of the One-Year-Old
who has no words to exchange with you yet
and instead offers up her favorite drooled-on blanket
her green rhinoceros as big as she is,
her cloth doll with the long blond pigtails,
her battered cardboard books, swung open on their
soggy pages.
If you were outdoors she would hand you a dead beetle,
a fistful of grass, a pebble,
by way of introduction or just because.
And if, a moment later, she wanted it back,
it would be for the joy of the game
that makes of every simple object an offering:
This is me. Here is who I am.
In the same way, sun
drapes a buttered scarf across your face,
rose opens herself to your glance,
and rain shares its divine melancholy.
The whole world keeps whispering or shouting to you,
nibbling your ear like a neglected lover,
while you worry over matters of finance
of "relationship,"
important issues related to getting and spending,
having and hoarding,
though you were once that baby,
though you are still that world.
- Alison Luterman
Driving The Car
Getting into my car,
I vow that I will drive with
Mindful care and caution.
If, in fact, this is my vehicle,
For I often step into
Someone else’s car
By accident.
If I have done so now, here in the parking lot of Stop & Shop,
May I smile with self-compassion,
And not curse my cluelessness,
As the cars where I live are all Subarus,
And all the same model, and all the same “jasmine green,”
A bewildering forest of Foresters.
- Jenny Allen
funny, where I live
they're all gold
Toyota Camry's
like mine!
Whole parades of them, it seems! :wink:
A Killing
Black wasps build a nest in the bamboo chime.
I smile as I discover
the lattice of their honeycomb,
gamine youth playing 'round the rim.
Long-limbed dancers, pendant legs
dangle from elegant wasp waists;
my mind spins wild imaginings
around this entomological crèche.
And yet they strafe me when I weed
dive-bomb the cats into the hedge,
dare to cruise the kitchen air
wreck my peace so I make a pledge.
I comb the list of euphemisms.
No poison for me, though the die's been cast:
a heavy stream of soapy water
I trust will be the fix that lasts.
I pass the night in fitful naps.
serenity finds no purchase in my dreams.
My parrot mind yammers on
through backroom murders, shady schemes.
Next morning, when I check the nest
the wasps seem drugged, about to die.
Bodies larded, oiled with glue
they barely lift their wings to fly.
I feel sorrow, but relief as well
for creatures whose only mortal sin
was making their home in a human space.
The cats put on a somber face.
- Sandra Anfang
Expect Nothing
Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny a human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
- Alice Walker
Rubai Sixty Seven
Enervating and hopeless
you may imagine the work awaiting you.
And you would be right.
Worse still, to succeed now you must be cruel
in order not to feel the wrong you must do.
Be as dumb as geese who change-off leading
as they victory together across a fresh and ancient sky.
Be dumb if you are dumb.
Be smart if that.
But listen, for you all have the same thing to say:
The come-and-go of God –
that is the gratitude stammering as you voice it.
You have, in yourselves, employment.
An old man tells you this.
Although in no way can you imagine that
in the room of youth that is yours.
Other rooms will come
slowly surprising you.
Your life’s job is to live it to its end.
But your Life’s job awaits you,
stored.
So never mind “correctness” –
that groupspeak of long-faced worthies.
Already you hear this this: I once felt as you feel now.
And didn’t know of
all the rooms to come – I had no idea –
the rooms – the wonderful terrible rooms.
- Bruce Moody
Horses
In truth I am puzzled most in life
by nine horses.
I’ve been watching them for eleven weeks
in a pasture near Melrose.
Two are on one side of the fence and seven
on the other side.
They stare at one another from the same places
hours and hours each day.
This is another unanswerable question
to haunt us with the ordinary.
They have to be talking to one another
in a language without a voice.
Maybe they are speaking the wordless talk of lovers,
sullen, melancholy, jubilant.
Linguists say that language comes after music
and we sang nonsense syllables
before we invented a rational speech
to order our days.
We live far out in the country where I hear
creature voices night and day.
Like us they are talking about their lives
on this brief visit to earth.
In truth each day is a universe in which
we are tangled in the light of stars.
Stop a moment. Think about these horses
in their sweet-smelling silence.
- Jim Harrison
Trillium
How ever bad it was, she must have loved the dog, their walks by the river. How the man who brought her here or what he thought no longer mattered. Say she was spindrift. That’s how it felt. Nothing engaged her. Days went by before she’d bathe. She could smell the animal like anguish in her hair and reveled in it. But for the dog she might have hanged herself, or filled her pockets full of stones instead of scraps for Cerberus. Two steps at a time she took the dark staircases. Outside the gates, among the beggar dead, she’d find him, kneel, unlock his chains. He leaned against her, as they walked, his sphinx’s shoulders. What he knew of her of course, no one can say. Call it a nearness like a room you make inside yourself for sorrow. Few are invited in. And she to him? Cerberus was welcome. In spring among the trillium she longed for him. Who could believe it was a pomegranate seed secured her soul? It was the dog that kept her going back.
- Deborah Digges
Today
The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.
And it is already begun, the chord
that will shiver glass, the song full of time
bending above us. Outside, a sign:
a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
“Be warm.” No one is out there, but a giant
has passed through town, widening streets, touching
the ground, shouldering away the stars.
- William Stafford
Salty Like Tears
When my daughter moved away to college
was the same week I had to give all our chickens away,
their sweet voices murmuring in the garden no more
was the same week her friend walked into the mountains of the Pacific Coast Trail and disappeared without a trace.
Our candle vigil burning through the days of packing
was not only the time of our own separation
but her dog and my dog, my dog and her, her dog and me,
our pack now 200 miles apart
And that night I read Ellen Bass’ poem
“When You Came Back”,
and for a moment
I felt our lives rewind until you were
once again that little magic bean
growing inside me.
Today I sat in a parking lot
with a bag of chips,
thinking how all my life I’ve had a sweet tooth
but now I want everything
salty like tears.
- Kay Crista
When You Return
Fallen leaves will climb back into trees.
Shards of the shattered vase will rise
and reassemble on the table.
Plastic raincoats will refold
into their flat envelopes. The egg,
bald yolk and its transparent halo,
slide back in the thin, calcium shell.
Curses will pour back into mouths,
letters un-write themselves, words
siphoned up into the pen. My gray hair
will darken and become the feathers
of a black swan. Bullets will snap
back into their chambers, the powder
tamped tight in brass casings. Borders
will disappear from maps. Rust
revert to oxygen and time. The fire
return to the log, the log to the tree,
the white root curled up
in the un-split seed. Birdsong will fly
into the lark’s lungs, answers
become questions again.
When you return, sweaters will unravel
and wool grow on the sheep.
Rock will go home to mountain, gold
to vein. Wine crushed into the grape,
oil pressed into the olive. Silk reeled in
to the spider’s belly. Night moths
tucked close into cocoons, ink drained
from the indigo tattoo. Diamonds
will be returned to coal, coal
to rotting ferns, rain to clouds, light
to stars sucked back and back
into one timeless point, the way it was
before the world was born,
that fresh, that whole, nothing
broken, nothing torn apart.
- Ellen Bass
A Song on the End of the World
On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.
Warsaw, 1944
- Czeslaw Milosz
(translated by Anthony Milosz)
Holding Up The Sky
We women who walk the earth
petaled with phlox and rhododendrons,
delight in flushing out its beauty
We women are fields of purple daisies
gathered in crystal vases,
singing the virtues of sunshine
Summer is all a ruckus;
squirrel’s pitching walnuts, a clarinet and robin duet,
a whistling bamboo and howling dogs too
We women have extraterrestrial ears
tuned to stellar pulses,
resonating in our veins
We women have meandering muses
drawn to barnyard scents,
and orchards - laden with poetry
Where hens cackle all day,
proud of their creations
made fresh from scratch
We women travel light,
when our eggs are all gone
love keeps us moving
On we climb
guided by sisterly sherpas,
who have been to where we’re going
Above the Redwood spires
diamonds - set in blue,
crown our heads each night
We women are living circles,
some fixed - some wandering
tethered - only by our imagination
We women hold each other up
and let the sky
rest on our shoulders
- Emily Marie Bording