Creeley was my neighbor in Bolinas in the early '70's. A GREAT American poet!
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Creeley was my neighbor in Bolinas in the early '70's. A GREAT American poet!
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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
Heritage
The ram came last
And Abraham did not know that he
Came in answer to the boy’s request
His first strength at the time of the waning day.
The old man raised his head.
When he saw that he was not dreaming
And the angel stood –
With the knife falling from its hand.
The child, freed of his bonds
Saw his father’s back.
Yitzhak, it is said, was not offered as a sacrifice.
He lived a very long time,
Seeing the good, until the light of his eyes dimmed.
But he bequeathed that hour to his descendents.
They were born
With a knife in their heart.
- Haim Guri
The Wings of Love
I will row my boat on Muckross Lake when the grey of the dove
Comes down at the end of the day; and a quiet like prayer
Grows soft in your eyes, and among your fluttering hair
The red of the sun is mixed with the red of your cheek.
I will row you, O boat of my heart! Till our mouths have forgotten to speak
In the silence of love, broken only by trout that spring
And are gone, like a fairy’s finger that casts a ring
With the luck of the world for the hand that can hold it fast.
I will rest my on my oars, my eyes on your eyes, till our thoughts have passed
From the lake and the sky and the rings of the jumping fish;
Till our ears are filled from the reeds with a sudden swish
And a sound like the beating of flails in the time of corn.
We shall hold our breath while a wonderful thing is born
From the songs that were chanted by bards in the days gone by;
For a wild white swan shall be leaving the lake for the sky,
With the curve of her neck stretched out in a silver spear.
Oh! When the creak of her wings shall have brought her near,
We shall hear again a swish, and a beating of flails,
And a creaking of oars, and a sound like wind in sails,
As the mate of her heart shall follow her into the air.
O wings of my soul! We shall think of Angus and Caer
And Etain and Midir, that were changed into wild white swans
To fly round the ring of the heavens, through the dusks and the dawns,
Unseen by all but true lovers, till judgment day
Because they had loved for love only. O love! I will say,
For a woman and man with eternity ringing them round
And the heavens above and below them, a poor thing it is to be bound
To four low walls that will spill like a pedlar’s pack,
And a quilt that will run into holes, and a churn that will dry and crack
Oh! better than these, a dream in the night, or our heart’s mute prayer
That O’Donaghue, the enchanted man, should pass between water and air
And say, I will change them each into a wild white swan,
Like the lovers Angus and Midir, and their beloved ones, Caer and Etain
Because they have loved for love only, and have searched through the shadows of things
For the Heart of all hearts, though the fire of love, and the wine of love, and the wings.
- James H. Cousins
The Lights Are On Everywhere
The Emperor must not be told night is coming.
His armies are chasing shadows,
Arresting whip-poor-wills and hermit thrushes
And setting towns and villages on fire.
In the capital, they go around confiscating
Clocks and watches, burning heretics
And painting the sunrise above the rooftops
So we can wish each other good morning.
The rooster brought in chains is crowing.
The flowers in the garden have been forced to stay open,
And still yet dark stains spread over the palace floors
Which no amount of scrubbing will wipe away.
- Charles Simic
In the Face of Splendor
Take your grief seriously
Become the ash urn
For the vanishing wilderness
Despair for the Dolphins
Make your own salt water
for the disappearing marshes.
The silent Earth is listening.
Be called to outrageous acts of despair
And then,
every now and again,
In the face of splendor,
Turn towards it.
- Kristy Hellum
What The Living Do
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss–we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.
- Marie Howe
Message In A Bottle
I am like the poem
you passed over in
the anthology, then
later discovered
was a jewel.
Hidden in plain sight
I am holding something
sacred inside
like a message in a bottle
still waiting to wash ashore
- Kay Crista
"hidden in plain sight" is all the loved ones around us who we take for granted.
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Recipe for Peace
Bare your feet, roll up your sleeves,
oil the immigrant’s bowl.
Open the doors and windows of your house,
invite in the neighbors, invite in strangers off the street.
Roll out the dough, add the spices for a good live, cardamom and soul, cumin and tears.
Store in sesame and sorrow, a dash of salt
pink as new hope.
Rub marjoram and thyme, lemon grass and holy basil on your fingers and pat the dough.
Bless the table, bless the bread,
bless your hands and feet,
bless the neighbors and strangers
off the street.
Bake the bread for a century or more
on a moderate heat
under the olive trees in your backyard
or on the sun-filled stones of Syria,
in the white rocks of Beirut
or behind the walls of Jerusalem.
In the mountains of Afghanistan
and in the skyscrapers of New York
feast with all the migrant tongues
until your mouth understand
the taste of many different homes
and your belly is full so you fall asleep
cradled in the skirts of the world
curled in the lap of peace.
- Devreaux Baker
In Impossible Darkness
Do you know how
the caterpillar
turns?
Do you remember
what happens
inside a cocoon?
You liquefy.
There in the thick black
of your self-spun womb,
void as the moon before waxing,
you melt
(as Christ did
for three days
in the tomb)
conceiving
in impossible darkness
the sheer
inevitability
of wings.
- Kim Rosen
Daffodil
If she could speak
as she drives her bloom
to open, would she tell us of
the roots beneath her,
who were digging alone all winter
in frozen soil, sending out
moaning tendrils reaching into
the unknown, each one
sensing in dreams what’s needed
by the big one, who’s working
at the surface, chatting and dividing
in maternal bliss, her big bulb bumping into
what is already known?
Would she tell of each
tough rope of root muscling below
to find water, sucking and storing,
offending gophers, outwitting moles?
I doubt it. The bloom knows
her source, but she doesn’t speak
its language. Her voice celebrates
the silk of longer warmer days,
announces, in her yellow voice, It is time
to heave away
the heavy coat of winter,
worn out now, and way too small.
She clamps her neck to her fierce
rigid stem, who whispers into her throat
his message from below: Dear, our time is ending.
It means nothing. We will begin.
Begin to let go.
- Mary McMillan
Her Roots
A strong wind
wrenched the great Madrone
from her hold in the hillside,
and when she fell
her roots,
hanging in mid-air,
gave us handholds
to lean on and safely swing
through her body
and back onto the trail.
- Trout Black
To Be Of Use
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
- Marge Piercy
Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
- Maya Angelou
The River
I will tell you what I know in my blood
the river does not vanish into night,
but is still there, flowing through dark
to a place that lies beyond: brighter,
greener hills than we can dream of.
Listen! You can hear the river’s song
as it flows over leaf and stone,
in the clear full music of hearts.
Those who love enough soon learn to walk
in rain and remain dry.
- Bill Herrick
Mother to Son
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
- Langston Hughes
Great poem!
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Meeting Light
Through the windshield, light gleaming
on the fields, the light green willow leaves
running along the creeks
seem brighter set
against the just beginning greening hills
dotted with oaks, cows, sheep,
small clumps of shy-hoofed deer
chomp in well-manured pastures
as I, too, stand richly fed.
Vultures overhead wing soundless circles,
a perched hawk, red-tailed, its haunting call withdrawn,
spies smaller prey;
black wings beat gusts, and clatter
onto walnut limbs to caw and cackle.
I loom with the hunter, quail
with its prey, prattle with companions
until our souls are full-flush-fleshed.
By Walker Creek, a thousand white woolen
eyes crown coyote brush,
dried fennel stalks drop silent seed
among these wild ones I flourish and breathe
under sun-fog-rain sway.
Coiling bends sound the broadening bay
whose undulating light ripples peep between,
lending ease and space
against the pine-clad ridges
as gusting sun plays upon my skin into my depths.
Sprawled on the verge, a car-killed deer
awaits its airborne team with sharpened smell
to pick it clean. All seeps, sings and bounds in me.
Is it the light or the light
that I am leaving?
On boughed knees rest old trees sinking
into softened sod, the turn of seasons watch.
Their path is slowly set, while mine is filled
with urgency to laud and praise, give back
one speck, one jot
of all you pour into my marrowed bones.
- Raphael Block
Morning Poem
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
- Mary Oliver
Coupon
Friends,
In lieu of a poem
I have written you a
—COUPON—
You may clip it out,
or not,
slip it in your wallet,
or not.
It isn’t redeemable for tangible goods
&/or services of any sort
(unless a Goods &/or Service Provider
should decide to honor it of their own accord,
it’s always possible…)
But for my making:
This coupon is yours to redeem
from yourself,
to give yourself a break
today, any day,
to make yourself a deal,
any deal:
a two-for-one,
A three-for-a-dollar,
a get-out-of-your-own-jail-for-free card,
a take-a-day-off-from-self-doubt-&-self-loathing voucher,
an hour-free-of-despair zone,
whatever deal you want to make with yourself,
whatever you think may be too much to ask of yourself,
but a little something off the price—
10%? 50%? 1000%?—
may help swing the deal,
Then go ahead, redeem this coupon,
swing yourself a deal,
give yourself a break.
What are you waiting for?
(Coupon expires only when you do.)
- Gary Turchin
The Lilies
Hunting them, a man must sweat, bear
the whine of a mosquito in his ear,
grow thirsty, tired, despair perhaps
of ever finding them, walk a long way.
He must give himself over to chance,
for they live beyond prediction.
He must give himself over to patience,
for they live beyond will. He must be led
along the hill as by a prayer.
If he finds them anywhere, he will find
a few, paired on their stalks,
at ease in the air as souls in bliss.
I found them here at first without hunting,
by grace, as all beauties are first found.
I have hunted and not found them here.
Found, unfound, they breathe their light
into the mind, year after year.
- Wendell Berry
A Daily Joy to be Alive
No matter how serene things
may be in my life,
how well things are going,
my body and soul
are two cliff peaks
from which a dream of who I can be
falls, and I must learn
to fly again each day,
or die.
Death draws respect
and fear from the living.
Death offers
no false starts. It is not
a referee with a pop-gun
at the startling
of a hundred yard dash.
I do not live to retrieve
or multiply what my father lost
or gained.
I continually find myself in the ruins
of new beginnings,
uncoiling the rope of my life
to descend ever deeper into unknown abysses,
tying my heart into a knot
round a tree or boulder,
to insure I have something that will hold me,
that will not let me fall.
My heart has many thorn-studded slits of flame
springing from the red candle jars.
My dreams flicker and twist
on the altar of this earth,
light wrestling with darkness,
light radiating into darkness,
to widen my day blue,
and all that is wax melts
in the flame-
I can see treetops!
- Jimmy Santiago Baca
thank you so much Larry, I could feel the twists of the ropes in my own heart as you expressed so eloquently.
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A City’s Death By Fire
After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky,
I wrote the tale by tallow of a city's death by fire;
Under a candle's eye, that smoked in tears, I
Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire.
All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales,
Shocked at each wall that stood on the street like a liar;
Loud was the bird-rocked sky, and all the clouds were bales
Torn open by looting, and white, in spite of the fire.
By the smoking sea, where Christ walked, I asked, why
Should a man wax tears, when his wooden world fails?
In town, leaves were paper, but the hills were a flock of faiths;
To a boy who walked all day, each leaf was a green breath
Rebuilding a love I thought was dead as nails,
Blessing the death and the baptism by fire.
- Derek Walcott
(1/23/1930-3/17/2017)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/b...iterature.html
The Transfer of Allegiances
a bodhisattva poem
We’ve become like hungry ghosts
cowering inside this dark age.
May all the fortresses
that we’ve built
finally fall away.
Look!
There!
The Lords of Materialism
are busily working out their plan;
they spout their speeches of division
to make us beholden to fear again.
They make us drunk
as if on a drug
and say: “Ignore what is happening.
Go back to being numb!”
The men of my country
seem so afraid
of everything these days –
their fellow man,
and even women.
It’s like they’ve all become crazed!
But at every direction,
and in every realm,
the Vajra Bodies are spinning again.
Spinning
and spinning
spinning awake inside our cells.
We have what we need
to work with this mind
and transform any living hells.
When the branches and vines of ego
are mindfully and thoroughly pruned,
the Great Reality of Being appears
to which we become attuned.
And the Great Shining Flower that you are
is no longer choked
and finally blooms.
- Frank Owen
Spirit of Place: The Great Blue Heron
Out of their loneliness for each other
two reeds, or maybe two shadows, lurch
forward and become suddenly a life
lifted from dawn or the rain. It is
the wilderness come back again, a lagoon
with our city reflected in its eye.
We live by faith in such presences.
It is a test for us, that thin
but real, undulating figure that promises,
“If you keep faith I will exist
at the edge, where your vision joins
the sunlight and the rain: heads in the light,
feet that go down in the mud where the truth is.”
- William Stafford
O sweet spontaneous earth
O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the doting
fingers of
prurient philosophies pinched
and poked
thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy
knees squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring
- e. e. cummings
Then Is All Love? It Is, It Is!
Then is all Love? It is. It is!
Pure Gravity is Love, it loves to seize our feet,
It snatches souls and slows the pulse that, fleet,
Churns life throughout our blood.
Mass calls each neighborhood.
Thus Earth loves us and tugs our cuffs
And roughs our hair and keeps us here
Most dear to all its Mass.
While up above, or far below, depending on how you class and see it,
The Sun says Love, and Earth replies: So be it.
And, hurled about the Universe, transfixed
By Sun’s pure Love, our Earth strolls mixed
With other worlds that in the sling
Of Gravity are freed but kept to, circling, sing
Those songs of amity that Sun insists we make
In cyclings of round-abouting give and take.
As with the Sun and Earth, and Earth to us,
So heart to blood and blood to skin;
The merest atom, molecule or germ knows love within,
Each of the next, and clings to keep.
In soul of merest worm asleep
A kindling whisper burns as bright as Fire above,
To Man, to blood, to Earth’s grim bulk, to Sun,
To Suns beyond our Sun,
To microscopic blink, electric spark beyond that blink,
In Titan push or subterranean shove,
God says one single word that binds us each to all:
Love. Now, listen: Love. And once more listen: Love.
And, echoed:
Love.
- Ray Bradbury (1981)
Here with Sonoma County earth.
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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:
River
in the dark forest rivers roar,
cutting canyons through the trees.
jagged conifer cliffs soar
& fall to soft willow knees.
obstacles of log & stone
slow the water’s downward dash,
swirling pools where eggs are sown
& baby salmon glint & flash.
under the willows a curving shore
eats soft ripples from the breeze.
boatmen cunningly explore
quiet eddies at their ease.
a heron balances alone,
ignores a turtle’s sudden splash.
she hunts beyond the shallow zone
where baby salmon glint & flash.
such loveliness grew long before
the centuries of human squeeze.
now we struggle to restore
pristine rivers such as these.
where the firs and willows have grown
lovely, thick, tangled & brash,
cool, clear waters purl and drone
so baby salmon glint & flash.
the willows playfully adore
the solemn beauty eagle sees.
where water sings a godly tone
the baby salmon glint & flash.
- Sandy Eastoak
The Low Road
What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter,
ten thousand, power and your own paper,
a hundred thousand, your own media,
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.
- Marge Piercy
What Is Bounty Without A Beggar
What is bounty without a beggar? Generosity without a guest?
Be beggar and guest; for beauty is seeking a mirror, water is crying for a thirsty man.
Hopelessness and need are tasteful bezel for that ruby.
Your poverty is a Burak;* don't be a coffin riding on other men's shoulders.
Thank God you hadn't the means or you may have been a Pharaoh.
The prayer of Moses was, "Lord, I am in need of Thee!"
The Way of Moses is all hopelessness and need and it is the only way to God.
From when you were an infant, when has hopelessness ever failed you?
Joseph's path leads into the pit; don't flee across the chessboard of this world, for it is His game and we are checkmate! checkmate!
Hunger makes stale bread more delicious than halvah.
Your spiritual discomfort is spiritual indigestion; seek hunger and passion and need!
A mouse is a nibbler. God gave him mind in proportion to his needs.
Without need God gives nothing.
How will you impress God? You are a hundred thousand dinars in His debt!
A beggar shows his blindness and palsy,
he does not say, "Give me bread, O, people! I am a rich man with granaries and palaces!"
Bring a hundred sacks of gold and God will say, "Bring the heart."
And if you bring a dead heart carried like a coffin on your shoulder,
God will say, "O, cheat! Is this a graveyard? Bring the live heart! Bring the live heart!"
If you haven't any knowledge and opinions,
have good opinions about God. This is the way.
If you can only crawl, crawl to Him.
If you can not pray sincerely, offer your dry, hypocritical, agnostic prayer; for God in His mercy accepts bad coin.
If you have a hundred doubts of God,
make them into ninety doubts. This is the way.
O, Seeker! Though you have broken your vows a hundred times,
come again! Come again!
For God has said, “Though you are on high or in the pit consider me, for I am the Way."
- Jellaludin Rumi
(Translated By Daniel Liebert)
Senior Discount
I want to grow old with you.
Old, old.
So old we pad through the supermarket
using the shopping cart as a cane that steadies us.
I’ll wait at register two in my green sweater
with threadbare elbows, smiling
because you’ve forgotten the bag of day-old pastries.
The cashier will tell me a joke about barbers as I wait.
He repeats the first line three times
but the only word I understand is barber.
Over the years we’ve caught inklings
of our shrinking frames and hunched spines.
You’re a little confused
looking for me at the wrong register with a bag
of almost-stale croissants clenched in your hand.
The first time I held your hand it felt enormous in my own.
Sasquatch, I teased you, a million years ago.
Over here, I yell, but not in a mad way.
We’re laughing.
You have a bright yellow pin on your coat that says, Shalom!
Senior Discount, you say.
But the cashier already knows us.
We’re everyone’s favorite customers.
- Ali Liebegott
The Stones
I owned a slope full of stones.
Like buried pianos they lay in the ground,
shards of old sea-ledges, stumbling blocks
where the earth caught and kept them
dark, an old music mute in them
that my head keeps now I have dug them out.
I broke them where they slugged in their dark
cells, and lifted them up in pieces.
As I piled them in the light
I began their music. I heard their old lime
rouse in breath of song that has not left me.
I gave pain and weariness to their bearing out.
What bond have I made with the earth,
having worn myself against it? It is a fatal singing
I have carried with me out of that day.
The stones have given me music
that figures for me their holes in the earth
and their long lying in the dark.
They have taught me the weariness that loves the ground,
and I must prepare a fitting silence.
- Wendell Berry
How Fascism Will Come
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
- attributed to Sinclair Lewis
When fascism comes, it will greet us with a smile. It will get down on its knees to pray. It will praise Main Street and Wall Street. It will cheer for the home team. It will clap from the bleachers when the uninsured are left to die on the street. It will rally on the Washington Mall. It will raise monuments to its heroes and weep for them and place bouquets at their stone feet and trace with their fingers the names engraved on the granite wall and go on sending soldiers to die in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the deserts of Iraq. It will send doves to pluck out the eyes of its enemies, having no hawks to spare.
When fascism comes, it will sit down for tea with the governor of Texas. It will pee in the mosques from California to Tennessee, chanting, "Wake up America, the enemy is here." It will sing the anthems of corporatization, privatization, demonization, monopolization. It will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio. It'll have talking points and a Facebook page and a disdain for big words or hard consonants. It won't bother to read. It will shred all its books. It will lambast the teachers and outlaw the unions.
When fascism comes, it will look good. It will have big hair, pressed suits, lapel pins. It will control all the channels. It will ride in on Swift Boats. It will sit on the Supreme Court. It will court us with fear. It will woo us with hope. When fascism comes, it will sell shares of itself on the stock market. It will get rich, then it will get obscenely rich, then it will stop paying taxes. It will leave us in the dust. It will kick our ass. It won't have to break a sweat to fool us twice. It will be too big to fail.
When fascism comes to America, it will enter on the winds of our silence and indifference and complacency. And on that day, one hundred thousand poets will gather. In book stores and libraries, bars and cafes, in their houses and apartments, in schools and on street corners, they will gather. In Albania, Bangladesh, Botswana, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Macedonia, Malawi, Qatar, crying, laughing, screaming. They will wrap the sad music of humanity in bits of word cloth and hang them, like prayers, on the tree of life.
- Terry Ehret
Animal Rescue
To say nothing of all the moths and wasps
I’ve been opening windows for;
the sheep headlocked in the wire
of a fence,
the newt in the slippery inch
of a dog-bowl of rain,
the spider coming off and off
its wall of death in the kitchen sink
and the bat flopping the living-room floor
in a straight-jacket of dust, cobweb and hair.
---
I have angled your skulls
impossibly free,
poured you out into colour-matched weeds
at the edge of the pond,
offered you into a wineglass and out
to the forest of herbs
and taken you into my own
unravelling hands and worked you loose
in this borrowed house; let you go
on the slopes by the buzzard tree.
Now, who’s coming for me?
- Antony Dunn
Her Roots
A strong wind
wrenched the great Madrone
from her hold in the hillside,
and when she fell
her roots,
hanging in mid-air,
gave us handholds
to lean on and safely swing
through her body
and back onto the trail.
- Trout Black
Covered In Birds
for Bill Horvitz 1947 to 2017
Once our hands were small flightless birds
longing only for the recession of gravity, the wings
of angels. Pressed together, though they did not rise
or raise us up as flapping might, in prayer
they gave off light.
Once I dreamed the two long melancholy notes
of the song sparrow, and sang them back
and dreamed of flight, my plumes open
to sweep the moon that rose above dark hills
a great distance inhabited by sadness
I dreamed the birds, all the birds.
I dreamed crow, those missives of night, those
morning stars erased, whose message remained
a mystery held in the shimmer of feathers in sun
so black they became pure light.
Raptor, too, could seem the source.
Golden Eagle, a peach-white river of flight across fog,
a struck match igniting air. Hawk
was the highest leaf on the tree
and by night became fire.
I dreamed rising and rising from the marsh reeds,
an iridescence shedding water without thought.
I dreamed the heron’s mincing. I dreamed the birds
and saw a gust of gulls that became the horizon –
rising and rising without what we know as thought.
I heard a lullaby and wondered
that the little seed-eater had given Brahms his first notes.
I dreamed mocking bird sang to nourish the flowers
with longing, opening and arising from solitude until
they blossomed into pure joy.
Once I dreamed the birds, all the birds, showed me how
their up carries the weight of light. Opening and rising,
I saw a puff of smoke out over the fields, a crucible
of starlings, open sky, the churn and fall and tumble,
their swoop of flight clear as script I could almost decipher.
I dreamed of all the birds, and vultures came
flying before the scythe of the sun, hard copper
beaks, brown feathers prayer flags fluttering
over my bones.
Rising and arising below clouds whose weight
they alone know, I dreamed the birds,
all the birds I could not name came down,
calling me by the name I had forgotten.
The birds, all the birds came down
and carried me away. In their flight
I read the indecipherable script of the gods.
Peace it said, and as I knew it, the word vanished
in their turning against the wind.
[Composite poem by 9 Sonoma County poets
Elizabeth Carothers Herron
Katherine Hastings
Mike Tuggle
Maya Khosla
Phyllis Meshelum
Jodi Hottel
Greg Mahrer
Larry Robinson
Terry Ehret
CALL FOR ENTRIES: The History of Sonoma County
A Poetry Contest for Adults and Youth
Deadline for entry May 1, 2017
SCA announces a poetry contest, entitled "The History of Sonoma County" which invites local writers to submit poems about the history of Sonoma County. Poems selected from this contest will be displayed at Sebastopol Center for the Arts and winners will be invited to attend and read their winning poem at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts on June 10. The contest juror is Sonoma County Poet Laureate, Iris Jamahl Dunkle. Dunkle is the author of two poetry collections, Gold Passage (2013) and There's a Ghost in this Machine of Air (2015).
The entry deadline is Monday, May 1, 2017. Youth, teens and adults are invited to submit their work and may submit up to three entries per contestant. The fee for adults is $8 for members of the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, $10 for non-members, and $5 for youth entries age 18 and under. For complete contest guidelines visit History of Sonoma County Poetry Contest or visit the Center's website at www.sebarts.org or email a request to [email protected],
Sebastopol Center for the Arts presents
The History of Sonoma County
A Poetry Contest for Adults and Youth
Guidelines
Deadline for Entry: May 1, 2017
Awards:
· One juror will select the winning entries.
· Three Winners will be selected in each of the following categories: Youth (K-5), Junior High (6-8), High School (9-12), Adult
· Winners will read their poems at a reception June 10, 7:30pm,
· Winning entries will be displayed at SCA
· First place winners in all categories will each be awarded a $50 prize, Second place winners will receive a $25 prize and Third place winner will receive a $15 prize.
· Winning entries may be published in SCA's "QuARTerly" and on the website.
Entry Guidelines:
· Entries are online only to be uploaded at: History of Sonoma County Poetry Contest (or https://form.jotformpro.com/70865922357970)
· All entries must be original, unpublished, and not previously exhibited or read at SCA.
· All entries must be submitted in a font no smaller than 12 pt. Times New Roman (or equivalent).
· Each entry must be submitted in a Word Doc or PDF file, on a single 8½ x 11" page, with margins no less than 1 inch around.
· Writers may submit a maximum of 3 entries.
· Writers must submit two copies of each entry, one blind copy (without any author identification for judging), and a second copy identifying the author and city of residency for display. Each entry must be named as follows:lastname.firstname.1namedcopy and lastname.firstname.noname (for the copy without a name.) For example:
o Smith.Amy.1name and Smith.Amy.1noname
o Smith.Amy.2name and Smith.Amy.2noname
o Smith.Amy.3name and Smith.Amy.3noname
· Due to volume considerations, a literary panel may prescreen entries.
Deadlines & Fees:
Entries must be submitted online by May 1, 2017.
Sebastopol Center for the Arts members: $8 per entry (membership is $40 annually).
Non-members: $10 per entry.
Youth age 18 and under $5 per entry.
· Winners will be notified by May 25.
For more information, email [email protected] or 707-829-4797 or visit www.sebarts.org
The Things That Return
I've been down this road a time or two. I've seen the green
grass and the rabbits running and the deer
coming down from the hills to eat the last of the garden's harvest.
I've trained my eyes to catch the gold of sunset,
the silver moon rising, (the silver moon) rising over dry grass
the dry grasses and the leaves that swirl in gusts of surprise
when the tired stars open their eyes wide and dream in 4/4 time.
I've seen the frost slip in without so much as a peep
and leave us wondering where the warm days have fled,
where the warm nights have hunkered down beneath the earth.
Beneath the earth to wait out another winter.
I have closed my eyes and wondered too where the days have gone,
how the days and the nights and the stars of my dreams have blinked out
and left me standing here before that night as black
as the waiting shadow of death - inscrutable as my lover's eyes
the day he said he needed to leave because it was just too hard.
I've waited thinking everything comes around, everything
revolves like the sun and the moon and the tiny round seeds
of the dandelion that rise each spring in my morning garden.
But some things go and never come back.
My darling children's rooms stand empty still.
Empty of them and their yarn tied braids and their lithe
moon spirit bodies shining in their beds at midnight.
And no turnings of the moon's bright face smiling through
veiled windows bring back the tiny fingers and toes,
the endless songs of honeyed childhood soprano.
My love has not returned, not come round through the eternal
revolving door of love's spring scent blossoming pink on cherry boughs.
The things that return it seems are the truths that ring round our cabin doors
ring round our frost-pained windows with each new season of life.
Not the personal grasping for yesterday's love that lies darkening
the fallen leaf, but fresh new petals, a different shade of rose,
a silver hand opening that leads fall toward winter -
that sometimes startles with its clarity as the crisp cold descends,
as the bright leaves flee before it toward their dark beds.
- Diane LaRae Bodach
The Thing Is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
- Ellen Bass
Babi Yar
No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.
I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o’er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.
It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself.
The Philistines betrayed me – and now judge.
I’m in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I’m persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.
I see myself a boy in Belostok
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.
I’m thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of “Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!”
My mother’s being beaten by a clerk.
O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.
I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The “Union of the Russian People!”
It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I’m in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other’s eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed – very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.
“They come!”
“No, fear not – those are sounds
Of spring itself. She’s coming soon.
Quickly, your lips!”
“They break the door!”
“No, river ice is breaking…”
Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,
The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.
Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,
I feel my hair changing shade to gray.
And I myself, like one long soundless scream
Above the thousands of thousands interred,
I’m every old man executed here,
As I am every child murdered here.
No fiber of my body will forget this.
May “Internationale” thunder and ring *3*
When, for all time, is buried and forgotten
The last of antisemites on this earth.
There is no Jewish blood that’s blood of mine,
But, hated with a passion that’s corrosive
Am I by antisemites like a Jew.
And that is why I call myself a Russian!
- Yevgeny Yevtushenko - 7/18/32 - 4/1/17
(Translated by Benjamin Okopnik)
Moss Carpet, Sky Blanket
Here we are again, fellow traveler.
Here.
Again.
You.
Me.
Have the memories started for you yet?
Here we are again, fellow traveler
in yet another troubled time.
Another troubled time.
Hearts are burdened.
Families are being broken.
Bonds of trust have been dissolved
all with the quick-flick
of jet-black ink
on rough-feeling paper
that has never known empathy.
Here we are again, fellow traveler.
The curriculum is now set.
The School of Soft Attention is now taking students.
Grandmothers of the Buffalo Nation
are out there crying and bleeding in the snow again.
The latest 'Great White Father' doesn't remember,
and hasn't really
let the full history
settle into his bones.
Here we are again, fellow traveler.
Mothers of the Desert
are out there fighting
to protect their young
along some unknown fence line.
And you and me...
students of the School of Soft Attention...
...we're the witnesses
that have to see
because our hearts can't not
and our minds
are of The Way,
and this is our way
not to turn away
from what’s really happening.
- Robert Rich
You are cordially invited to join us this coming Sunday afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in a celebration of National Poetry Month. Your friends and neighbors will be sharing their favorite poems. Admission is free.
Prayer For April
As April begins
"April is a generous month", she said
‘’Generous rain, light singing birds’’.
Even a mean heart acknowledges the bond
Linking grass to clouds,
Linking what we know of here
To the blue tingling world of beyond,
I’ve seen mean hearts turn generous
So why should I limit myself to being
Only what I think I know,
When I might dream of another me?
The year is taking shape.
So am I.
I think I’ll go for a stroll with hope.
When I walk through the April light I see
A gentle twig is more durable
Than a stubborn tree.
- Brendan Kennelly
Cargo
You enter life a ship laden with meaning, purpose and
gifts
sent to be delivered to a hungry world,
and as much as the world needs your cargo,
you need to give it away.
Everything depends on this.
But the world forgets its needs,
and you forget your mission, and
the ancestral maps used to guide you
have become faded scrawls on the parchment of dead
Pharaohs.
The cargo weighs you heavy the longer it is held.
Spoilage becomes a risk.
The ship sputters from port to port and at each you
ask:
"Is this the way?"
But the way cannot be found without knowing the cargo,
and the cargo cannot be known without recognizing
there is a way.
It is simply this:
You have gifts.
The world needs your gifts.
You must deliver them.
The world may not know it is starving,
but the hungry know,
and they will find you
when you discover your cargo
and start to give it away.
- Greg Kimura
(1956-2017)
Aftermath
Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.
- Siegfried Sassoon
Spring Again
Again the violet rises from the underground,
the rose from Hades grows.
What rocked their lives into life
also shoved the mountains into skies,
forged the wind that chiseled them,
deepened already deep seas.
God of the underworld, Pluto of the gold –
let me pay for the privilege of life,
let me bow in gratitude
for eternal Time into which I came
and through whose beaded curtain pass.
Thank you for the torture of the roots
that made this spring of letters
flower on this page like iris, like ixia,
like eyes that write the air and see.
- Bruce Moody
Celebration
Brilliant, this day—a young virtuoso of a day.
Morning shadows cut by sharpest scissors,
deft hands. And every prodigy of green—
whether it's ferns or lichen or needles
or impatient points of bud on spindly bushes—
greener than ever before.
And the way the conifers
hold new cones to the light for blessing,
a festive rite, and sing the oceanic chant the wind
transcribes for them!
A day that shines in the cold
like a first-prize brass band swinging along the street
of a coal-dusty village, wholly at odds
with the claims of reasonable gloom.
- Denise Levertov