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  1. TopTop #1621
    gardenmaniac's Avatar
    gardenmaniac
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    yes, I wonder who gets to keep the prize?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    With Elephants

    With elephants everything
    volumes
    down.

    A cascade of cliff
    lumbering
    on four limber pillars.

    A fog of stone

    always slowly
    moving west.

    A strolling Niagara, yes.

    Wearing a wardrobe
    of loose-fitting determination,
    she looms
    her great sweet
    buxom
    daunt.

    You have felt their stone-tough,
    bristly,
    sensitive
    proboscis.
    It snouts around like the foot of a snail.
    until it clamps the morsel of crackerjack,
    which it,
    like an undersea thing,
    daintily,
    and confidently
    and insouciantly
    and speedily
    imparts
    into its heart-shaped maw.

    Bad for the tusks?

    Well, elephant dentists and nutritionists say
    Elephants must eat
    for their health and satisfaction,
    every day
    of popcorn
    a silo.

    So who am I to lecture an elephant –
    vegan as she is –
    about weight-loss?

    Elephants remember
    to diet on whole savannahs
    and toss their massy heads about,
    making gales with their ears

    and, with their Cyrano noses,
    announce ––
    stand back! ––

    Triumphals!


    - Bruce Moody
    Last edited by Barry; 05-24-2013 at 02:10 PM.
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  2. TopTop #1622
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind


    On cold evening
    my grandmother,
    with ownership of half her mind -
    the other half having flown back to Bohemia -


    spread newspaper over the porch floor
    so, she said, the garden ants could crawl beneath,
    as under a blanket, and keep warm,


    and what shall I wish for, for myself,
    but, being so struck by the lightning of years,
    to be like her with what is left, that loving.


    - Mary Oliver
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  3. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  4. TopTop #1623
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Takstang


    Takstang monastery,

    the tiger's nest.

    Two thousand feet
    to the valley floor.

    After many days
    alone in the mountains,

    the body hesitates
    at the sight of a single roof.

    Having listened to the wind,
    sufficient to itself,

    like a single clear breath
    from the body of the mountain,

    we hear the sutra's
    diamond hard presence

    at the center of experience

    so clearly now,

    spoken from the felt rhythm
    of a ten-day walk.

    And having crossed the pass
    in cold rain,

    we wait, about to ripen
    into our own going,

    Like a drop of clear water
    hanging from the cliff edge,

    its own transparent world
    growing from within,

    until it fills with just enough
    to flow on

    out of the mountains
    as we do.

    So silent now, only the sound,
    as we go

    of that pure water
    falling

    toward home.

    - David Whyte
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  5. TopTop #1624
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Touch The Air

    Now touch the air softly,
    Step gently, one, two…
    I'll love you till roses
    Are robin's-egg blue;
    I'll love you till gravel
    Is eaten for bread,
    And lemons are orange,
    And lavender's red.

    Now touch the air softly,
    Swing gently the broom.
    I'll love you till windows
    Are all of a room;
    And the table is laid,
    And the table is bare,
    And the ceiling reposes
    On bottomless air.

    I'll love you till Heaven
    Rips the stars from his coat,
    And the moon rows away in
    A glass-bottomed boat;
    And Orion steps down
    Like a diver below,
    And Earth is ablaze,
    And Ocean aglow.

    So touch the air softly,
    and swing the broom high.
    We will dust the gray mountains,
    And sweep the blue sky;
    And I'll love you as long
    As the furrow the plow,
    As However is Ever,
    And Ever is Now.

    - William Jay Smith
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  6. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  7. TopTop #1625
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Forever


    In the universe of God
    she is a wave on the ocean
    of eternity.
    And I, another wave on the same ocean,
    travel with her
    until the time
    that one of us fades into the salty waters,
    leaving the other behind,
    who will also one day be no more.


    But one bright morning
    we will awaken in each other's arms
    beyond oceans, beyond eternity,
    beyond even she and me,
    and at that time
    we will be
    forever.


    - Greg Kimura
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  8. Gratitude expressed by:

  9. TopTop #1626
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    morning prayer 3


    o!


    redwoods along the bikepath
    redwoods at big hendy
    redwoods in armstrong woods
    redwoods in downtown sebastopol


    willows along the bikepath
    willows shading atscadero creek
    willows arching over the laguna
    willows fragrant & pliable


    live oaks beside the bike path
    live oaks on the ragle hills
    live oaks huge before the pasture
    live oaks rising small amid blackberries


    black oaks sheltering my home
    black oaks on the laguna uplands
    black oaks along the bikepath
    black oaks on the ragle hillside


    redwoods standing strong in the sky
    oaks rooted powerfully in the earth


    o!


    - Sandy Eastoak
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  11. TopTop #1627
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Cafe and You


    I am in my own state of being
    As the door to my sanctuary closes behind me.
    No tears flow here
    Just the joy of being in the moment.
    When in my lifetime have I been more free?


    Perhaps as a small child in the sandbox
    Where form was born from within.
    Time had no constraints
    Imagination took several forms at once
    In the warmth of knowing myself.


    - Mahmud Darivsk
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  13. TopTop #1628
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Reckoning at Buck’s Lake


    In the late evening
    as the sun left a deepening maroon-blue light
    between earth and sky,

    my son and I sat at our campfire sharing stories of
    what had been and what would be:

    my son having his own child; me, a father soon to be a grandfather.


    Gratitude unfolded in us like a flower, the wave- lapping lake
    a symphony celebrating our thirty-year span together.


    He said, “Dad--look how the star rising so close over the far trees
    on the other side of the lake has made a beam of light on the water.”

    Awe-struck, silent, the million small tasks of living fell away from us entirely,


    and we wondered if there will ever anything lovelier to look at:


    straight and luminous it lay, an arrow on the mirrored space of water
    connected shore to shore, a shimmering swath of starlight.


    Raptured, we saw it spread out into an ever-widening beam of gold and silver,

    moving and alive.


    In a quarter hour it faded and was gone.

    Lifting our glasses to celebrate, I asked myself: was it Venus, the Goddess herself,
    her limitless heart shining a path to a lonely little planet,

    calling forth sacred tidings, the fruits of human love from her storied pantheon?


    - Larry Kenneth Potts
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  15. TopTop #1629
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    To Save Yourself


    When a crow nests in your hair
    throw away your comb.

    If a white dog comes to your door
    drive it off. If a black dog
    let it lie at your hearth.

    Take gravel from the gullet of a cock
    and cook it with suet. Shape a loaf
    to rise in moonlight.
    When a stranger comes,
    slice the bread.

    If you have regrets, sew salt
    in the hem of your coat.
    Throw away your heroic medals.
    Wrap green ribbons around
    your wrists and doorknobs.
    Sing to stones. Pray to trees.

    When anger fists your heart
    pull it out by the root,
    wrap it in red twine and bury it
    under a rose bush. It will make
    strong thorns.

    Let your memories lie
    by the fire beside the black dog.
    When melancholy joins them
    do not turn away.

    Wrap your suffering in blue silk
    and let the tide take your tears.
    Take home a seashell
    to remind you
    all things come and go,
    come and go.

    If despair clings to you
    get up before dawn
    and think of those you love
    still sleeping.

    If worry burdens your shoulders
    break the crust of your back
    and flap your arms like a homeless
    coat or the wings of a blackbird.

    When doubt darkens your hope
    flap them again. Remember
    kicking your legs to swim underwater.

    Remember kicking your legs to swing
    as high as the swing would go.
    Remember weightlessness.

    Let sadness see the sunrise.

    If longing aches, take aspirin.

    When you can’t sleep, go talk
    to the owls, and listen
    for they will answer.

    When you weep, remember rain.

    We are such small lives,
    so perishable. We are fruit
    falling. We are the faintest stars
    salting the dark.
    We are ants
    looking for honey.
    We are flower and pollen.
    We are the hive.

    What we make and give away
    gathers gold.

    - Elizabeth Herron
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  16. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  17. TopTop #1630
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    that crazy fellow
    he sleeps alone
    is disconnected
    from all & everything
    wherever he turns
    he sees himself
    time is fleeting
    time is now
    someday soon
    he will die
    he’s preparing
    by training his mind
    so that he crosses
    the street awake
    into the unknown

    - Robert Leverant
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  19. TopTop #1631
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Truro Bear


    There’s a bear in the Truro woods.
    People have seen it - three or four,
    or two, or one. I think
    of the thickness of the serious woods
    around the dark bowls of the Truro ponds;
    I think of the blueberry fields, the blackberry tangles,
    the cranberry bogs. And the sky
    with its new moon, its familiar star-trails,
    burns down like a brand-new heaven,
    while everywhere I look on the scratchy hillsides
    shadows seem to grow shoulders. Surely
    a beast might be clever, be lucky, move quietly
    through the woods for years, learning to stay away
    from roads and houses. Common sense mutters:
    it can’t be true, it must be somebody’s
    runaway dog. But the seed
    has been planted, and when has happiness ever
    required much evidence to begin
    its leaf-green breathing?


    - Mary Oliver
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  21. TopTop #1632
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For the Orchard

    I want to tell you about the apple orchard.
    How in the spring, when I come up over the rise,
    blossom clouds soften the sky with a whisper.
    How on summer afternoons I swim carelessly
    through green shade and shards of light.
    How autumn fills me ripe with desire
    and I devour stolen fruit as I walk.
    How the winter horizon is sharpened at night
    with unadorned branches pinned to stars.


    This April day I’ll tell you
    how I drew the trees as they lay felled.
    Trunks, connected or not by shred of bark,
    lay on stumps ridged by saw tooth.
    Limbs capsized into impossible tangles
    laced with the season’s new growth.
    Here and there, among the terrible beauty,
    I witnessed, first and last, the blossoming.

    - Christine Walker
    Last edited by Barry; 06-03-2013 at 01:26 PM.
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  22. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  23. TopTop #1633
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    After The Fact
    The people of my time are passing away: my
    Wife is baking for a funeral, a 60-year old who

    Died suddenly, when the phone rings, and it’s
    Ruth we care so much about in intensive care:

    ... It was once weddings that came so thick and
    Fast, and then, first babies, such a hullabaloo:

    Now, it’s this and that and the other and somebody
    Else gone or on the brink: well, we never

    Thought we would live forever (although we did)
    And now it looks like we won’t: some of us

    Are losing a leg to diabetes, some don’t know
    What they went downstairs for, some know that

    A hired watchful person is around, some like
    To touch the cane tip into something steady,

    So nice: we have already lost so many,
    Brushed the loss of ourselves ourselves: our

    Address books for so long a slow scramble now
    Are palimpsests, scribbles and scratches: our

    Index cards for Christmases, birthdays,
    Halloweens drop clean away into sympathies:

    At the same time we are getting used to so
    Many leaving, we are hanging on with a grip

    To the ones left: we are not giving up on the
    Congestive heart failures or brain tumors, on

    The nice old men left in empty houses or on
    The widows who decided to travel a lot: we

    Think the sun may shine someday when we’ll
    Drink wine together and think of what used to

    Be: until we die we will remember every
    Single thing, recall every word, love every

    Loss: then we will, as we must, leave it to
    Others to love, love that can grow brighter

    And deeper till the very end, gaining strength
    And getting more precious all the way….

    - A.R. Ammons
    Last edited by Barry; 06-04-2013 at 02:08 PM.
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  24. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  25. TopTop #1634
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Serving


    Remember that time your dog died and I didn't tell you for months
    Because you had deployed and George Bush was shouting,
    "Bring it on" and we were all thinking that Korea was fixing to blow.
    But, when I emailed to say we were headed for West Virginia,
    You fired back, "Mom, where is Annie" and I had to say she was hit by a car.
    I sent brownies loaded with black walnuts from the old home place.


    Or when you called me from Iraq asking me to
    Talk to people about donating shoes and I told you it was hopeless
    Because of the Tsunami, everyone was already donating.
    You said "Hell with that" and your unit threw in their paychecks and bought
    All those families just outside Falujha new shoes off the Internet.
    I made two hundred popcorn balls wrapped in wax paper.


    Or that February you came home for R&R, so sad and sick.
    I baked your favorite, meatloaf and you said you couldn't possibly,
    But I gave you doe-eyes so you ate and threw up all night,
    Into the next day, saying over and over "Sweet Jesus,
    Please, make it stop" and I knew you weren't talking about the meatloaf.


    Or the day after Sergeant Crabtree went to Vegas and blew
    His head off in the hotel bathroom, while here at home your
    Best friend got arrested for selling narcotics and you said neither one of them
    Needed to and maybe wouldn't have if you'd been there. So, I shipped
    Molasses cookies thick with Crisco frosting, all the way to Kandahar.


    Or the afternoon your farm boy fingers tried to clamp the artery
    On that precious baby girl, near the valley of Arghandab,
    While her father screamed for Allah and blood soaked your uniform
    When you hugged her to you as she passed.
    I drenched that fruitcake in brandy for three days.


    But mostly it was the night your daughter was born and we
    Locked eyes across the birthing room. I thought to myself,
    Skillet-fried chicken with candied sweet potatoes, fried okra,
    Lima beans with bacon, cornbread and aunt Lila's hot fudge cake.
    We used the good dishes and grandpa Oris said the blessing.


    - Kari Peterson
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  26. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  27. TopTop #1635
    gardenmaniac's Avatar
    gardenmaniac
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    ouch ... too bad this beauty of a poem makes it so painfully clear what we are doing to another generation of service men and women. It took my breath away, as did the nightmares of my friends when they returned from Viet Nam.

    Where have all the flowers gone?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Serving


    Remember that time your dog died and I didn't tell you for months
    Because you had deployed and George Bush was shouting,
    "Bring it on" and we were all thinking that Korea was fixing to blow.
    But, when I emailed to say we were headed for West Virginia,
    You fired back, "Mom, where is Annie" and I had to say she was hit by a car.
    I sent brownies loaded with black walnuts from the old home place.


    Or when you called me from Iraq asking me to
    Talk to people about donating shoes and I told you it was hopeless
    Because of the Tsunami, everyone was already donating.
    You said "Hell with that" and your unit threw in their paychecks and bought
    All those families just outside Falujha new shoes off the Internet.
    I made two hundred popcorn balls wrapped in wax paper.


    Or that February you came home for R&R, so sad and sick.
    I baked your favorite, meatloaf and you said you couldn't possibly,
    But I gave you doe-eyes so you ate and threw up all night,
    Into the next day, saying over and over "Sweet Jesus,
    Please, make it stop" and I knew you weren't talking about the meatloaf.


    Or the day after Sergeant Crabtree went to Vegas and blew
    His head off in the hotel bathroom, while here at home your
    Best friend got arrested for selling narcotics and you said neither one of them
    Needed to and maybe wouldn't have if you'd been there. So, I shipped
    Molasses cookies thick with Crisco frosting, all the way to Kandahar.


    Or the afternoon your farm boy fingers tried to clamp the artery
    On that precious baby girl, near the valley of Arghandab,
    While her father screamed for Allah and blood soaked your uniform
    When you hugged her to you as she passed.
    I drenched that fruitcake in brandy for three days.


    But mostly it was the night your daughter was born and we
    Locked eyes across the birthing room. I thought to myself,
    Skillet-fried chicken with candied sweet potatoes, fried okra,
    Lima beans with bacon, cornbread and aunt Lila's hot fudge cake.
    We used the good dishes and grandpa Oris said the blessing.


    - Kari Peterson
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  28. Gratitude expressed by:

  29. TopTop #1636
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What is Grace


    Grace is shy,
    she comes like a thief in the night
    when you're not looking
    she will rob you sure enough
    who knows why


    Uninvited, she is not expected,
    that is her realm
    look too hard, you'll miss her
    be asleep, you'll miss her
    who knows why


    seen and unseen, she is not lost
    grace is not found in seeing and doing
    She lives in the receiving and
    the reversal of what is dry and brittle,
    bright and inspiring matter not
    who knows why


    Grace can't be earned
    she cares not for good or bad
    empty or full or any other thing
    it's just for us no matter why
    to hear ten thousand frogs singing in the rain
    who knows why


    please pass the salt.


    - Linda Anderson
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  30. TopTop #1637
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Waiting


    Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
    Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
    I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
    For lo! my own shall come to me.


    I stay my haste, I make delays,
    For what avails this eager pace?
    I stand amid the eternal ways,
    And what is mine shall know my face.


    Asleep, awake, by night or day,
    The friends I seek are seeking me;
    No wind can drive my bark astray,
    Nor change the tide of destiny.


    What matter if I stand alone?
    I wait with joy the coming years;
    My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
    And garner up its fruit of tears.


    The waters know their own and draw
    The brook that springs in yonder height;
    So flows the good with equal law
    Unto the soul of pure delight.


    The stars come nightly to the sky;
    The tidal wave unto the sea;
    Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
    Can keep my own away from me.


    - John Burroughs
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  31. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  32. TopTop #1638
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    From last weekend in Monterey:



    whales in guam and whales in baja
    sing a different song every year
    they are singing the same song
    a twenty minute ditty with non-repeating lyrics
    at the same time all together
    a song that no single whale makes up or
    decides for all the others is the one to be sung
    this year
    the one no single whale could propagate across
    what we imagine to be great distances
    through a medium we call water
    which is actually a space that is unknown to us
    buried deeper than any other secret

    not the space of separation we think we know
    between objects that we believe are real
    but a different space
    a field that knows no distance or time
    the empty shimmering luminous field
    that only makes itself known to us
    in brief dreams
    lying as it does within the heart of each singing
    whale and in each of us
    always listening for us
    when all things we construct
    all silences we lean into and drown out so loudly
    like uninvited relatives
    the thing that wants us to listen right now
    more than anything
    anything
    is our own song
    the changing inscrutably common melody
    unknown to any single person
    yet compelling each to sing
    just now


    - Gary Horvitz
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  33. Gratitude expressed by:

  34. TopTop #1639
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    We Are All Pilgrims
    We are all pilgrims.
    Some worship at the temple of materialism.
    Some linger in the warm pools of Aphrodite.
    Others trek to mountain peaks
    or hidden springs,
    seeking the source
    of mystery itself.
    But we all journey somewhere.
    We are all pilgrims.

    The roads we travel –
    the dusty miles,
    the rain-soaked muddy roads,
    the twisting uphill trails -
    drag on, so arduous and long,
    with no endpoint in sight.

    But then, one day,
    you look into a mirror, or
    catch your reflection
    in still water,
    and you see
    that you have grown old.
    Suddenly, a different destination nears.

    You cry out –
    I’m not ready!
    Now you understand that
    it was never arriving
    that mattered.
    You know –
    deeply and without doubt –
    that the pilgrimage itself
    was the point.
    All of those hours lost
    in complaint, confusion and misery –
    you realize that they were
    opportunities ignored and departed.

    Even now,
    walking the great camino,
    you rouse – repeatedly –
    from unconscious moments.
    You desperately want
    to stay open-eyed
    and grateful.
    But even our failures are the journey.
    And we are all pilgrims.


    - Maya Spector
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  35. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  36. TopTop #1640
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Brahma



    If the red slayer think he slays,
    Or if the slain think he is slain,
    They know not well the subtle ways
    I keep, and pass, and turn again.

    Far or forgot to me is near;
    Shadow and sunlight are the same;
    The vanished gods to me appear;
    And one to me are shame and fame.

    They reckon ill who leave me out;
    When me they fly, I am the wings;
    I am the doubter and the doubt,
    And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

    The strong gods pine for my abode,
    And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
    But thou, meek lover of the good!
    Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.


    - Ralph Waldo Emerson
    Last edited by Barry; 06-10-2013 at 02:22 PM.
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  37. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  38. TopTop #1641
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Everyone Sang

    Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
    And I was fill’d with such delight
    As prison’d birds must find freedom
    Winging wildly across the white
    Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on and out of sight.

    Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted,
    And beauty came like the setting sun.
    My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
    Drifted away . . . O but every one
    Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

    - Siegfried Sasson
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  40. TopTop #1642
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Light of Asia




    OM, AMITAYA! measure not with words
    Th’ Immeasurable; nor sink the string of thought
    Into the Fathomless. Who asks doth err,
    Who answers, errs. Say nought!
    The Books teach Darkness was, at first of all,
    And Brahm, sole meditating in that Night:
    Look not for Brahm and the Beginning there!
    Nor him, nor any light
    Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes,
    Or any searcher know by mortal mind;
    Veil after veil will lift—but there must be
    Veil upon veil behind.
    Stars sweep and question not. This is enough
    That life and death and joy and woe abide;
    And cause and sequence, and the course of time,
    And Being’s ceaseless tide,
    Which, ever changing, runs, linked like a river
    By ripples following ripples, fast or slow—
    The same yet not the same—from far-off fountain
    To where its waters flow
    Into the seas. These, steaming to the Sun,
    Give the lost wavelets back in cloudy fleece
    To trickle down the hills, and glide again;
    Having no pause or peace.
    This is enough to know, the phantasms are;
    The Heavens, Earths, Worlds, and changes changing them,
    A mighty whirling wheel of strife and stress
    Which none can stay or stem.…
    If ye lay bound upon the wheel of change,
    And no way were of breaking from the chain,
    The Heart of boundless Being is a curse,
    The Soul of Things fell Pain.
    Ye are not bound! the Soul of Things is sweet,
    The Heart of Being is celestial rest;
    Stronger than woe is will: that which was Good
    Doth pass to Better—Best.
    I, Buddh, who wept with all my brothers’ tears,
    Whose heart was broken by a whole world’s woe,
    Laugh and am glad, for there is Liberty!
    Ho! ye who suffer! know
    Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels,
    None other holds you that ye live and die,
    And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss
    Its spokes of agony,
    Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness.
    Behold, I show you Truth! Lower than hell,
    Higher than Heaven, outside the utmost stars,
    Farther than Brahm doth dwell,
    Before beginning, and without an end,
    As space eternal and as surety sure,
    Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good,
    Only its laws endure.…
    That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields!
    The sesamum was sesamum, the corn
    Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness knew!
    So is a man’s fate born.…
    If he shall day by day dwell merciful,
    Holy and just and kind and true; and rend
    Desire from where it clings with bleeding roots,
    Till love of life have end:
    He—dying—leaveth as the sum of him
    A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit
    Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near,
    So that fruits follow it.
    No need hath such to live as ye name life;
    That which began in him when he began
    Is finished: he hath wrought the purpose through
    Of what did make him Man.
    Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins
    Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes
    Invade his safe eternal peace; nor deaths
    And lives recur. He goes
    Unto NIRVÂNA. He is one with Life,
    Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be.
    OM, MANI PADME, OM! the Dewdrop slips
    Into the shining sea!…
    AH! BLESSED LORD! OH, HIGH DELIVERER!
    FORGIVE THIS FEEBLE SCRIPT, WHICH DOTH THEE WRONG,
    MEASURING WITH LITTLE WIT THY LOFTY LOVE.
    AH! LOVER! BROTHER! GUIDE! LAMP OF THE LAW!
    I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY NAME AND THEE!
    I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY LAW OF GOOD!
    I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY ORDER! OM!
    THE DEW IS ON THE LOTUS!—RISE, GREAT SUN!
    AND LIFT MY LEAF AND MIX ME WITH THE WAVE.
    OM MANI PADME HUM, THE SUNRISE COMES!
    THE DEWDROP SLIPS INTO THE SHINING SEA!


    - Edwin Arnold
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  41. TopTop #1643
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Last Salmon


    When the last salmon come home
    like Chief Joseph's beaten tribe
    gulls will arrive from the dump
    as honor must be accorded, and
    the sunshine will be dignified
    though we love no dead but our own.


    From reserved seats on the dike
    we will watch them leaping, see
    their darkening flanks like old tires
    in the water. The river will be at low flow
    as decreed by the army engineers. Here
    at the rapids the high school band
    will cheer, playing the passage
    of great fish through the air.


    - William A. Roecker
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  42. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  43. TopTop #1644
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
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    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Summer Solstice


    In memory of Elena
    We came home
    from decorating
    our friend’s cardboard casket
    physically exhausted, emotionally spent
    from comforting her daughter, her son
    your best friend
    who was her best friend.
    As we sat out under your plum tree
    ripe, sweet red plums fell
    at our feet
    in the late afternoon heat.
    How do they decide when
    it’s time to let go?
    We ate your homemade basil pesto
    fresh-picked lettuce from your garden
    plums and strawberry rice dream
    for dessert.
    We were refreshed.
    We kissed.
    And kissed again.
    We went to bed
    before the first day of summer’s
    sun had set
    and loved one another.
    And loved one another.


    - Lilith Rogers
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  44. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  45. TopTop #1645
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Summer Solstice


    I wanted to see where beauty comes from
    without you in the world, hauling my heart
    across sixty acres of northeast meadow,
    my pockets filling with flowers.
    Then I remembered,
    it’s you I miss in the brightness
    and body of every living name:
    rattlebox, yarrow, wild vetch.
    You are the green wonder of June,
    root and quasar, the thirst for salt.
    When I finally understand that people fail
    at love, what is left but cinquefoil, thistle,
    the paper wings of the dragonfly
    aeroplaning the soul with a sudden blue hilarity?
    If I get the story right, desire is continuous,
    equatorial. There is still so much
    I want to know: what you believe
    can never be removed from us,
    what you dreamed on Walnut Street
    in the unanswerable dark of your childhood,
    learning pleasure on your own.
    Tell me our story: are we impetuous,
    are we kind to each other, do we surrender
    to what the mind cannot think past?
    Where is the evidence I will learn
    to be good at loving?
    The black dog orbits the horseshoe pond
    for treefrogs in their plangent emergencies.
    There are violet hills,
    there is the covenant of duskbirds.
    The moon comes over the mountain
    like a big peach, and I want to tell you
    what I couldn’t say the night we rushed
    North, how I love the seriousness of your fingers
    and the way you go into yourself,
    calling my half-name like a secret.
    I stand between taproot and treespire.
    Here is the compass rose
    to help me live through this.
    Here are twelve ways of knowing
    what blooms even in the blindness
    of such longing. Yellow oxeye,
    viper’s bugloss with its set of pink arms
    pleading do not forget me.
    We hunger for eloquence.
    We measure the isopleths.
    I am visiting my life with reckless plenitude.
    The air is fragrant with tiny strawberries.
    Fireflies turn on their electric wills:
    an effulgence. Let me come back
    whole, let me remember how to touch you
    before it is too late.


    - Stacie Cassarino
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  47. TopTop #1646
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Landscape of Night


    Each night
    Is a lake
    That rises at sundown
    Spreads itself thin
    Laps at
    The house lights
    Fills up low shoes
    Would make fish of us all.


    - Tom Hennen
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  49. TopTop #1647
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Hollow Ground


    The jug of feeling fills and empties a thousand times
    a day. Dust whirls about in the vast hall
    inside us. When we walk down the street
    none of this is visible.


    Some war so many coats that it's clear they
    are freezing to death, but most of us are unaware
    the the jug is filling even as we pull on our pants
    or stand in line with the groceries.


    Yesterday the news cam that someone we know
    has died, and now her husband and sons grieve.
    In the evening we make food, drink wine, talk
    about summer nights on her porch.


    In the morning the rain comes. It keeps us close
    like our old mother saying There, there, it's
    going to be all right, and then, slowly, Death
    steps back. There, there.


    - Abbot Cutler
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  50. TopTop #1648
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Wait for Grace


    each morning in the garden, and know she’s near
    when juncos***** breeze through the cherry blooms
    and not one white petal falls

    How white they are, these petals, new and strong
    like the white teeth of Africa’s orphans smiling
    at a camera, no word for the hunger in their eyes

    I take anemones from plastic pots and plant them
    in amended soil for the children to grow strong roots
    unfold their brilliant colors


    - Cynthia Poten
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  51. TopTop #1649
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Anniversary
    That you and I, I and you,
    this twenty-fifth year after
    you stamped your foot, shattered
    the glass, and friends, so many dead
    or forgotten, applauded in a ballroom
    long abandoned, twenty-five years
    of Monday good-byes, monthly wars
    with stacks of bills, bags of garbage,
    frozen gutters, nights filled
    with pink medicines, fevered cheeks
    on shoulders, the other hand reaching
    for the pediatrician's call, termites
    chewing, and hours waiting
    for the door to open, holding
    our own daughter's head vomiting
    beer into our own leaking toilet,
    that now, as mirrors mark the descent
    of breasts, the tub catches silvered
    pubic hair and our eyes wear pouches
    and hoods, as though expecting rain,
    that you and I could smell the salt
    of each other, coming together after
    long absence, silent, still, staring up
    at the darkening ceiling, naked in a house
    with empty, orderly bedrooms, the last
    of dead roses and discarded boyfriends
    tossed out, your hand touching mine,
    our breathing slowing,
    the wonder of it all.
    - Davi Walters
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  52. Gratitude expressed by:

  53. TopTop #1650
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Country of Marriage


    Sometimes our life reminds me
    of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
    and in that opening a house,
    an orchard and garden,
    comfortable shades, and flowers
    red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
    made in the light for the light to return to.
    The forest is mostly dark, its ways
    to be made anew day after day, the dark
    richer than the light and more blessed
    provided we stay brave
    enough to keep on going in.


    - Wendell Berry
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