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  1. TopTop #1831
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    True Night
    Sheath of sleep in the black of the bed:
    From outside this dream womb
    Comes a clatter
    Comes a clatter
    And finally the mind rises up to a fact
    Like a fish to a hook
    A raccoon at the kitchen!

    A falling of metal bowls,
    the clashing of jars,
    the avalanche of plates
    I snap alive to the ritual
    Rise unsteady, find my feet,
    Grab the stick, dash in the dark -
    I'm a huge pounding demon
    That roars at raccoons -
    They whip around the corner,
    A scratching sound tells me
    they’ve gone up a tree.

    I stand at the base
    Two young ones that perch on
    Two dead stub limbs and
    Peer down from both sides of the trunk:

    Roar, roar, I roar
    you awful raccoons, you wake me
    up nights, you ravage
    our kitchen

    As I stay there then silent
    The chill of the air on my nakedness
    Starts off the skin
    I am all alive to the night.
    Bare foot shaping on gravel
    Stick in the hand, forever.

    Long streak of cloud giving way
    To a milky thin light
    Back of black pine bough,
    The moon is still full,
    Hillsides of Pine trees all
    Whispering; crickets still cricketting
    Faint in cold coves in the dark

    I turn and walk back slow
    Back the path to the beds
    With goosebumps and lose waving hair
    In the night of milk-moonlit thin cloud glow
    And black rustling pines
    I feel like a dandelion head
    Gone to seed
    About to be blown away
    Or a sea anemone open and waving in
    cool pearly water.

    Fifty years old.
    I still spend my time
    Screwing nuts down on bolts.

    At the shadow pool,
    Children are sleeping,
    And a lover I've lived with for years,
    True night.
    One cannot stay too long awake
    In this dark

    Dusty feet, hair tangling,
    I stoop and slip back to the
    Sheath, for the sleep I still need,
    For the waking that comes
    Every day

    With the dawn.


    - Gary Snyder
    Last edited by Barry; 12-11-2013 at 02:14 PM.
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  3. TopTop #1832
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Reincarnation


    What is reincarnation? A cowboy asked his friend.
    It starts, his old pal told him, when your life comes to an end.
    They wash your neck and comb your hair and clean your fingernails,
    And put you in a padded box away from life’s travails.


    The box and you goes in a hole that’s been dug in the ground.

    Reincarnation starts in when you’re planted neath that mound.
    Them clods melt down, just like the box, and you who is inside.
    And that’s when you begin your transformation ride.


    And in a while the grass will grow upon your rendered mound,
    Until some day, upon that spot, a lonely flower is found.
    And then a horse may wander by and graze upon that flower
    That once was you, and now has become your vegetated bower.


    Now, the flower that the horse done eat, along with his other feed,
    Makes bone and fat and muscle essential to the steed.
    But there’s a part that he can’t use and so it passes through.

    And there it lies upon the ground, this thing that once was you.


    And if perchance, I should pass by and see this on the ground,
    I’ll stop awhile and ponder at this object that I’ve found.
    I’ll think about Reincarnation and life and death and such,
    And come away concludin’, why, you ain’t changed all that much.


    - Wallace McRae (aka Wally McRae)
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  5. TopTop #1833
    Chris Dec's Avatar
    Chris Dec
    Supporting Member

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thanks for a good laugh, Larry! To hear the old coot perform this poem:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnGNXoNX0Ag
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  7. TopTop #1834
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    My life is not this steeply sloping hour,
    In which you see me hurrying.
    Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a tree;
    I am only one of my many mouths,
    And at that, the one that will be still the soonest.
    I am the rest between two notes,
    Which are somehow always in discord
    Because Death's note wants to climb over --
    But in the dark interval, reconciled,
    They stay there trembling.
    And the song goes on, beautiful.

    - Rainer Maria Rilke
    (translated by Robert Bly)
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  9. TopTop #1835
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Duly Noted

    Lives are marked in photographs of
    Children hugging teddy bears
    Catching salamanders
    Camping out and chattering

    Life consists of change

    Old videos attest to shouts
    and laughs and splashes
    in the pool. The days are warm
    but now I have no need to swim

    My travel days are tucked away
    in picture frames and boxes
    gathering dust as the clock
    ticks and rearranges

    From Babe to child to tall to shrink

    The humming birds and wrens
    whirr about in the garden
    Awareness abounds in smaller sounds
    after the children move on

    The stage is set anew

    As memories fade to sepia
    adventures retreat to recall
    What was buried to be mined
    in the landfill of generations

    Time numbers the pages

    - Maryann Schacht
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  11. TopTop #1836
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Warning To My Readers


    Do not think me gentle
    because I speak in praise
    of gentleness, or elegant
    because I honor the grace
    that keeps this world. I am
    a man crude as any,
    gross of speech, intolerant,
    stubborn, angry, full
    of fits and furies. That I
    may have spoken well
    at times, is not natural.
    A wonder is what it is.


    - Wendell Berry
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  13. TopTop #1837
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Prayer from My Red Heart


    O great grandfather, hear us.

    O great Sky Father, listen to our plea.
    We come to You as supplicants,
    As mere human beings before the
    transcendent vastness of your unfolding Universe.
    0 Tunkashila, be our savior.
    Lend us thine ear and thy power
    To overwhelm those who would overwhelm us.
    We are of the earth, Your Earth,
    And they would destroy that Earth, our Mother,
    As they would destroy us, your loving children.
    Save us, Father.
    We plead with Thee,
    Enter our battle against the Evil Ones.
    Smite them with a mere flick
    of the little finger of thine hand, O Great One.
    But kill them not.
    Instead, fill their hearts with love and compassion
    And pure knowledge of thy power and might
    Extend your Love and Light even to the Destroyers, dear God in Heaven,
    Teach them Oneness and Wholeness,
    Love and Compassion,
    Goodness and Gentleness,
    And, yes, Sacred Fear of Your unleashed Might
    Whether we die or live, Father, we know
    We will be with You in that day of Awe.
    A-ho!


    - Harvey Arden
    Last edited by Barry; 12-16-2013 at 12:25 PM.
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  15. TopTop #1838
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Bees


    In every instant, two gates.

    One opens to fragrant paradise, one to hell.
    Mostly we go through neither.

    Mostly we nod to our neighbor,
    lean down to pick up the paper,
    go back into the house.

    But the faint cries—ecstasy? horror?
    Or did you think it the sound
    of distant bees,
    making only the thick honey of this good life?


    - Jane Hirshfield
    Last edited by Barry; 12-17-2013 at 02:52 PM.
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  17. TopTop #1839
    Chris Dec's Avatar
    Chris Dec
    Supporting Member

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    w o w
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  18. TopTop #1840
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Instructions

    The stars are my ancestors.
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    Yes.
    And also everything that is to come.

    If you’re any good at things like that –
    you know – predictions from birds
    and prophecies from the shape of clouds –
    well then, tell me why is it that
    my weather is the same as it always was
    all over the world and ever shall
    be, world without end,
    no
    amen.

    Then all you would have to do
    is look at the liver-spots on the back of my hand
    to settle everything.

    All the bookstores are closed
    where this knowledge was one day sold.
    So stop pestering me for info.
    The thumbnail on your own
    left hand has it all printed out
    plain as candy.

    After all, somebody told me to write this down,
    and I’m no better than you are…
    except, maybe, in the glee,
    my dears, my lovelies,
    in which I follow the instructions
    inside the package.


    - Bruce Moody
    Last edited by Barry; 12-18-2013 at 02:50 PM.
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  20. TopTop #1841
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Conch

    Hold a baby to your ear

    As you would a shell.
    Sounds of centuries you hear
    New centuries foretell.

    Who can break a baby's code?
    And which is the older -
    The listener or his small load?
    The held or the holder?

    - E.B. White
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  22. TopTop #1842
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Credo


    I believe in god
    who did not create an immutable world
    a thing incapable of change
    who does not govern according to eternal laws
    that remain inviolate
    or according to a natural order
    of rich and poor
    of the expert and the ignorant
    of rulers and subjects
    I believe in god
    who willed conflict in life
    and wanted us to change the status quo
    though our work
    through our politics


    I believe in jesus christ
    who was right when he
    like each of us
    just another individual who couldn't beat city hall
    worked to change the status quo
    and was destroyed
    looking at him I see
    how our intelligence is crippled
    our imagination stifled
    our efforts wasted
    because we do not live as he did


    every day I am afraid
    that he died in vain
    because he is buried in our churches
    because we have betrayed his revolution
    in our obedience to authority
    and our fear of it
    I believe in jesus christ
    who rises again and again in our lives
    so that we will be free
    from prejudice and arrogance
    from fear and hate
    and carry on his revolution
    and make way for his kingdom.


    - Dorothee Soelle
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  24. TopTop #1843
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Solstice Song

    On this midwinter night
    let us summon what we’ve lost
    with chant, prayer, song, fire,
    faith that the nearly forgotten
    will open and rise anew
    and the world will turn
    back toward the light.
    Midwinter’s gift is memory
    to hold a place for what was and will be again.
    Leaves fallen off ancient vines
    reveal gnarled fists of twisted branches
    that even now push buds into the frosted night.
    Low in the December sky
    a tenebrous bulge of darkness
    cradles the waxing crescent of a buttery moon.
    And at the end of the western road
    lies the black wet flatness of sand
    where the tide ebbed and is now returning
    in its endless whispering susurrus.
    At this fulcrum of the season
    we raise our arms and press fingertips
    against the darkness to tip it back.
    There are many winters in our pasts
    and there is a time to allow our bodies to be tired and cold,
    but beneath it all and slowly rising
    like Lazarus to walk the warm earth again,
    our blood is flowing, our muscles stretch and lengthen,
    the pale green leaves encircling our hearts
    await their unfolding.
    We lean into the dawn,
    eager to call the light home
    and be young together
    once more.


    - Elaine Christo Watkins
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  26. TopTop #1844
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    little tree

    little tree
    little silent Christmas tree
    you are so little
    you are more like a flower

    who found you in the green forest
    and were you very sorry to come away?
    see i will comfort you
    because you smell so sweetly

    i will kiss your cool bark
    and hug you safe and tight
    just as your mother would,
    only don't be afraid

    look the spangles
    that sleep all the year in a dark box
    dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
    the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

    put up your little arms
    and i'll give them all to you to hold
    every finger shall have its ring
    and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

    then when you're quite dressed
    you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
    and how they'll stare!
    oh but you'll be very proud

    and my little sister and i will take hands
    and looking up at our beautiful tree
    we'll dance and sing
    "Noel Noel"

    - e.e.cummings
    Last edited by Barry; 12-22-2013 at 02:12 PM.
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  28. TopTop #1845
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Credo
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    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
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  30. TopTop #1846
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Last edited by Barry; 12-24-2013 at 02:54 PM.
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  32. TopTop #1847
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Credo


    Creo que si ... I believe
    it will rain
    tomorrow ... I believe
    the son of a bitch


    is going into the river ...
    I believe All men are
    created equal—By your
    leave a leafy

    shelter over the exposed
    person—I’m a
    believer creature
    of habit but without

    out there a void of
    pattern older
    older the broken
    pieces no longer

    salvageable bits
    but incommensurate
    chips yet must
    get it back together.

    In God we
    trust emptiness privilege
    will not not perish
    perish from this earth—


    In particular echo
    of inside pushes
    at edges all these years
    collapse in slow motion.

    The will to believe,
    the will to be good,
    the will to want
    a way out—

    Humanness, like
    you, man. Us—pun
    for once beyond reflective
    mirror of brightening prospect?

    I believe what it was
    was a hope it could be
    somehow what it was
    and would so continue.

    A plank to walk out on,
    fair enough. Jump! said the pirate.
    Believe me if all
    those endearing young charms ...


    Here, as opposed to there,
    even in confusions there seems
    still a comfort,
    still a faith.

    I’d as lief
    not leave, not
    go away, not
    not believe.

    I believe in belief ...
    All said, whatever I can think of
    comes from there,
    goes there.

    As it gets now impossible
    to say, it’s your hand
    I hold to, still
    your hand.

    -*Robert Creeley
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  34. TopTop #1848
    gardenmaniac's Avatar
    gardenmaniac
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    my eyes rephrased lines 21 - 24 and I read

    In God we trust emptiness
    privilege will not not perish
    perish from this earth—


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

    ...
    In God we
    trust emptiness privilege
    will not not perish
    perish from this earth—

    ...

    -*Robert Creeley
    Last edited by Barry; 12-26-2013 at 01:43 PM.
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  35. TopTop #1849
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Fear of Change

    If you and I were woken suddenly

    By the drums of revolution in the street -
    Or suppose the door shot open, and there stood
    Upright and singing a young bullfighter

    With a skin of rough wine, offering to each of us
    Death, sex, hope - or even just an
    Earthquake making the trees thrash, the roofs tumble
    Calling us loudly to consider God -

    Let us admit with no shame whatever,
    We are not that kind of people;
    We have learnt to weigh each word like an ounce
    of butter;
    Our talent is for anger and monotony -

    Therefore we will survive the singers,
    The fighters, the so-called lovers - we will bury them
    Regretfully, and spend a whole wet Sunday
    Arguing whether the corpses were dressed in black or red.


    * * *- James Keir Baxter*
    (29 June 1926 – 22 October 1972
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  37. TopTop #1850
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself
    *
    The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.

    Scruples are alien to the black panther.
    Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
    The rattlesnake approves of himself wholeheartedly.
    The self-critical jackal doesn’t exist.
    The locust**alligator**trichina***horsefly
    ****live as they live and are glad of it.
    The killer whale’s heart weighs one hundred kilos
    ****but in other respects is light.
    There is nothing more animal-like
    Than a clear conscience
    On this third planet
    From the sun.
    *************
    -*Wislawa Szymborska
    Last edited by Barry; 12-27-2013 at 02:51 PM.
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  39. TopTop #1851
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Begin*

    Begin anywhere,
    the white-haired woman hangs laundry,
    wide sheets and delicate blouses.
    A line stretches across a burning
    horizon of impossible blue. The
    Mediterranean, our origins. Or begin

    in line in a bank, the same hour
    in another bank, in another country
    a bomb strapped to a serious young man.*
    Flash, obscene white light,
    renews again, chaos and creation. This
    too, the palette to place hues of time.*

    Boredom: a beginning, familiarity,
    routine. The gate swings closed. What
    is enclosed, ensconced?*
    The church bell bongs the hour
    an echo of time to come, time
    contained, time gone.*

    Begin with tools: a hammer,
    a hoe. A moment under gathering
    clouds, a child, with blistered palms,
    turns soil, the earnest immigrant,
    on a steep San Francisco roof,
    repairs the world, extends, renews

    time. Begin by asking: who
    am I? Allow sea, sky, bird
    chatter *to answer. Ask
    again, know there is no
    answer but the mirror of the moment,
    a window in the heart.*

    Begin anywhere to listen, look.
    So little within our grasp,
    our control, our foolish mammalian
    understanding. Begin now:
    What is this? Who am I? *
    Keep asking.

    - Rebecca del Rio
    15/10/2013
    Sitges
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  41. TopTop #1852
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Get Up, Please


    The two musicians pour forth their souls abroad

    in such an ecstasy as to charm the audience
    like none I've ever seen before, and when
    they finish, they rise and hug each other,
    and then the tabla player bends down
    and touches the feet of the santoor player in an obvious gesture

    of respect, but what does it mean? I don't find out
    until the next day at the Econolodge in Tifton, GA,
    where I stop on my way home after the concert
    and ask Mrs. Patel, the owner, if she has ever heard
    of these two musicians or knows
    anything about the tabla and the santoor and especially the latter,

    which looks like the love child of a typewriter
    and a hammered dulcimer only with a lot of extra wires
    and tuning posts, and she doesn't seem to understand
    my questions, though when I ask her about one person touching
    the other's feet and then bend down
    to show her, she lights up and says, "It means he thinks the other

    is a god. My children do this before they go off
    to school in the morning, as though to say, 'Mummy,
    you are a god to us,'" and I look at her
    for a second and then surprise us both when I say, "Oh, Mrs. Patel!"
    and burst into tears, because I think,
    first, of my own dead parents and then of little Lakshmi and Padma

    Patel going off to their classes in Tift County schools,
    the one a second-grader who is studying homophones
    ("I see the sea") and the other of whom is in the fourth
    grade, where she must master long division with
    its cruel insistence on numbers lined
    up under one another with exacting precision and then crawling

    toward the page's bottom as you, the divider, subtract
    and divide again and again, all the while recording
    on the top line an answer that grows increasingly
    lengthy as you fret and chew the tip of your pencil
    and persevere, though before they grab
    their books and lunch boxes and pile onto the bus, they take time

    to touch Mrs. Patel's feet and Mr. Patel's as well,
    assuming there is such a person. Later my friend
    Avni tells me you touch the feet of your elders
    to respect the distance they have traveled
    and the earth they have touched, and you
    say "namaste" not because you take yoga at that little place

    on the truck route between the t-shirt store
    and the strip club but because it means "I bow
    to the light within you," and often the people being
    bowed to will stoop down and collect you as if to say
    "You too are made of the same light!"
    Reader, if your parents are alive, think of them now, of all the gods

    whose feet you never touched or touched enough.
    And if not your parents, then someone else.
    You know someone like this, right? Someone who belongs
    to the "mighty dead," as Keats called them.
    Don't you wish that person were here now
    so you could touch their feet and whisper, "You are my god"?

    I can't imagine Keats saying, "You too are made
    of the same light," though I can see him saying,
    as he did to Fanny Brawne, "I have been astonished
    that Men could die Martyrs for religion-I have
    shudder'd at it-I shudder no more-I could
    be martyr'd for my Religion-Love is my religion-I could die for that-

    I could die for you." My own feet have touched
    the earth nearly three times as long as Keats's did,
    and I'm hardly the oldest person
    I know. So let this poem brush across the feet of anyone
    who reads it. Poetry is
    my religion--well, I wouldn't die for it. I'd live for it, though.


    - David Kirby
    Last edited by Barry; 12-29-2013 at 02:29 PM.
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  43. TopTop #1853
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mochi Tzuke


    The rice has been washed twice and soaking for two days.
    Despite the "no burn" alert
    the almond wood fires - lit before dawn -
    boil water beneath the steamers:
    three stacks of four baskets each
    tended and timed under Bob's watchful eye.


    Of course it doesn't begin here.
    Harvest was two months ago.
    The tradition goes back countless generations;
    cultivation of rice even farther -
    another time, another continent.


    "Hot comin' through" Doug yells,
    dumping the first load in the hopper.
    The ancient GE motor faithfully turns the belt
    on the equally venerable Nippon Industries grinder.
    I push it through with old taiko sticks
    til it emerges like glistening white sausage on the board.


    Ed deftly delivers it, still steaming hot,
    to the great granite mortar where Mike and Takeo,
    at Scott's command, pound
    one two one two
    with long wood mallets.
    Turn and pound, fold and knead
    again and again until the master turner judges it finished.


    "Board" he calls and a runner
    carries it quickly to the hall and the waiting hands
    of Cynthia, Kiyono, Surya and fifty others
    who deftly pinch, roll and shape it
    into perfect round silken cabochons of delight.


    Meanwhile Doug brings batch after batch to the grinder -
    one hundred thirty in all.
    All day we steam and grind, pound and turn, pinch and shape
    while Harrison keeps the wheels oiled
    and Sherman watches over us all.


    All this to give thanks for another year together,
    to ask blessings and bounty on the year to come.
    It takes a village to make mochi!


    - Larry Robinson
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  45. TopTop #1854
    gardenmaniac's Avatar
    gardenmaniac
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Rock on ! and mochi happy returns of the season to you and yours.

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

    The rice has been washed twice and soaking for two days.
    Despite the "no burn" alert
    the almond wood fires - lit before dawn -
    boil water beneath the steamers:
    three stacks of four baskets each
    tended and timed under Bob's watchful eye.....

    - Larry Robinson
    Last edited by Barry; 12-31-2013 at 10:50 AM.
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  46. TopTop #1855
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mochi Tsuki
    The starchy smell of rice
    fills the chill morning,
    as clouds of steam rise
    from wooden boxes
    stacked over cooking fires.
    Sips of hot sake rouse
    stiff bones to swing mallets,
    pounding sticky rice
    to elastic smoothness
    for Oshōgatsu, the New Year.

    The men’s grunts
    of exertion punctuate
    the trill of aproned women,
    pinching and shaping
    still-warm dough into cakes,
    steady rhythm of the wooden
    mallet's downswing: hit,
    turn the dough, slap.

    I step to the granite bowl,
    feel the mallet's heft,
    focus on the beat to keep
    from hitting my partner’s
    hands, reaching in to turn
    the hot mass of rice.

    I close my eyes,
    breathe in and lift, drop
    lift, step into the task,
    swing, hup,
    swing, hup

    for you, Obaachan,
    for you, Obaasan,
    for you, Mother.


    - Jodi Hottel
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  47. TopTop #1856
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Blessing For The New Year


    Beannacht

    ("Blessing")
    On the day when
    the weight deadens
    on your shoulders
    and you stumble,
    may the clay dance
    to balance you.

    And when your eyes
    freeze behind
    the grey window
    and the ghost of loss
    gets in to you,
    may a flock of colours,
    indigo, red, green,
    and azure blue
    come to awaken in you
    a meadow of delight.

    When the canvas frays
    in the currach of thought
    and a stain of ocean
    blackens beneath you,
    may there come across the waters
    a path of yellow moonlight
    to bring you safely home.

    May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
    may the clarity of light be yours,
    may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
    may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
    And so may a slow
    wind work these words
    of love around you,
    an invisible cloak
    to mind your life.

    - John O'Donohue
    Last edited by Barry; 01-01-2014 at 01:58 PM.
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  49. TopTop #1857
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Winter in Clarence

    There, it was good.
    Even shivering in the gray mornings
    dressing behind the bedroom door, open
    almost to the wall, just enough room for a small boy to stand
    before the heat register from the coal furnace in the basement
    the icon before which his father
    made solitary obeisance every morning.

    Did the man, too, shiver in bathrobe and slippers
    as he descended to the coldest part of the house, to
    twist the damper, open the squealing door
    add, then light crumpled newspaper
    whet the appetite for anthracite?
    Were his labors an offering to Hades, or to Apollo
    as he slid the shovel across concrete
    sure and deep into the dark bin, as he turned
    and slung each load into the blazing iron throat?

    Winter after winter
    he fed the day’s first meal
    to the beast that creaked and groaned
    warmed to the work
    announced with a roar
    we could slide out from under three blankets
    endure goose bumps and chattering teeth
    dress behind the door.


    - Karl Frederick
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  51. TopTop #1858
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson



    Poem

    Teacher of reading, of "You will not" and "You shall,"
    almighty Grammarian author of Genesis,
    whether language holds three forms of the future
    as Hebrew does or no future tense at all
    like Chinese, may it perform a public service,
    offer the protection of the Great Wall,
    the hope and sorrow of the Western Wall.

    - Stanley Moss
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  53. TopTop #1859
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    To My Students


    You who can read,

    do not take it for granted;
    you who cannot,
    there are worlds, there are gods
    yet to be quickened in your dreams.
    The worlds await to form on your tongue,
    the gods to tremble in your ears.

    These little marks, black as fly-droppings
    on the page, and as small,
    speak to you - you do not hear.
    I cannot tell you the beginning of naming,
    only how it changes and magic
    sparks and sputters at the base of the skull.
    I do not know if there is answer;
    perhaps our speaking is enough.
    Men have died always alone;
    these small blemishes on the page
    their final legacy.
    Do not lose them,
    these the enchanted cinders
    of our stars.

    - Rafael Jesus Gonzalez
    Last edited by Barry; 01-04-2014 at 01:52 PM.
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  54. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  55. TopTop #1860
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Longing And Belonging


    There is something which longs for me,
    Longs to belong to me.
    A life which enters with each breath,
    Yearning to absorb the splendor
    Into my soul.


    This lover pursues me, sustains me.
    This lover knows that I still cannot see,
    And, so, pursues me with smell, and taste, and sound.
    Anything, to get my attention,
    To wake me up.


    To dance with my heart,
    Surrounding me with healing arms.


    There is something so close to all that I am,
    Which sings a love song when I can't sleep.
    There are messages in the rain, in the sun.
    The moon reflects it's glowing light,
    And spins around, saying, "Look at me!
    Here I am! And now you can see your way!"


    And, of course, I take those steps,
    Accepting the rose that appears in my hand,
    And hoping the doorbell is going to ring.
    While something waits patiently by my side,
    Keeping me warm, and knowing the beauty.


    - Jon Jackson
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