Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

[gardenmaniac]

yes, I wonder who gets to keep the prize?

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[gardenmaniac]

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?

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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