the summer day

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

--Mary Oliver

xxx
this poem's final question redefined my life.

happy summer. happy father's day.

photo by reagan, i believe, in our backyard.

road's end

Road's End

The roads have come to their end now,
they don't go any farther, they turn here,
over on the earth there.
You can't go any farther if you don't want
to go to the moon or the planets. Stop now
in time, and turn to a wasp's nest or a cow track,
a volcano opening or a clatter of stones in the woods--
it's all the same. Something else.

They won't go any farther as I've said
without changing, the engine to horseshoes,
the gear shift to a fir branch
which you hold loose in your hand
--what the hell is this?

--Rolf Jacobsen
(translated by Robert Bly)

xxx
aquareagan and i are in vermont for the summer as a cabin counselor at a music camp. there are posts scheduled sporadically throughout the summer and paul may put something up once in a while. i'll be home from one of the most beautiful places in the world in august. take care.

love muchly.

a sonnet of the moon

A Sonnet of the Moon

Look how the pale queen of the silent night

Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,

And he, as long as she is in his sight,

With her full tide is ready her to honor.

But when the silver waggon of the moon

Is mounted up so high he cannot follow,

The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan,

And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow.

So you that are the sovereign of my heart

Have all my joys attending on your will;

My joys low-ebbing when you do depart,

When you return their tide my heart doth fill.

So as you come and as you do depart,

Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.

--Charles Best

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ok6/

morning poem

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

--Mary Oliver

xxx
happy birthday, gwen.

we real cool

We Real Cool

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

--Gwendolyn Brooks