taking the hands

content

2012-01-12T11:11:00.001-05:00

Content

I should be content
to look at a mountain
for what it is
and not as a comment
on my life.

--David Ignatow

[Photo with famed Cerro Fitz Roy to the left. El Chaltén, Argentina.]

untitled

2011-08-18T11:11:00.000-04:00

Untitled

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

--Rumi
(trans. by Coleman Barks and John Moyne)

xxx
feliz cumple, querido.

at blackwater pond

2011-07-09T11:11:00.003-04:00

At Blackwater Pond

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is the beautiful thing that just happened?

--Mary Oliver

xxx
photo by the ever-lovely marta: "Because there's always a moment of a Mary Oliver poem out there." love and miss you too much.

walking across the atlantic

2011-07-05T11:11:00.004-04:00

Walking Across the Atlantic

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

--Billy Collins

xxx
No, I'm not in Spain. I've been in Argentina since the end of January. Today I, la mochilera, will be finally heading home. I booked a flight for 11:11 (in all seriousness.) Besos!

(Photo)

hummingbird

2011-06-06T11:11:00.002-04:00

Hummingbird

Suppose I say summer,
write the word “hummingbird,”
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, I love you.

--Raymond Carver

xxx

Happy birthday, Reagan. Love and miss you too much.

[Photo]

rain

2011-06-01T11:11:00.001-04:00

Rain

Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
And the browns gone gray
And yellow
A terrible amber.
In the cold streets
Your warm body.
In whatever room
Your warm body.
Among all the people
Your absence
The people who are always
Not you.

I have been easy with trees
Too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
Now
Suddenly
This rain.

--Jack Gilbert

xxx
another winter on another continent, but i know that rains pass and old habits are easy to find again.
(photo)

breaks free

2011-05-30T11:11:00.002-04:00

Breaks Free

I just want to be
where the earth breaks free
of concrete and metal and glass,
of asphalt and plastic and gas,
where sun is king
and water is queen,
where cactus grows tall
and the air is clean.
I just want to be
where the earth breaks free
of fences and alleys and walls,
of factories and traffic and malls,
where owls sleep
in the heart of day
waiting for sunset
to hunt their prey,
where mountains rise
in seas of sand
and coyotes roam
across the land.

-- Frank Asch

xxx
buenos aires, you are glorious, but there are some times when i would like to be in a non-city-place where i wouldn't live surrounded by strip clubs, which are even popular on sunday nights (judging by the volume last night.)

Photo: View of Cachi from within El Parque Nacional Los Cardones in Salta province, Argentina.

ghazal 2214

2011-05-23T11:11:00.000-04:00

Ghazal 2214

Blessed time! when we are sitting,
I and thou,
With two forms and only one soul,
I and thou.
Fragrance, song of birds, they quicken ev'rything
When we come into the garden,
I and thou.
All the stars of heaven hurry
to see us,
And we show them our own moon,
I and thou-
I and thou without words, without
I and thou-
In delight we are united,
I and thou.
Sugar chew the heaven's parrots
in that place
Where we're sitting, laughing sweetly,
I and thou.
Strange that I and thou together
in this nook
Are apart a thousand miles, see-
I and thou.
One form in this dust, the other
in that land.
Sweet eternal Paradise there...
I and thou.

--Rumi

xxx
(Red bird of paradise photo.)

pathways

2011-05-21T11:11:00.000-04:00

Pathways

Understand, I'll slip quietly
away from the noisy crowd
when I see the pale
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.

I'll pursue solitary pathways
through the pale twilit meadows,
with only this one dream:
You come too.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

xxx
(Photo from Laguna Nimez in El Calafate, Argentinian Patagonia.)

casida of the rose

2011-05-19T11:11:00.003-04:00

Casida of the Rose

The rose
was not searching for the sunrise :
almost eternal on the branch,
it was searching for something else.

The rose
was not searching for darkness or science :
borderline of flesh and dream,
it was searching for something else.

The rose
was not searching for the rose.
Motionless in the sky
it was searching for something else.

--Federico García Lorca
(translated by Robert Bly)

xxx
this rose went all the way to el fin del mundo and is beginning to name those something elses.

(Image: Salvador Dalí's "Meditative Rose.")

dust

2011-05-17T11:11:00.000-04:00

Dust

The dust motes float
and swerve in the sunbeam,
as lively as worlds,
and I remember my brother
when we were boys:
"We may be living on an atom
in somebody's wallpaper."

--Wendell Berry

xxx
[photo]

love

2011-05-15T11:11:00.002-04:00

Love

The boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid or expecting someone

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.

She looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.

And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together

is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.

--Billy Collins

xxx
More photos of the stunning Wendy Sutter and Ex-Vatican Stradivarius here. I will ever be in awe of both of them. This is another of those days where I miss being on the same continent as my cello (and those I love dearly, but that goes without saying.)

last night, as i was sleeping

2011-05-12T11:11:00.001-04:00

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvelous error! –
That I had a beehive
Here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
Were making white combs
And sweet honey
From my old failures.

--Antonio Machado
(translated by Robert Bly)

ravens hiding in a shoe

2011-05-10T11:11:00.001-04:00

Ravens Hiding in a Shoe

There is something men and women living in houses
Don't understand. The old alchemists standing
Near their stoves hinted at it a thousand times.

Ravens at night hide in an old woman's shoe.
A four-year-old speaks some ancient language.
We have lived our own death a thousand times.

Each sentence we speak to friends means the opposite
As well. Each time we say, "I trust in God," it means
God has already abandoned us a thousand times.

Mothers again and again have knelt in church
In wartime asking God to protect their sons,
And their prayers were refused a thousand times.

The baby loon follows the mother's sleek
Body for months. By the end of summer, she
Has dipped her head into Rainy Lake a thousand times.

Robert, you've wasted so much of your life
Sitting indoors to write poems. Would you
Do that again? I would, a thousand times.

--Robert Bly

xxx
I'm not sure what I feel about this one, but here it is.

(photo)

i don't want to live a small life

2011-05-07T11:11:00.000-04:00

Eleven Versions of the Same Poem:

I don't want to live a small life

I don't want to live a small life. Open your eyes,
open your hands. I have just come
from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way
(open your hands) and the wind-winged clouds
following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes
only to you. Look how many how small
but so sweet and maybe the last gift

I will ever bring to anyone in this
world of hope and risk, so do.
Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.

--Mary Oliver

the well rising

2011-05-05T11:11:00.001-04:00

The Well Rising

The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through deep ground
everywhere in the field –

The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer –

The swallow heart from wing beat to wing beat
counseling decision, decision:
thunderous examples. I place my feet
with care in such a world.

--William Stafford

xxx
Beautiful cliff swallow photos.

godiva county, montana

2011-05-01T11:11:00.001-04:00

Godiva County, Montana

She's a big country. Her undulations
roll and flower in the sun. Those flanks
quiver when the wind caresses the grass.
Who turns away when so generous a body
offers to play hide-and-seek all summer?
One shoulder leans bare all the way up
the mountain; limbs range and plunge
wildly into the river. We risk our eyes
every day; they celebrate' they dance
and flirt over this offered treasure.
“Be alive, “ the land says. “Listen—
this is your time, your world, your pleasure.”

--William Stafford

[Photo: Rainbow over Perito Moreno. El Parque Nacional Los Glaciares: Lago Roca, Argentinian Patagonia.]

indian caves in the dry country

2011-04-30T11:11:00.000-04:00

Indian Caves in the Dry Country

These are some canyons
we might use again
sometime.

--William Stafford

xxx
[Photo of El Anfiteatro up in Salta province, Argentina.]

yes

2011-04-27T11:11:00.002-04:00

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That's why we wake
and look out -- no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

--William Stafford

xxx
[Photo from la Quebrada de las Conchas in the Andes of Argentina.]

original sin

2011-04-24T23:11:00.000-04:00

Original Sin

Well, anyhow, it preserves us from the pride
of thinking we invented sin ourselves
by our originality, that famous modern power.
In fact, we have it from the beginning
of the world by the errors of being born,
being young, being old, causing pain
to ourselves, to others, to the world, to God
by ignorance, by knowledge, by intention,
by accident. Something is bad the matter
here, informing us of itself, handing down its old instruction. We know it
when we see it, don't we? Innocence would never recognize it. We need it
too, for without it we would not know
forgiveness, goodness, gratitude,
that fund of grace by which alone we live.

--Wendell Berry

xxx
Happy Easter! I realize that Christianity may not be your thing, but I think we could all use a day of grace and life.

[Photo from Good Friday at La Catedral de La Plata, the largest cathedral in Argentina]

when faces called flowers float out of the ground

2011-03-21T11:11:00.000-04:00

when faces called flowers float out of the ground...

when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
-it's april(yes,april;my darling)it's spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving-
but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
-alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now)spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living-
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

--e.e. cummings

sometimes

2011-02-01T11:11:00.003-05:00

Sometimes

1.
Something came up
out of the dark
It wasn't anything I had ever seen before.
It wasn't an animal
or a flower,
unless it was both.

Something came up out of the water,
a head the size of a cat
but muddy and without ears.
I don't know what God is.
I don't know what death is.

But I believe they have between them
some fervent and necessary arrangement.

2.
Sometimes
melancholy leaves me breathless.

3.
Later I was in a field full of sunflowers.
I was feeling the heat of midsummer.
I was thinking of the sweet, electric
drowse of creation,

when it began to break.

In the west, clouds gathered.
Thunderheads.
In an hour the sky was filled with them.

In an hour the sky was filled
with the sweetness of rain and the blast of lightning.
Followed by the deep bells of thunder.

Water from the heavens! Electricity from the source!
Both of them mad to create something!

The lightning brighter than any flower.
The thunder without a drowsy bone in its body.

4.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

5.
Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things
but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
thoroughly, solved everything.

6.
God, rest in my heart
and fortify me,
take away my hunger for answers,
let the hours play upon my body
like the hands of my beloved.
Let the cathead appear again--
the smallest of your mysteries,
some wild cousin of my own blood probably--
some cousin of my own wild blood probably,
in the black dinner-bowl of the pond.

7.
Death waits for me, I know it, around
one corner or another
This doesn't amuse me.
Neither does it frighten me.

After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.
It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.
I walked slowly, and listened

to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.

--Mary Oliver

in a country once forested

2011-01-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

In a country once forested

The young woodland remembers
the old, a dreamer dreaming

of an old holy book,
an old set of instructions,

and the soil under the grass
is dreaming of a young forest,

and under the pavement the soil
is dreaming of grass.

--Wendell Berry

words

2011-01-10T11:11:00.000-05:00

Words

1.
What is one to make of a life given
to putting things into words,
saying them, writing them down?
Is there a world beyond words?
There is. But don't start, don't
go on about the tree unqualified,
standing in light that shines
to time's end beyond its summoning
name. Don't praise the speechless
starlight, the unspeakble dawn.
Just stop.

2.
Well, we can stop
for a while, if we try hard enough,
if we are lucky. We can sit still,
keep silent, let the phoebe, the sycamore,
the river, the stone call themselves
by whatever they call themselves, their own
sounds, their own silence, and thus
may know for a moment the nearness
of the world, its vastness,
its vast variousness, far and near,
which only silence knows. And then
we must call all things by name
out of the silence again to be with us,
or die of namelessness.

--Wendell Berry

the journey

2011-01-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

--Mary Oliver

trust

2010-04-11T09:17:00.004-04:00

Trust

It's like so many other things in life
to which you must say no or yes.
So you take your car to the new mechanic.
Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.

The package left with the disreputable-looking
clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,
the envelope passed by dozens of strangers—
all show up at their intended destinations.

The theft that could have happened doesn't.
Wind finally gets where it was going
through the snowy trees, and the river, even
when frozen, arrives at the right place.

And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life
is delivered, even though you can't read the address.

-- Thomas R. Smith

the wild swans at coole

2010-03-17T11:11:00.000-04:00

The Wild Swans at Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

--William Butler Yeats

(photo source)

gloss for impatient lovers

2010-02-10T11:11:00.000-05:00

Gloss for Impatient Lovers

I like a leafing-out by increments—
not bolting bloom, in sudden heat begun.
Life’s sweetest savored in the present tense.
I like to watch the shadows pack their tents.
--Robyn Sarah, “Villanelle for a Cool April”

I like a leafing-out by increments—
the pregnant swell of aspen buds before
they each unclench their small brown fists and pour
green licks into the air, like monuments
to patience, like slowly opened doors.
I like a leafing out by increments,

not bolting bloom, in sudden heat begun.
I like to savor pleasure leisurely—
a hint of yes, a swoon of we-shall-see.
The truth of the imagination runs
on thirst. It thrives when there’s no guarantee,
no bolting bloom in sudden heat begun.

Life’s sweetest savored in the present tense.
The mind, it wants to sprint ahead, to know
what happens next. And next. It says, “Although
these buds look promising, intelligence
suggests it still could frost.” And that is so.
Life’s sweetest savored in the present tense.

I like to watch the shadows pack their tents
when love resists the guessing mind, decides
to trust what is. And bright as green inside
spring buds, love leafs out in slow increments.
I sip on warmth and let reluctance slide.
I like to watch the shadows pack their tents.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

xxx
un abrazo fuerte and love to all.

a potted plant

2010-02-05T11:11:00.000-05:00

A Potted Plant

I pull a sun from my coin purse each day.
And at night I let my pet the moon
Run freely into the sky meadow.
If I whistled,
She would turn her head and look at me.
If I then waved my arms,
She would come back wagging a marvelous tail
Of stars.
There are always a few men like me
In this world
Who are house-sitting for God.
We share His royal duties:
I water each day a favorite potted plant
Of His--
This earth.
Ask the Friend for love.
Ask Him again.
For I have learned that every heart will get
What it prays for
Most.

--Hafez

some fill with each good rain

2010-01-31T11:11:00.000-05:00

Some fill with each good rain

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.
In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.
Your love should never be offered to the mouth of a Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.
There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.

--Hafez

xxx
happy birthday, rajah. i love and miss you to pieces.

but if you are happy...

2010-01-26T11:11:00.000-05:00

But if you are happy...

When you whirl, your eye sees the room whirling, too.
If you sail in a ship over the sea,
it seems the seashore is running past.
If your heart is oppressed with struggle,
the whole atmosphere of the world feels tight;
but if you are happy as your friends would wish,
this world seems to be a garden of roses.

--Rumi
(translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski)

xxx
happy birthday, kathleen. i miss you.

keeping things whole

2010-01-22T11:11:00.000-05:00

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

-- Mark Strand

xxx
i still love you, little blue house. you have good bones.

just now

2010-01-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

Just Now

In the morning as the storm begins to blow away
the clear sky appears for a moment and it seems to me
that there has been something simpler than I could ever believe
simpler than I could have begun to find words for
not patient not even waiting no more hidden
than the air itself that became part of me for a while
with every breath and remained with me unnoticed
something that was here unnamed unknown in the days
and the nights not separate from them
not separate from them as they came and were gone
it must have been here neither early nor late then
by what name can I address it now holding out my thanks

--W.S. Merwin

two giant fat people

2010-01-01T11:11:00.000-05:00

Two Giant Fat people

God
And I have become
Like two giant fat people
Living in a tiny boat.
We keep
Bumping into each other
and Laughing.

--Hafez

little tree

2009-12-25T11:11:00.001-05:00

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

wild geese

2009-11-30T23:11:00.001-05:00

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

--Mary Oliver

xxx
we all love you.

(photo source)

west wall

2009-11-23T23:11:00.001-05:00

West Wall

In the unmade light I can see the world
as the leaves brighten I see the air
the shadows melt and the apricots appear
now that the branches vanish I see the apricots
from a thousand trees ripening in the air
they are ripening in the sun along the west wall
apricots beyond number are ripening in the daylight.

Whatever was there
I never saw those apricots swaying in the light
I might have stood in orchards forever
without beholding the day in the apricots
or knowing the ripeness of the lucid air
or touching the apricots in your skin
or tasting in your mouth the sun in the apricots.

--W.S. Merwin

xxx
it's a gray day. have some sunshine.

(photo source)

hippos on holiday

2009-10-22T11:11:00.003-04:00

Hippos on Holiday

is not really the title of a movie
but if it was I would be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Hundreds of them would frolic
in the mud of a wide, slow-moving river,
and I would eat my popcorn
in the dark of a neighborhood theater.
When they opened their enormous mouths
lined with big stubby teeth
I would drink my enormous Coke.

I would be both in my seat
and in the water playing with the hippos,
which is the way it is
with a truly great movie.
Only a mean-spirited reviewer
would ask on holiday from what?

--Billy Collins

xxx
happy birthday, luci. i wish you oodles and oodles of noodles.

late fragment

2009-10-05T11:11:00.004-04:00

Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

--Raymond Carver

xxx
happy birthday marta.

appeal to the grammarians

2009-08-19T11:11:00.003-04:00

Appeal to the Grammarians

We, the naturally hopeful,
Need a simple sign
For the myriad ways we're capsized.
We who love precise language
Need a finer way to convey
Disappointment and perplexity.
For speechlessness and all its inflections,
For up-ended expectations,
For every time we're ambushed
By trivial or stupefying irony,
For pure incredulity, we need
The inverted exclamation point.
For the dropped smile, the limp handshake,
For whoever has just unwrapped a dumb gift
Or taken the first sip of a flat beer,
Or felt love or pond ice
Give way underfoot, we deserve it.
We need it for the air pocket, the scratch shot,
The child whose ball doesn't bounce back,
The flat tire at journey's outset,
The odyssey that ends up in Weehawken.
But mainly because I need it—here and now
As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio
Staring at my espresso and cannoli
After this middle-aged couple
Came strolling by and he suddenly
Veered and sneezed all over my table
And she said to him, "See, that's why
I don't like to eat outside."

--Paul Violi

xxx
happy birthday to the chief grammarian in my life.

you shall above all things be glad and young

2009-08-18T11:11:00.003-04:00

you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you're young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

--e.e. cummings

xxx
happy birthday, querido.

what we need is here

2009-08-11T11:11:00.005-04:00

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

--Wendell Berry

xxx
happy birthday mama llama. i love you.

a standing ground

2009-08-05T11:11:00.001-04:00

A Standing Ground

However just and anxious I have been,
I will stop and step back
from the crowd of those who may agree
with what I say, and be apart.
There is no earthly promise of life or peace
but where the roots branch and weave
their patient silent passages in the dark;
uprooted, I have been furious without an aim.
I am not bound for any public place,
but for ground of my own
where I have planted vines and orchard trees,
and in the heat of the day climbed up
into the healing shadow of the woods.
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn
and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

--Wendell Berry

august

2009-08-01T23:11:00.000-04:00

August

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

--Mary Oliver

green chile

2009-07-31T11:11:00.001-04:00

Green Chile

I prefer red chile over my eggs
and potatoes for breakfast.
Red chile ristras decorate my door,
dry on my roof, and hang from eaves.
They lend open-air vegetable stands
historical grandeur, and gently swing
with an air of festive welcome.
I can hear them talking in the wind,
haggard, yellowing, crisp, rasping
tongues of old men, licking the breeze.

But grandmother loves green chile.
When I visit her,
she holds the green chile pepper
in her wrinkled hands.
Ah, voluptuous, masculine,
an air of authority and youth simmers
from its swan-neck stem, tapering to a flowery collar,
fermenting resinous spice.
A well-dressed gentleman at the door
my grandmother takes sensuously in her hand,
rubbing its firm glossed sides,
caressing the oily rubbery serpent,
with mouth -watering fulfillment,
fondling its curves with gentle fingers.
Its bearing magnificent and taut
as flanks of a tiger in mid-leap,
she thrusts her blade into
and cuts it open, with lust
on her hot mouth, sweating over the stove,
bandanna round her forehead,
mysterious passion on her face
as she serves me green chile con carne
between soft warm leaves of corn tortillas,
with beans and rice–her sacrifice
to here little prince.
I slurp form my plate
with last bit of tortilla, my mouth burns
and I hiss and drink a tall glass of cold water.

All over New Mexico, sunburned men and women
drive rickety trucks stuffed with gunny sacks
of green chile, from Belen, Beguita, Willard, Estancia,
San Antonio y Socorro, from fields
to roadside stands, you see them roasting green chile
in screen-sided homemade barrels, and for a dollar a bag,
we relive this old, beautiful ritual again and again.

-- Jimmy Santiago Baca

milkweed

2009-07-15T11:11:00.001-04:00

Milkweed

While I stood here, in the open, lost in myself,
I must have looked a long time
Down the corn rows, beyond grass,
The small house,
White walls, animals lumbering toward the barn.
I look down now. It is all changed.
Whatever it was I lost, whatever I wept for
Was a wild, gentle thing, the small dark eyes
Loving me in secret.
It is here. At a touch of my hand,
The air fills with delicate creatures
From the other world.

--James Wright

a sort of song

2009-07-01T11:11:00.001-04:00

A Sort of Song

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
-- through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

--William Carlos Williams

the summer day

2009-06-21T11:11:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-15T11:11:00.005-04:00

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

2009-06-11T23:11:00.001-04:00

















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

2009-06-06T11:11:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-01T11:11:00.001-04:00

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

the lanyard

2009-05-11T11:11:00.002-04:00

The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

--Billy Collins

xxx
happy mother's day.

beloved, let us once more praise the rain

2009-05-05T11:11:00.001-04:00

Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise The Rain

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,—
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.
There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,—
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.
The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly
Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock
Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail
Surveys the wet world from a watery stone...
And still the syllables of water whisper:
The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop,—on a hawthorn leaf,—
Orion in a cobweb, and the World.

--Conrad Aiken

in blackwater woods

2009-04-30T11:11:00.001-04:00

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

--Mary Oliver

anagrammer

2009-04-25T11:11:00.001-04:00

Anagrammer

If you believe in the magic of language,

then Elvis really Lives

and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin.

If you believe the letters themselves

contain a power within them,

then you understand

what makes outside tedious,

how desperation becomes a rope ends it.

The circular logic that allows senator to become treason,

and treason to become atoners.

That eleven plus two is twelve plus one,

and an admirer is also married.

That if you could just rearrange things the right way

you’d find your true life,

the right path, the answer to your questions:

you’d understand how the Titanic

turns into that ice tin,

and debit card becomes bad credit.

How listen is the same as silent,

and not one letter separates stained from sainted.

--Peter Periera

tuned in late one night

2009-04-20T11:11:00.001-04:00

Tuned in Late One Night

Listen - this is a faint station
left alive in the vast universe.
I was left here to tell you a message
designed for your instruction or comfort,
but now that my world is gone I crave
expression pure as all the space
around me: I want to tell what is....

Remember? - we learned that still-face way,
to wait in election or meeting and then
to choose the side that wins, a leader
that lasted, a president that stayed in?
But some of us knew even then it was better
to lose if that was the way our chosen
side came out, in truth, at the end.

It's like this, truth is: it's looking out while everything
happens; being in a place of your own,
between your ears; and any person
you face will get the full encounter
or your self. When you hear any news
you ought to register delight or pain
depending on where you really live.

Now I am fading, with this ambition:
to read with my brights full on,
to write on a clear glass typewriter,
to listen with sympathy,
to speak like a child.
I spot the neighbor’s dog scampering across the lawn
with my name in its mouth,
leaving me to wander through the house anonymously
and scour the telephone directory for an alias.

When I say my name out loud it sounds like
someone else’s, a character in a play who cheats
the hero and comes to a bad end, or an obscure
athlete lost in the deep encyclopedia of baseball.

When I try writing it down on paper
I find I have also lost my signature. My hand
feels retarded, unable to perform its inky trick,
that unmistakable, eerie, Arabic flourish.

Perhaps the dog was never given a name
and is now eating mine with pleasure
under a porch in the cool, lattice-shadowed dirt.

Perhaps late tonight I will hear the voice
of my neighbor as she stands at her back door,
hands cupped around her mouth, calling my name,
and I will leap the hedge and come running.

--William Stafford

all the true vows

2009-04-15T11:11:00.001-04:00

All the True Vows

All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.

There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.

Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don’t turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.

Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen

nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others.

By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.

Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,

it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.

Remember,
in this place
no one can hear you

and out of the silence
you can make a promise
it will kill you to break,

that way you’ll find
what is real and what is not.

I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.

Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years

in my own voice,

before it was too late
to turn my face again.

--David Whyte

piano lessons

2009-04-10T11:11:00.002-04:00

Piano Lessons

1  

My teacher lies on the floor with a bad back 
off to the side of the piano. 
I sit up straight on the stool. 
He begins by telling me that every key 
is like a different room 
and I am a blind man who must learn 
to walk through all twelve of them 
without hitting the furniture. 
I feel myself reach for the first doorknob.  

2  

He tells me that every scale has a shape 
and I have to learn how to hold 
each one in my hands. 
At home I practice with my eyes closed. 
C is an open book. 
D is a vase with two handles. 
G flat is a black boot. 
E has the legs of a bird.  

3  

He says the scale is the mother of the chords. 
I can see her pacing the bedroom floor 
waiting for her children to come home. 
They are out at nightclubs shading and lighting 
all the songs while couples dance slowly 
or stare at one another across tables. 
This is the way it must be. After all, 
just the right chord can bring you to tears 
but no one listens to the scales, 
no one listens to their mother.  

4  

I am doing my scales, 
the familiar anthems of childhood. 
My fingers climb the ladder of notes 
and come back down without turning around. 
Anyone walking under this open window 
would picture a girl of about ten 
sitting at the keyboard with perfect posture, 
not me slumped over in my bathrobe, disheveled, 
like a white Horace Silver.  

5  

I am learning to play 
"It Might As Well Be Spring" 
but my left hand would rather be jingling 
the change in the darkness of my pocket 
or taking a nap on an armrest. 
I have to drag him into the music 
like a difficult and neglected child. 
This is the revenge of the one who never gets 
to hold the pen or wave good-bye, 
and now, who never gets to play the melody.  

6  

Even when I am not playing, I think about the piano. 
It is the largest, heaviest, 
and most beautiful object in this house. 
I pause in the doorway just to take it all in. 
And late at night I picture it downstairs, 
this hallucination standing on three legs, 
this curious beast with its enormous moonlit smile.

--Billy Collins

ode 314

2009-04-05T11:11:00.001-04:00

Ode 314

Those who don’t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don’t want to change,

let them sleep.

This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
I want you to improve your mind that way,

sleep on.

I’ve given up on my brain.
I’ve torn the cloth to shreds and thrown it away.

If you’re not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,
and sleep.

--Rumi

a story that could be true

2009-04-01T11:11:00.001-04:00

A Story That Could be True

If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.

He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by--
you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
"Who are you really, wanderer?"--
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
"Maybe I'm a king."

--William Stafford

on turning ten

2009-03-26T11:11:00.004-04:00

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

--Billy Collins

xxx
today is my birthday. billy collins knows exactly how birthdays make me feel.

to earthward

2009-03-24T11:11:00.001-04:00

To Earthward

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air
That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of- was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Down hill at dusk?
I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.
I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,
The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.

--Robert Frost

xxx
robert frost is my birthday twin from new hampshire.

lines lost among trees

2009-03-22T11:11:00.001-04:00

Lines Lost Among Trees

These are not the lines that came to me
while walking in the woods
with no pen
and nothing to write on anyway.

They are gone forever,
a handful of coins
dropped through the grate of memory,
along with the ingenious mnemonic

I devised to hold them in place –
all gone and forgotten
before I had returned to the clearing of lawn
in the back of our quiet house

with its jars jammed with pens,
its notebooks and reams of blank paper,
its desk and soft lamp,
its table and the light from its windows.

So this is my elegy for them,
those six or eight exhalations,
the braided rope of the syntax,
the jazz of the timing,

and the little insight at the end
wagging like the short tail
of a perfectly obedient spaniel
sitting by the door.

This is my envoy to nothing
where I say Go, little poem –
not out into the world of strangers’ eyes,
but off to some airy limbo,

home to lost epics,
unremembered names,
and fugitive dreams
such as the one I had last night,

which like a fantastic city in pencil,
erased itself
in the bright morning air
just as I was waking up.

--Billy Collins

xxx
happy birthday billy collins.

since feeling is first...

2009-03-20T11:11:00.003-04:00

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

--e.e. cummings

xxx
happy spring.

oceans

2009-03-18T11:11:00.001-04:00

Oceans

I have a feeling that my boat
Has struck, down there in the depths,
Against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing... Silence... Waves...

-- Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and we are standing now,
quietly in the new life?

--Juan Ramón Jiménez
(translated by Robert Bly)

xxx
photo by janet.

prayer

2009-03-15T11:11:00.001-04:00

Prayer

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

--Galway Kinnell

you begin

2009-03-13T11:11:00.001-04:00

You Begin

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

--Margaret Atwood

the healing time

2009-03-09T11:11:00.003-04:00

The Healing Time

Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say
Holy Holy.

--Pesha Joyce Gertler

it's heavy to drag, this big sack...

2009-03-08T11:11:00.001-04:00

It's heavy to drag, this big sack of what
you should have done. And finally
you can't lift it any more.
Someone says, "Come on," and you
just look at them. Trees are waiting,
mountains. You never intended
that it should come to this.

But Now has arrived and is looking
straight at you, the way a lion does
when thinking it over, and anything
can happen. It's time for the cavalry
or maybe the Lone Ranger. But they
won't come. Maybe the music will
spill over and start it all again.
Maybe.

--William Stafford

forgotten language

2009-03-05T11:11:00.002-05:00

Forgotten Language

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

--Shel Silverstein

xxx
photo by darita. i'm pretty sure our caterpillar was a spicebrush swallowtail.

so you want to be a writer?

2009-03-01T11:11:00.001-05:00

so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

--Charles Bukowski

i go back to the house for a book

2009-02-26T11:11:00.001-05:00

I Go Back to the House for a Book

I turn around on the gravel
and go back to the house for a book,
something to read at the doctor's office,
and while I am inside, running the finger
of inquisition along a shelf,
another me that did not bother
to go back to the house for a book
heads out on his own,
rolls down the driveway,
and swings left toward town,
a ghost in his ghost car,
another knot in the string of time,
a good three minutes ahead of me —
a spacing that will now continue
for the rest of my life.

Sometimes I think I see him
a few people in front of me on a line
or getting up from a table
to leave the restaurant just before I do,
slipping into his coat on the way out the door.
But there is no catching him,
no way to slow him down
and put us back in synch,
unless one day he decides to go back
to the house for something,
but I cannot imagine
for the life of me what that might be.

He is out there always before me,
blazing my trail, invisible scout,
hound that pulls me along,
shade I am doomed to follow,
my perfect double,
only bumped an inch into the future,
and not nearly as well-versed as I
in the love poems of Ovid —
I who went back to the house
that fateful winter morning and got the book.

--Billy Collins

let go of your worries..

2009-02-24T11:11:00.002-05:00

Let go of your worries
and be completely clear-hearted,
like the face of a mirror
that contains no images.
If you want a clear mirror,
behold yourself
and see the shameless truth,
which the mirror reflects.
If metal can be polished
to a mirror-like finish,
what polishing might the mirror
of the heart require?
Between the mirror and the heart
is this single difference:
the heart conceals secrets,
while the mirror does not.

--Rumi

xxx
happy birthday marguerite.

winter's end

2009-02-22T11:11:00.001-05:00

Winter's End

Once in a wood at winter's end,
The withered sun, becoming young,
Turned the white silence into sound:
Bird after bird rose up in song.
The skeletons of snow-blocked trees
Linked thinning shadows here and there,
And those made mummy by the freeze
Spangled their mirrors on cold air.
Whether they moved — perhaps they spun,
Caught in a new but known delight —
Was hard to tell, since shade and sun
Mingled to hear the birds recite.
No body of this sound I saw,
So glassed and shining was the world
That swung on a sun-and-ice seesaw
And fought to have its leaves unfurled.
Hanging its harvest in between
Two worlds, one lost, one yet to come,
The wood's remoteness, like a drum,
Beat the oncoming season in.
Then every snow bird on white wings
Became its tropic counterpart,
And, in a renaissance of rings,
I saw the heart of summer start.

--Howard Moss

xxx
i know that winter's not over. but in february, i'm allowed to be optimistic.

the love song of j. alfred prufrock

2009-02-20T11:11:00.001-05:00

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun,
s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

				LET us go then, you and I,
				When the evening is spread out against the sky
				Like a patient etherised upon a table;
				Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
				The muttering retreats
				Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
				And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
				Streets that follow like a tedious argument
				Of insidious intent
				To lead you to an overwhelming question …
				Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
				Let us go and make our visit.

				In the room the women come and go
				Talking of Michelangelo.

				The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
				The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
				Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
				Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
				Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
				Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
				And seeing that it was a soft October night,
				Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

				And indeed there will be time
				For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
				Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
				There will be time, there will be time
				To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
				There will be time to murder and create,
				And time for all the works and days of hands
				That lift and drop a question on your plate;
				Time for you and time for me,
				And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
				And for a hundred visions and revisions,
				Before the taking of a toast and tea.

				In the room the women come and go
				Talking of Michelangelo.

				And indeed there will be time
				To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
				Time to turn back and descend the stair,
				With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
				[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
				My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
				My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
				[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
				Do I dare
				Disturb the universe?
				In a minute there is time
				For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

				For I have known them all already, known them all:—
				Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
				I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
				I know the voices dying with a dying fall
				Beneath the music from a farther room.
				So how should I presume?

				And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
				The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
				And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
				When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
				Then how should I begin
				To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
				And how should I presume?

				And I have known the arms already, known them all—
				Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
				[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
				It is perfume from a dress
				That makes me so digress?
				Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
				And should I then presume?
				And how should I begin? . . . . .
				Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
				And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
				Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

				I should have been a pair of ragged claws
				Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . .
				And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
				Smoothed by long fingers,
				Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
				Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
				Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
				Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
				But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
				Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
				I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
				I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
				And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
				And in short, I was afraid.

				And would it have been worth it, after all,
				After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
				Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
				Would it have been worth while,
				To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
				To have squeezed the universe into a ball
				To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
				To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
				Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
				If one, settling a pillow by her head,
				Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
				That is not it, at all.”

				And would it have been worth it, after all,
				Would it have been worth while,
				After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
				After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
				And this, and so much more?—
				It is impossible to say just what I mean!
				But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
				Would it have been worth while
				If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
				And turning toward the window, should say:
				“That is not it at all,
				That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . .
				No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
				Am an attendant lord, one that will do
				To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
				Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
				Deferential, glad to be of use,
				Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
				Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
				At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
				Almost, at times, the Fool.

				I grow old … I grow old …
				I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

				Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
				I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
				I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

				I do not think that they will sing to me.

				I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
				Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
				When the wind blows the water white and black.

				We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
				By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
				Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

--T.S. Eliot

xxx
this is in defense of all things beautiful.

it may not always be so...

2009-02-16T11:11:00.002-05:00

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, as such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be -
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

--e.e. cummings

xxx
this is not the perfect picture, but i don't have much else to fit with probably the most beautiful way in the world to deal with a parting of ways.

litany

2009-02-15T11:11:00.002-05:00

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

--Billy Collins

xxx
reagan's photo. thanks to 'prairie home companion,' this was my introduction to billy collins and to living poets when i was 11 years old.

i carry your heart with me

2009-02-14T11:11:00.001-05:00

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

--e.e. cummings

xxx
love yourself.

because she would ask me why i loved her

2009-02-10T11:11:00.001-05:00

Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.

--Christopher Brennan

oniomania

2009-02-06T11:11:00.001-05:00

Oniomania

Not so much the desire
for owning things
as the inability to choose
between hunter or emerald
green, to buy
just roses, when there are birds
of paradise, dahlias,
delphinium, and baby's breath.
At center an emptiness
large as a half-off sale table.
What could be so wrong
with a little indulgence?
To wander the aisles of fresh
new good things knowing
any of them could be hers?
With a closet full of shoes
unworn back home,
she's looking for love
but it's not for sale —
so she grabs three of
the next best thing.

--Peter Pereira

advice from casals

2009-02-04T11:11:00.001-05:00

Every second we live is a new and unique moment for the universe,
a moment that never was before and never will be again.
And what do we teach children in school?
We teach them that two and two make four
and that Paris is the capital of France.
When will we also teach them: Do you know what you are?
You are a marvel. You are unique.
On of the world there is no other child exactly like you.
On the millions of years that have passed there has never
been another child like you.
And look at your body what a wonder it is!
Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move!
You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven.
You have the capacity for anything.
Yes you are a marvel.
And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is,
like you, a marvel.
You must cherish one another.
You must work.
We all must work to make this world worthy of children.

--Pablo Casals.

xxx
one of my parents took this photo of us on our first family trip to ireland. we spent most of the trip traveling in the gypsy caravan you see in the background.

spirit horses

2009-01-31T11:11:00.002-05:00

Spirit Horses

Every breath taken in by the man
Who loves, and the woman who loves,
Goes to fill the water tank
Where the spirit horses drink.

--Robert Bly

xxx
happy birthday roger.

a further note:
"this poem is for young women especially. if your boyfriend doesn’t get it, then get out.” –delp

this is love: to fly toward a secret sky...

2009-01-27T11:11:00.001-05:00

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
to regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
to enter this circle of lovers,
to see beyond seeing itself,
to reach and feel within the breast.

--Rumi

sayings of the blind

2009-01-25T11:11:00.001-05:00

Sayings of the Blind

Feeling is believing.

Mountains don't exist. But their slopes do.

Little people have low voices.

All things, even the rocks, make a little noise.

The silence back of all sound is called "the sky."

There is a big stranger in town called the sun.
He doesn't speak to us but puts out a hand.

Night opens a door into a cellar ~
you can smell it coming.

On Sundays everyone stands farther apart.

Velvet feels black.

Meeting cement is never easy.

What do they mean when they say night is gloomy?

Edison didn't invent much.

Whenever you wake up it's morning.

Names have a flavor.

--William Stafford

love is more thicker than forget

2009-01-23T11:11:00.001-05:00

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is more sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

--e.e. cummings

xxx
i cannot claim this photo. my mom took this when my parents lived in africa and went on safari in kenya for their honeymoon.

inaugural poem

2009-01-20T13:33:00.003-05:00

Inaugural Poem

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

--Elizabeth Alexander

xxx
this is a transcript of the poem read at obama's inauguration. i'm not sure how i feel about it, but i thought it was appropriate. today, i am so proud. the world is beautiful.

the breeze at dawn

2009-01-17T11:11:00.001-05:00

The breeze at dawn has
secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where
the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

--Rumi

a supermarket in california

2009-01-15T11:11:00.001-05:00

A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in
an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

--Allen Ginsberg

carpe diem

2009-01-11T11:11:00.002-05:00

Carpe Diem

Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight,
He knew not whether homeward,
Or outward from the village,
Or (chimes were ringing) churchward,
He waited (they were strangers)
Till they were out of hearing
To bid them both be happy.
"Be happy, happy, happy,
And seize the day of pleasure."
The age-long theme is Age's.
'Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
To warn against the danger
That overtaken lovers
From being overflooded
With happiness should have it.
And yet not know they have it.
But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing—
Too present to imagine.

--Robert Frost

monet refuses the operation

2009-01-09T11:11:00.001-05:00

Monet Refuses the Operation

Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolves
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and change our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

--Lisa Mueller

manifesto: the mad farmer liberation front

2009-01-08T11:11:00.001-05:00

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

--Wendell Berry

they'll

2009-01-07T11:11:00.001-05:00

They'll

They'll

take your soul
and put it in a suit,
fit you in boxes
under labels,
make you look like the Joneses.

They'll tell you go a little blonder,
suggest sky-blue
tinted contact lenses,
conceal that birthmark
under your chin.

They'll urge you to have babies
get fulfilled.
They'll say marriage is easy,
flowers from Thornhills
are all you need
to keep it together.

They'll push you to go ahead,
borrow a few more grand,
build a dream house.
Your boys need Nikes,
your girls cheerleading,
and all you need is your job
9 to 5 in the same place.

They'll order you never to cry
in Southern States,
and never, ever dance
in the rain.

They'll repeat all the things
your preschool teacher said
in that squeaky too tight voice.

And when you slowly
let them go,
crack your suit,
ooze your soul
in the sun,
when you run through
the woods with your dog,
read poems to swaying cornfields,
pray in tall red oaks,
they'll whisper
and pretend you're crazy.

--Cheryl Denise

excerpt from 'as you like it'

2009-01-06T11:11:00.001-05:00

from As You Like It (II.vii)

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

--William Shakespeare

prayer

2009-01-05T11:11:00.001-05:00

Prayer

Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl
themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the
way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-
                                           infolding,
entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a
visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by
minutest fractions the water's downdrafts and upswirls, the
dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where
they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into
itself (it has those layers) a real current though mostly
invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing
                         motion that forces change--
this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets
what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing
is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by
each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,
also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something
at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through
in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is
what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen
now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only
something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go.
I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never.
It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.

--Jorie Graham

altruism

2009-01-04T11:11:00.001-05:00

Altruism

What if we got outside ourselves and there
really was an outside out there, not just
our insides turned inside out? What if there
really were a you beyond me, not just
the waves off my own fire, like those waves off
the backyard grill you can see the next yard through,
though not well—just enough to know that off
to the right belongs to someone else, not you.
What if, when we said I love you, there were
a you to love as there is a yard beyond
to walk past the grill and get to? To endure
the endless walk through the self, knowing through a bond
that has no basis (for ourselves are all we know)
is altruism: not giving, but coming to know
someone is there through the wavy vision
of the self’s heat, love become a decision.

--Molly Peacock

god says yes to me

2009-01-03T11:11:00.001-05:00

God Says Yes to Me

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

--Kaylin Haught

trees

2009-01-02T11:11:00.001-05:00

Trees

I am looking at trees
they may be one of the things I will miss
most from the earth
though many of the ones I have seen
already I cannot remember
and though I seldom embrace the ones I see
and have never been able to speak
with one
I listen to them tenderly
their names have never touched them
they have stood round my sleep
and when it was forbidden to climb them
they have carried me in their branches

--W. S. Merwin

xxx
photo by marguerite.

nothing is lost

2009-01-01T11:11:00.001-05:00

Nothing is Lost

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.

--Noel Coward

xxx
happy new year.

some words from ikkyū

2008-12-31T23:59:00.001-05:00

Go down on your silly knees and pray for what?
Tomorrow is yesterday.

--Ikkyū