A Contribution of Statistcs (Wislawa Szymborska)

 

A Contribution to Statistics

 

Out of a hundred people

 

those who always know better

-- fifty-two

 

doubting every step

-- nearly all the rest,

 

glad to lend a hand

if it doesn't take too long

-- as high as forty-nine,

 

always good

because they can't be otherwise

-- four, well maybe five,

 

able to admire without envy

-- eighteen,

 

suffering illusions

induced by fleeting youth

-- sixty, give or take a few,

 

not to be taken lightly

-- forty and four,

 

living in constant fear

of someone or something

-- seventy-seven,

 

capable of happiness

-- twenty-something tops,

 

harmless singly, savage in crowds

-- half at least,

 

cruel

when forced by circumstances

-- better not to know

even ballpark figures,

 

wise after the fact

-- just a couple more

than wise before it,

 

taking only things from life

-- thirty

(I wish I were wrong),

 

hunched in pain,

no flashlight in the dark

-- eighty-three

sooner or later,

 

righteous

-- thirty-five, which is a lot,

 

righteous

and understanding

-- three,

 

worthy of compassion

-- ninety-nine,

 

mortal

-- a hundred out of a hundred.

Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.

 

 

~ Wislawa Szymborska ~

 

 

(Poems: New and Selected, trans. by S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh

Sonnets To Orpheus, Part One, XII (Rilke)

Sonnets to Orpheus, Part One, XII

 

Bless the spirit that makes connections,

for truly we live in what we imagine.

Clocks move along side our real life

with steps that are ever the same.

 

Though we do not know our exact location,

we are held in place by what links us.

Across trackless distances

antennas sense each other.

 

Pure attention, the essence of the powers!

Distracted by each day's doing,

how can we hear the signals?

 

Even as the farmer labors

there where the seed turns into summer,

it is not his work.  It is Earth who gives.

 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

 

 

(In Praise of Mortality, translated and edited by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Spent (Mark Doty)

Spent

by Mark Doty  

 

Late August morning I go out to cut

spent and faded hydrangeas--washed 

greens, russets, troubled little auras 

of sky as if these were the very silks 

of Versailles, mottled by rain and ruin

then half-restored, after all this time...

When I come back with my handful 

I realize I've accidentally locked the door,

and can't get back into the house.

The dining room window's easiest;

crawl through beauty bush and spirea, 

push aside some errant maples, take down 

the wood-framed screen, hoist myself up. 

But how, exactly, to clamber across the sill 

and the radiator down to the tile?

I try bending one leg in, but I don't fold 

readily; I push myself up so that my waist 

rests against the sill, and lean forward, 

place my hands on the floor and begin to slide 

down into the room, which makes me think 

this was what it was like to be born: 

awkward, too big for the passageway...

Negotiate, submit? 

                          When I give myself

to gravity there I am, inside, no harm,

the dazzling splotchy flowerheads

scattered around me on the floor.

Will leaving the world be the same

--uncertainty as to how to proceed, 

some discomfort, and suddenly you're 

--where? I am so involved with this idea 

I forget to unlock the door, 

so when I go to fetch the mail, I'm locked out 

again. Am I at home in this house, 

would I prefer to be out here, 

where I could be almost anyone? 

This time it's simpler: the window-frame, 

the radiator, my descent. Born twice 

in one day! 

                In their silvered jug,

these bruise-blessed flowers: 

how hard I had to work to bring them 

into this room. When I say spent, 

I don't mean they have no further coin.

If there are lives to come, I think

they might be a littler easier than this one

Earth Your Dancing Place (May Swenson)

Earth Your Dancing Place

 

Beneath heaven's vault

remember always walking

through halls of cloud

down aisles of sunlight

or through high hedges

of the green rain

walk in the world

highheeled with swirl of cape

hand at the swordhilt

of your pride

Keep a tall throat

Remain aghast at life

 

Enter each day

as upon a stage

lighted and waiting

for your step

Crave upward as flame

have keenness in the nostril

Give your eyes

to agony or rapture

 

Train your hands

as birds to be

brooding or nimble

Move your body

as the horses

sweeping on slender hooves

over crag and prairie

with fleeing manes

and aloofness of their limbs

 

Take earth for your own large room

and the floor of earth

carpeted with sunlight

and hung round with silver wind

for your dancing place

 

~ May Swenson ~

 

(Nature: Poems Old a