The Moor, R.S. Thomas

The Moor By R. S. Thomas (1913 - 2000) It was like a church to me. I entered it on soft foot, Breath held like a cap in the hand. It was quiet. What God was there made himself felt, Not listened to, in clean colours That brought a moistening of the eye, In movement of the wind over grass. There were no prayers said. But stillness Of the heart's passions -- that was praise Enough; and the mind's cession Of its kingdom. I walked on, Simple and poor, while the air crumbled And broke on me generously as bread

If The Ocean Had A Mouth, Marie-Eluzabeth Mali

If the ocean had a mouth

by Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I'd lean close, my ear

to her whisper and roar,

her tongue scattered

with stars.

She'd belt her brassy voice

over the waves' backbeat.

No one sings better than her.

Would she ever bite

the inside of her cheek?

Would she yell at the moon

to quit tugging at her hem,

or would she whistle, drop

her blue dress and shimmy

through space to cleave

to that shimmer?

What did she mean to say

that morning she spit out

the emaciated whale

wearing a net for a corset?

All this emptying

on the sand. Eyeless

shrimp. Oiled pelicans.

Within her jaws the coral forests,

glittering fish, waves like teeth,

her hungry mortal brine. 

Citizen, Claudia Rankine

From “Citizen”

BY CLAUDIA RANKINE

/ 

You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed; he tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there. 

You think maybe this is an experiment and you are being tested or retroactively insulted or you have done something that communicates this is an okay conversation to be having. 

Why do you feel okay saying this to me? You wish the light would turn red or a police siren would go off so you could slam on the brakes, slam into the car ahead of you, be propelled forward so quickly both your faces would suddenly be exposed to the wind.

As usual you drive straight through the moment with the expected backing off of what was previously said. It is not only that confrontation is headache producing; it is also that you have a destination that doesn’t include acting like this moment isn’t inhabitable, hasn’t happened before, and the before isn’t part of the now as the night darkens 
and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going.

/

 

When you arrive in your driveway and turn off the car, you remain behind the wheel another ten minutes. You fear the night is being locked in and coded on a cellular level and want time to function as a power wash. Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists a medical term — John Henryism — for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the build up of erasure. Sherman James, the researcher who came up with the term, claimed the physiological costs were high. You hope by sitting in 
silence you are bucking the trend.

/

 

When the stranger asks, Why do you care? you just stand there staring at him. He has just referred to the boisterous teenagers in Starbucks as niggers. Hey, I am standing right here, you responded, not necessarily expecting him to turn to you.

He is holding the lidded paper cup in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. They are just being kids. Come on, no need to get all KKK on them, you say.

Now there you go, he responds.

The people around you have turned away from their screens. The teenagers are on pause. There I go? you ask, feeling irritation begin to rain down. Yes, and something about hearing yourself repeating this stranger’s accusation in a voice usually reserved for your partner makes you smile.

/

 

A man knocked over her son in the subway. You feel your own body wince. He’s okay, but the son of a bitch kept walking. She says she grabbed the stranger’s arm and told him to apologize: I told him to look at the boy and apologize. And yes, you want it to stop, you want the black child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet and be brushed off, not brushed off  by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself.

The beautiful thing is that a group of men began to stand behind me like a fleet of  bodyguards, she says, like newly found uncles and brothers.

/

 

The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling. You have only ever spoken on the phone. Her house has a side gate that leads to a back entrance she uses for patients. You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked.

At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house. What are you doing in my yard?

It’s as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? she spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that’s right. I am sorry.

I am so sorry, so, so sorry.

Self-Portrait, David Whyte

SELF-PORTRAIT

 

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned,
if you can know despair or see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you.  If you can look back
with firm eye,
saying this is where I stand.  I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living,
falling toward
the center of your longing.  I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

 

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

 

~ David Whyte ~

 

(River Flow)

Beannacht, John O'Donohue

Beannacht

("Blessing")

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

~ John O'Donohue ~

 

(Echoes of Memory)

Birding At The Dairy, Sidney Wade

Birding at the Dairy  

by Sidney Wade

 

 

We're searching
for the single

yellow-headed
blackbird

we've heard
commingles

with thousands
of starlings

and brown-headed
cowbirds,

when the many-
headed body

arises
and undulates,

a sudden congress
of wings

in a maneuvering
wave that veers

and wheels, a fleet
and schooling swarm

in synchronous alarm,
a bloom radiating

in ribbons, in sheets,
in waterfall,

a murmuration
of birds

that turns
liquid in air,

that whooshes
like waves

on the shore,
or the breath

of a great
seething prayer.




Copyright © 2013 by Sidney Wade. Used with permission of the author.  

Ennui, Marianne Moore

Ennui 

by Marianne Moore

 

  

He often expressed
A curious wish,
To be interchangeably
Man and fish;
To nibble the bait
Off the hook,
Said he,
And then slip away
Like a ghost
In the sea.

Standing Deer, Jane Hirshfirld

Standing Deer

As the house of a person

in age sometimes grows cluttered

with what is

too loved or too heavy to part with,

the heart may grow cluttered.

And still the house will be emptied,

and still the heart.

As the thoughts of a person

in age sometimes grow sparer,

like a great cleanness come into a room,

the soul may grow sparer;

one sparrow song carves it completely.

And still the room is full,

and still the heart.

Empty and filled,

like the curling half-light of morning,

in which everything is still possible and so why not.

Filled and empty,

like the curling half-light of evening,

in which everything now is finished and so why not.

Beloved, what can be, what was,

will be taken from us.

I have disappointed.

I am sorry. I knew no better.

A root seeks water.

Tenderness only breaks open the earth.

This morning, out the window,

the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.

~ Jane Hirshfield ~

 

(The Lives of the Heart)

In Praise of the Earth, John O'Donahue

In Praise of the Earth

Let us bless

The imagination of the Earth.

That knew early the patience

To harness the mind of time,

Waited for the seas to warm,

Ready to welcome the emergence

Of things dreaming of voyaging

Among the stillness of land.

And how light knew to nurse

The growth until the face of the Earth

Brightened beneath a vision of color.

When the ages of ice came

And sealed the Earth inside

An endless coma of cold,

The heart of the Earth held hope,

Storing fragments of memory,

Ready for the return of the sun.

Let us thank the Earth

That offers ground for home

And holds our feet firm

To walk in space open

To infinite galaxies.

Let us salute the silence

And certainty of mountains:

Their sublime stillness,

Their dream-filled hearts.

The wonder of a garden

Trusting the first warmth of spring

Until its black infinity of cells

Becomes charged with dream;

Then the silent, slow nurture

Of the seed's self, coaxing it

To trust the act of death.

The humility of the Earth

That transfigures all

That has fallen

Of outlived growth.

The kindness of the Earth,

Opening to receive

Our worn forms

Into the final stillness.

Let us ask forgiveness of the Earth

For all our sins against her:

For our violence and poisonings

Of her beauty.

Let us remember within us

The ancient clay,

Holding the memory of seasons,

The passion of the wind,

The fluency of water,

The warmth of fire,

The quiver-touch of the sun

And shadowed sureness of the moon.

That we may awaken,

To live to the full

The dream of the Earth

Who chose us to emerge

And incarnate its hidden night

In mind, spirit, and light.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

How Beautiful a The Beloved, Gregory Orr

Grief will come to you.

Grip and cling all you want,

It makes no difference.

 

Catastrophe?  It's just waiting to happen.

Loss? You can be certain of it.

 

Flow and swirl of the world.

Carried along as if by a dark current.

 

All you can do is keep swimming;

All you can do is keep singing.

 

~ Gregory Orr ~

 

(How Beautiful the Beloved)

Everything, Mary Oliver

Everything

 

I want to make poems that say right out, plainly,

what I mean, that don't go looking for the

laces of elaboration, puffed sleeves.  I want to

keep close and use often words like

heavy, heart, joy, soon, and to cherish

the question mark and her bold sister

 

the dash.  I want to write with quiet hands.  I

want to write while crossing the fields that are

fresh with daises and everlasting and the

ordinary grass.  I want to make poems while thinking of

the bread of heaven and the

cup of astonishment; let them be

 

songs in which nothing is neglected,

not a hope, not a promise.  I want to make poems

that look into the earth and the heavens

and see the unseeable.  I want them to honor

both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;

the gladness that says, without any words, everything.

 

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(New and Selected Poems Volume Two)

Whom You Love, Joseph O. Legaspi

Whom You Love

by Joseph O. Legaspi

 

 

"Tell me whom you love, and I'll tell you 

who you are." -- Creole Proverb

The man whose throat blossoms with spicy chocolates
Tempers my ways of flurrying
Is my inner recesses surfacing
Paints the bedroom blue because he wants to carry me to the skies
Pear eater in the orchard
Possesses Whitmanesque urge & urgency
Boo Bear, the room turns orchestral
Crooked grin of ice cream persuasion
When I speak he bursts into seeds & religion
Poetry housed in a harmonica
Line dances with his awkward flair
Rare steaks, onion rings, Maker's on the rocks
Once-a-boy pilfering grenadine
Nebraska, Nebraska, Nebraska
Wicked at the door of happiness
At a longed-for distance remains sharply crystalline
Fragments, but by day's end assembled into joint narrative
Does not make me who I am, entirely
Heart like a fig, sliced
Peonies in a clear round vase, singing
A wisp, a gasp, sonorous stutter
Tuning fork deep in my belly, which is also a bell
Evening where there is no church but fire
Sparks, particles, chrysalis into memory
Moth, pod of enormous pleasure, fluttering about on a train
He knows I don't need saving & rescues me anyhow
Our often-misunderstood kind of love is dangerous 
Darling, fill my cup; the bird has come to roost

Melody to the Sound of Zithers, Kay Boyle

Monody to the Sound of Zithers

by Kay Boyle

 

I have wanted other things more than lovers ...

I have desired peace, intimately to know

The secret curves of deep-bosomed contentment,

To learn by heart things beautiful and slow.

 

Cities at night, and cloudful skies, I've wanted; 

And open cottage doors, old colors and smells a part;

All dim things, layers of river-mist on river--

To capture Beauty's hands and lay them on my heart.

 

I have wanted clean rain to kiss my eyelids,

Sea-spray and silver foam to kiss my mouth. 

I have wanted strong winds to flay me with passion;

And, to soothe me, tired winds from the south.

 

These things have I wanted more than lovers...

Jewels in my hands, and dew on morning grass--

Familiar things, while lovers have been strangers. 

Friended thus, I have let nothing pass.

 

My Body Effervesces, Anna Swir

My Body Effervesces By Anna Swir (1909 - 1984) English version by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan I am born for the second time. I am light as the eyelash of the wind. I froth, I am froth. I walk dancing, if I wish, I will soar. The condensed lightness of my body condenses most forcibly in the lightness of my foot and its five toes. The foot skims the earth which gives way like compressed air. An elastic duo of the earth and of the foot. A dance of liberation. I am born for the second time, happiness of the world came to me again. My body effervesces, I think with my body which effervesces. If I wish, I will soar.

Sabbaths, 1998, VII, Wendell Berry

 

Sabbaths 1998, VII

 

(For John Haines)

 

There is a place you can go

where you are quiet,

a place of water and the light

 

on the water. Trees are there,

leaves, and the light

on leaves moved by air.

 

Birds, singing, move

among leaves, in leaf shadow.

After many years you have come

 

to no thought of these,

but they are themselves

your thoughts. There seems to be

 

little to say, less and less.

Here they are. Here you are.

Here as though gone.

 

None of us stays, but in the hush

where each leaf in the speech

of leaves is a sufficient syllable

 

the passing light finds out

surpassing freedom of its way.

 

~ Wendell Berry ~

 

(Given)

Begin, Rumi

BEGIN

 

This is now.  Now is,

all there is.  Don't wait for Then;

strike the spark, light the fire.

 

Sit at the Beloved's table,

feast with gusto, drink your fill

 

then dance

the way branches

of jasmine and cypress

dance in a spring wind.

 

The green earth

is your cloth;

tailor your robe

with dignity and grace.

 

~ Rumi ~

 

 

 

(adapted by Jose Orez from a version by Coleman Barks in The Soul of Rumi)

 

Getting There, David Wagoner

Getting There

 

You take a final step and, look, suddenly

You're there. You've arrived

At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:

This common ground

Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.

 

What did you want

To be? You'll remember soon. You feel like tinder

Under a burning glass,

A luminous point of change. The sky is pulsing

Against the cracked horizon,

Holding it firm till the arrival of stars

In time with your heartbeats.

Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression

On the self you were

By having come all this way through all this welter

Under your own power,

Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising

Meandering lifeline.

 

What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,

Telling it haltingly

Like a dream, that lost traveler's dream

Under the last hill

Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind

To unburden yourself

Of elements along elementary paths

By the break of morning.

 

You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight

Called Here and Now.

Now, what you make of it means everything,

Means starting over:

The life in your hands is neither here nor there

But getting there,

So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another

Journey without regret

Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,

The end of endings.

 

~ David Wagoner ~

 

(In Broken Country)

Funny, Anna Kamienska

Funny

 

What's it like to be a human 

the bird asked

 

I myself don't know

it's being held prisoner by your skin 

while reaching infinity 

being a captive of your scrap of time 

while touching eternity 

being hopelessly uncertain 

and helplessly hopeful

being a needle of frost 

and a handful of heat 

breathing in the air 

and choking wordlessly 

it's being on fire 

with a nest made of ashes 

eating bread 

while filling up on hunger

it's dying without love 

it's loving through death

 

That's funny said the bird

and flew effortlessly up into the air

 

~ Anna Kamienska ~

 

(Astonishments: Selected Poems of Anna Kamienska,

 ed. and trans. by D. Curzon and G. Drabik)

Endpoem, Colin Oliver

Endpoem
By Colin Oliver
(1946 - )

Given to God,
          the worn sandals of thought
          left at a distant threshold,
one's care is for Him alone
that His care may be for all.

Before Him, in His mystery,
the unclenching
of the fists of knowing --
          the unhanding of all things to Him,
          being in oneself nothing
          and no-one,
          the fool with open palms --
before Him, that one
might happily contain Him.

Being empty and light,
one is God, His all and His love,
held within the light --
          and one sinks as the light
          to God, through God and,
          for His sake, beyond God.

One is
a pebble turned between God's fingers
to be tossed
into the pool of His everlasting clearness
          that His hand might be free.