A Gift, Denise Levertov

A Gift

 

Just when you seem to yourself

nothing but a flimsy web

of questions, you are given

the questions of others to hold

in the emptiness of your hands,

songbird eggs that can still hatch

if you keep them warm,

butterflies opening and closing themselves

in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure

their scintillant fur, their dust.

You are given the questions of others

as if they were answers

to all you ask. Yes, perhaps

this gift is your answer.

 

~ Denise Levertov ~

 

(Sands of the Well)

 

The Greatest Grandeur, Pattiann Rogers

The Greatest Grandeur

 

Some say it’s in the reptilian dance 

of the purple-tongued sand goanna, 

for there the magnificent translation 

of tenacity into bone and grace occurs.

 

And some declare it to be an expansive 

desert—solid rust-orange rock 

like dusk captured on earth in stone— 

simply for the perfect contrast it provides 

to the blue-grey ridge of rain 

in the distant hills.

 

Some claim the harmonics of shifting 

electron rings to be most rare and some 

the complex motion of seven sandpipers 

bisecting the arcs and pitches 

of come and retreat over the mounting 

hayfield.

 

Others, for grandeur, choose the terror 

of lightning peals on prairies or the tall 

collapsing cathedrals of stormy seas, 

because there they feel dwarfed 

and appropriately helpless; others select 

the serenity of that ceiling/cellar 

of stars they see at night on placid lakes, 

because there they feel assured 

and universally magnanimous.

 

But it is the dark emptiness contained 

in every next moment that seems to me 

the most singularly glorious gift, 

that void which one is free to fill 

with processions of men bearing burning 

cedar knots or with parades of blue horses, 

belled and ribboned and stepping sideways, 

with tumbling white-faced mimes or companies 

of black-robed choristers; to fill simply 

with hammered silver teapots or kiln-dried 

crockery, tangerine and almond custards, 

polonaises, polkas, whittling sticks, wailing 

walls; that space large enough to hold all 

invented blasphemies and pieties, 10,000 

definitions of god and more, never fully 

filled, never.

 

~ Pattiann Rogers ~

 

 

(Firekeeper: New and Selected Poems)

A Prayer, Max Erhman

A Prayer

 

Let me do my work each day;

and if the darkened hours

of despair overcome me, may I

not forget the strength

that comforted me in the

desolation of other times. 

 

May I still remember the bright

hours that found me walking

over the silent hills of my

childhood, or dreaming on the

margin of a quiet river,

when a light glowed within me,

and I promised my early God

to have courage amid the

tempests of the changing years.

 

Spare me from bitterness

and from the sharp passions of

unguarded moments. May

I not forget that poverty and

riches are of the spirit.

Though the world knows me not,

may my thoughts and actions

be such as shall keep me friendly

with myself. 

 

Lift up my eyes

from the earth, and let me not

forget the uses of the stars.

Forbid that I should judge others

lest I condemn myself.

Let me not follow the clamor of

the world, but walk calmly

in my path. 

 

Give me a few friends

who will love me for what

 I am; and keep ever burning

before my vagrant steps

the kindly light of hope. 

 

And though age and infirmity

overtake me, and I come not within

sight of the castle of my dreams,

teach me still to be thankful

for life, and for time's olden

memories that are good and

sweet; and may the evening's

twilight find me gentle still.

 

~ Max Ehrmann ~

 

(The Desiderata of Happiness)

A Letter a To October, Ted Kooser

A Letter in October

BY TED KOOSER

Dawn comes later and later now,   

and I, who only a month ago

could sit with coffee every morning   

watching the light walk down the hill   

to the edge of the pond and place   

a doe there, shyly drinking,

then see the light step out upon   

the water, sowing reflections   

to either side—a garden

of trees that grew as if by magic—

now see no more than my face,   

mirrored by darkness, pale and odd,

startled by time. While I slept,   

night in its thick winter jacket   

bridled the doe with a twist

of wet leaves and led her away,

then brought its black horse with harness   

that creaked like a cricket, and turned

the water garden under. I woke,   

and at the waiting window found   

the curtains open to my open face;   

beyond me, darkness. And I,

who only wished to keep looking out,   

must now keep looking in.

Love After Love, Derek Walcott

Love After Love By Derek Walcott (1930 - ) The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

Mist Everywhere, Nate Pritts

Mist Everywhere   Nate Pritts

When the afternoon light touches the broad orange petals of the tiger lilies, mute tongues curled, I pray hard for such joyous sights to continue. But I pray wrong, selfishly. I don’t know where the words are going.                       I struggle to recall even the names of my old friends. When I remember, I try to search them out but I don’t have any illusions about their lives. It rained last night & all day today so the lake I can’t quite see over the tree line is pure frothy white. There is mist everywhere & I am alone in it.                                       The white light burns my eyes, sears a holy purpose in my human frame.                                              I’m setting out on a new journey, ever faithful. Early on, I walked away from everything, from things I loved. But now, when I come to the ocean, as I know I will, foaming like some impossible hell, I won’t despair or surrender. I’ll find a tree, growing from a crag on the shore & I’ll cut it down with the force of my loneliness.  There is the shape of a boat hidden beneath the bark, I know it.                             So I’ll release it, using my most tender memories as tools. I’ll continue.                                             Nothing will block my way.

Prayer, Carol Ann Duffy

Prayer

by Carol Ann Duffy

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer—
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

"Prayer" by Carol Ann Duffy, from Mean Time. © Anvil Press, 1993

The Poet With His Face In His Hands, Mary Oliver

The Poet with His Face in His Hands

 

You want to cry aloud for your 

mistakes. But to tell the truth the world 

doesn't need anymore of that sound.

 

So if you're going to do it and can't 

stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can't 

hold it in, at least go by yourself across

 

the forty fields and the forty dark inclines 

of rocks and water to the place where 

the falls are flinging out their white sheets

 

like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that 

jubilation and water fun and you can 

stand there, under it, and roar all you

 

want and nothing will be disturbed; you can 

drip with despair all afternoon and still, 

on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched

 

by the passing foil of the water, the thrush, 

puffing out its spotted breast, will sing 

of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(New and Selected Poems Volume Two)

Centrifugal, Douglas S. Jones

Centrifugal

BY DOUGLAS S. JONES

The spider living in the bike seat has finally spun

its own spokes through the wheels.

I have seen it crawl upside down, armored

black and jigging back to the hollow frame,

have felt the stickiness break

as the tire pulls free the stitches of last night's sewing.

We've ridden this bike together for a week now,

two legs in gyre by daylight, and at night,

the eight converting gears into looms, handle bars

into sails. This is how it is to be part of a cycle—

to be always in motion, and to be always

woven to something else.

Poem copyright ©2011 by Douglas S. Jones, whose most recent book of poems is the chapbook No Turning East, Pudding House Press, 2011. Poem reprinted from The Pinch,Vol. 31, no. 2, 2011

When I am Asked, Lisel Mueller

 When I Am Asked

BY LISEL MUELLER

When I am asked   

how I began writing poems,   

I talk about the indifference of nature.   

It was soon after my mother died,   

a brilliant June day,   

everything blooming.   

I sat on a gray stone bench   

in a lovingly planted garden,   

but the day lilies were as deaf   

as the ears of drunken sleepers   

and the roses curved inward.   

Nothing was black or broken   

and not a leaf fell   

and the sun blared endless commercials   

for summer holidays.   

I sat on a gray stone bench   

ringed with the ingenue faces   

of pink and white impatiens   

and placed my grief   

in the mouth of language,   

the only thing that would grieve with me.

Lisel Mueller, "When I am Asked" from Alive Together: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1996 by Lisel Mueller.  Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.

Source: Poetry (October/November 1987)

To The Happy Few, W.S. Merwin

To the Happy Few

by W. S. Merwin

Do you know who you are

O you forever listed
under some other heading
when you are listed at all

you whose addresses
when you have them
are never sold except
for another reason
something else that is
supposed to identify you

who carry no card
stating that you are—
what would it say you were
to someone turning it over
looking perhaps for
a date or for
anything to go by

you with no secret handshake
no proof of membership
no way to prove such a thing
even to yourselves

you without a word
of explanation
and only yourselves
as evidence

"To the Happy Few" by W.S. Merwin, from Collected Poems: 1996-2011. © Library of America, 2013

Negative Space, Ron Koertge

Negative Space

by Ron Koertge

My dad taught me to pack: lay out everything. Put back half. Roll things
that roll. Wrinkle-prone things on top of cotton things. Then pants, waist-
to-hem. Nooks and crannies for socks. Belts around the sides like snakes.
Plastic over that. Add shoes. Wear heavy stuff on the plane.
   We started when I was little. I'd roll up socks. Then he'd pretend to put me
in the suitcase, and we'd laugh. Some guys bond with their dads shooting
hoops or talking about Chevrolets. We did it over luggage.
   By the time I was twelve, if he was busy, I'd pack for him. Mom tried
but didn't have the knack. He'd get somewhere, open his suitcase and text
me—"Perfect." That one word from him meant a lot.
   The funeral was terrible—him laid out in that big carton and me crying
and thinking, Look at all that wasted space.

"Negative Space" by Ron Koertge, from Sex World. © Red Hen Press, 2014

Neighbors in October, David Baker

Neighbors in October

BY DAVID BAKER

All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon

with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting

chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke.

Down the block we bend with the season:

shoes to polish for a big game,

storm windows to batten or patch.

And how like a field is the whole sky now

that the maples have shed their leaves, too.

It makes us believers—stationed in groups,

leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters

over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone,

bagging gold for the cold days to come.

Source: The Truth about Small Towns (University of Arkansas Press, 1998)

Sometimes A Wild God, Tom Hirons

Sometimes A Wild God
Tom Hirons

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.

When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

The dog barks.
The wild god smiles,
Holds out his hand.
The dog licks his wounds
And leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table.
The moon leans in through the window.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.

Go Deeper Than Love, D.H. Lawrence

Go Deeper than Love

Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,

love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock

molten, yet dense and permanent.

Go down to your deep old heart, and lose sight of yourself.

And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.

Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.

For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths

out of sight, in the deep living heart.

 

~ D.H. Lawrence ~

 

(excerpt from Know Thyself, Know Thyself More Deeply)

Half Life, Stephen Levine

 

Half Life

 

We walk through half our life

as if it were a fever dream

 

barely touching the ground

 

our eyes half open

our heart half closed.

 

Not half knowing who we are

we watch the ghost of us drift

from room to room

through friends and lovers

never quite as real as advertised.

 

Not saying half we mean

or meaning half we say

we dream ourselves

from birth to birth

seeking some true self.

 

Until the fever breaks

and the heart can not abide

a moment longer

as the rest of us awakens,

summoned from the dream,

not half caring for anything but love.

 

~ Stephen Levine ~

 

(Breaking the Drought)