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)