Poem
I’m inside the advancing light,
my hands are hungry, the world beautiful.
My eyes can’t get enough of the trees —
they’re so hopeful, so green.
A sunny road runs through the mulberries,
I’m at the window of the prison infirmary.
I can’t smell the medicines —
carnations must be blooming somewhere.
It’s like this:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.
~ Nazim Hikmet (translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk)
The Poet Compares Human Nature to the Ocean From Which We Came
The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,
it can lie down like silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward, it can give
gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,
and so, no doubt, can you, and you.
~ Mary Oliver
Summer Rain
All night our room was outer-walled with rain.
Drops fell and flattened on the tin roof,
And rang like little disks of metal.
Ping! — Ping! — and there was not a pin-point of silence between them.
The rain rattled and clashed,
And the slats of the shutters danced and glittered.
But to me the darkness was red-gold and crocus-colored
With your brightness,
And the words you whispered to me
Sprang up and flamed — orange torches against the rain.
Torches against the wall of cool, silver rain!
~ Amy Lowell
Holding the Light
for Kait Rhoads
Gather up whatever is
glittering in the gutter,
whatever has tumbled
in the waves or fallen
in flames out of the sky,
for it’s not only our
hearts that are broken,
but the heart
of the world as well.
Stitch it back together.
Make a place where
the day speaks to the night
and the earth speaks to the sky.
Whether we created God
or God created us
it all comes down to this:
In our imperfect world
we are meant to repair
and stitch together
what beauty there is, stitch it
with compassion and wire.
See how everything
we have made gathers
the light inside itself
and overflows? A blessing.
~ Stuart Kestenbaum
When Will I Be Home?
When will I be home? I don’t know.
In the mountains, in the rainy night,
The Autumn lake is flooded.
Someday we will be back together again.
We will sit in the candlelight by the West window.
And I will tell you how I remembered you
Tonight on the stormy mountain.
Li Shang-Yin
For Keeps
Sun makes the day new.
Tiny green plants emerge from earth.
Birds are singing the sky into place.
There is nowhere else I want to be but here.
I lean into the rhythm of your heart to see where it will take us.
We gallop into a warm, southern wind.
I link my legs to yours and we ride together,
Toward the ancient encampment of our relatives.
Where have you been? they ask.
And what has taken you so long?
That night after eating, singing, and dancing
We lay together under the stars.
We know ourselves to be part of mystery.
It is unspeakable.
It is everlasting.
It is for keeps.
~ Joy Harjo
Reading the Obituary Page
In starched dresses
with ribbons
in miniature jackets
and tiny ties
we would circle
the chairs
at birthday parties and
when the music
stopped, lunge
to be seated. One
by one we were welcomed
to hard ground
and empty air.
~ Linda Pastan
There once was a young man from Lyme
Who married three wives at a time
When asked, “Why a third?”
He replied, “One’s absurd,
And bigamy, sir, is a crime!”
There once was a fellow named Brian
Who was bitten one day by a lion.
He went on the prowl
And he started to growl,
But other than that he’s just fion.
~Mary Volk
A burleycue baby named Heath
Displayed what she wore underneath.
But the morons who viewed her
Thought she ought to be nuder
So she showed them the skin of her teeth.
There’s a pretty young lady named Sark,
Afraid to get laid in the dark,
But she’s often manhandled
By the light of a candle
In the bushes of Gramercy Park.
There once was a poet from Hexameter
Whose mistress kept calling him amateur.
She said, “Your technique
Is too rough and antique,
And your rhythm’s a jerky pentameter.
A young strong boxer named Louis,
Buggered a dastardly Jewess,
He said with a sigh
As his engine went dry,
‘I wonder where all of my goo is?’
When the judge, with his wife having sport,
Proved suddenly two inches short,
The good woman declined,
And the judge had her fined
By proving contempt of the court.
Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?
Don’t fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge
My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?
What he doesn’t know
is that when we’re walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand.
~ Robert Hershon
Poem after Bouncing the Rent Check and Waking with a Hangover, while Searching for My Car Keys Twenty Minutes before a Very Important Interview
A sudden jolt.
And the Ferris wheel rolls free
of its axle —- a blackened
screaming circle
tumbling over the pier.
This is the story
of your life: disaster,
one after another,
as relentless as debt,
as sudden as a hiccup.
Even now the wires
inside your walls
are frayed and sparking
like a tiny Fourth of July.
Even now the woman you love
is testing the feel
of her ringless finger.
There is no point in preparation.
There is no point in anything.
If it has to, disaster will enter
through drafty cracks
or simply run faster than you.
So open the door
and give it a drink.
Say that it’s kept you
waiting.
~ Charles Rafferty
