Middle age refers more
to landscape than to time:
it's as if you'd reached
the top of a hill
and could see all the way
to the end of your life,
so you know without a doubt
that it has an end—
not that it will have,
but that it does have,
if only in outline—
so for the first time
you can see your life whole,
beginning and end not far
from where you stand,
the horizon in the distance—
the view makes you weep,
but it also has the beauty
of symmetry, like the earth
seen from space: you can't help
but admire it from afar,
especially now, while it's simple
to re-enter whenever you choose,
lying down in your life,
waking up to it
just as you always have—
except that the details resonate
by virtue of being contained,
as your own words
coming back to you
define the landscape,
remind you that it won't go on
like this forever.
-Sharon Bryan
Saturday, May 16, 2009
In Blackwater Woods
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
-Mary Oliver
-Mary Oliver
On a Perfect Day
... I eat an artichoke in front
of the Charles Street Laundromat
and watch the clouds bloom
into white flowers out of
the building across the way.
The bright air moves on my face
like the touch of someone who loves me.
Far overhead a dart-shaped plane softens
through membranes of vacancy. A ship,
riding the bright glissade of the Hudson, slips
past the end of the street. Colette's vagabond
says the sun belongs to the lizard
that warms in its light. I own these moments
when my skin like a drumhead stretches on the frame
of my bones, then swells, a bellows filled
with sacred breath seared by this flame,
this happiness.
- Jane Gentry
of the Charles Street Laundromat
and watch the clouds bloom
into white flowers out of
the building across the way.
The bright air moves on my face
like the touch of someone who loves me.
Far overhead a dart-shaped plane softens
through membranes of vacancy. A ship,
riding the bright glissade of the Hudson, slips
past the end of the street. Colette's vagabond
says the sun belongs to the lizard
that warms in its light. I own these moments
when my skin like a drumhead stretches on the frame
of my bones, then swells, a bellows filled
with sacred breath seared by this flame,
this happiness.
- Jane Gentry
Ready
I remember a Sunday with the smell of food drifting
out the door of the cavernous kitchen, and my serious
teenage sister and her girlfriends Jean and Marybelle
standing on the bank above the dirt road in their
white sandals ready to walk to the country church
a mile away, and ready to return to the fried
chicken, green beans and ham, and fresh bread
spread on the table. The sun was bright and
their clean cotton dresses swirled as they turned.
I was a witness to it, and I assure you that it's true.
I remembered this thirty years later as I got
up from the hospital bed, favoring my right side
where something else had been removed.
Pushing a cart that held practically all of my
vital fluids, I made my way down the hall
because I wanted to stand up, for no reason.
I had no future plans, and I would never
found a movement nor understand the
simplest equation; I would never chair the
Department of Importance. Nevertheless,
I was about to embark on a third life, having
used up the first two, as I would this one,
but I shoved the IV with its sugars and tubes
steadily ahead of me, passing a frail man in a hospital
gown pushing his cart from the other direction.
Because I was determined to pull this together,
hooking this lifeline into the next one.
- Irene McKinney
out the door of the cavernous kitchen, and my serious
teenage sister and her girlfriends Jean and Marybelle
standing on the bank above the dirt road in their
white sandals ready to walk to the country church
a mile away, and ready to return to the fried
chicken, green beans and ham, and fresh bread
spread on the table. The sun was bright and
their clean cotton dresses swirled as they turned.
I was a witness to it, and I assure you that it's true.
I remembered this thirty years later as I got
up from the hospital bed, favoring my right side
where something else had been removed.
Pushing a cart that held practically all of my
vital fluids, I made my way down the hall
because I wanted to stand up, for no reason.
I had no future plans, and I would never
found a movement nor understand the
simplest equation; I would never chair the
Department of Importance. Nevertheless,
I was about to embark on a third life, having
used up the first two, as I would this one,
but I shoved the IV with its sugars and tubes
steadily ahead of me, passing a frail man in a hospital
gown pushing his cart from the other direction.
Because I was determined to pull this together,
hooking this lifeline into the next one.
- Irene McKinney
The End of Science Fiction
This is not fantasy, this is our life.
We are the characters
Who have invaded the moon,
Who cannot stop their computers.
We are the gods who can unmake
The world in seven days.
Both hands are stopped at noon.
We are beginning to live forever,
In lightweight, aluminum bodies
With numbers stamped on our backs.
We dial our words like muzak.
We hear each other through water.
The genre is dead. Invent something new.
Invent a man and a woman
Naked in a garden;
Invent a child that will save the world,
A man who carries his father
Out of a burning city,
Invent a spool of thread
That leads a hero to safety;
Invent an island on which he abandons
The woman who saved his life,
With no loss of sleep of the betrayal.
Invent us as we were
Before our bodies glittered
And we stopped bleeding:
Invent a shepherd who kills a giant,
A girl who grows into a tree,
A woman who refuses to turn
Her back on the past and is changed to salt,
A boy who steals his brother’s birthright
And becomes the head of a nation.
Invent real tears, hard love,
Slow-spoken, ancient words,
Difficult as a child’s
First steps across a room.
-Lisel Mueller
We are the characters
Who have invaded the moon,
Who cannot stop their computers.
We are the gods who can unmake
The world in seven days.
Both hands are stopped at noon.
We are beginning to live forever,
In lightweight, aluminum bodies
With numbers stamped on our backs.
We dial our words like muzak.
We hear each other through water.
The genre is dead. Invent something new.
Invent a man and a woman
Naked in a garden;
Invent a child that will save the world,
A man who carries his father
Out of a burning city,
Invent a spool of thread
That leads a hero to safety;
Invent an island on which he abandons
The woman who saved his life,
With no loss of sleep of the betrayal.
Invent us as we were
Before our bodies glittered
And we stopped bleeding:
Invent a shepherd who kills a giant,
A girl who grows into a tree,
A woman who refuses to turn
Her back on the past and is changed to salt,
A boy who steals his brother’s birthright
And becomes the head of a nation.
Invent real tears, hard love,
Slow-spoken, ancient words,
Difficult as a child’s
First steps across a room.
-Lisel Mueller
We Have Come to Be Danced
We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty, pretty pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance
The slap the apology from our posture dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three dance like me dance
But the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mamma
Shaman shakin' ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, restore our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take ten giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.
We have come to be danced
Where the kingdoms collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
We have come.
by Jewel Mathieson
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty, pretty pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance
The slap the apology from our posture dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three dance like me dance
But the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mamma
Shaman shakin' ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, restore our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take ten giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.
We have come to be danced
Where the kingdoms collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
We have come.
by Jewel Mathieson
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Big Picture
I try to look at the big picture
The sun, ardent tongue
Licking us like a mother besotted
With her new cub, will wear itself out.
Everything is transitory.
Think of the meteor
That annihilated all the dinosaurs.
And before that, the volcanoes
Of the Permian period all those burnt ferns
And reptiles, sharks and bony fish—
That was extinction on a scale
That makes our losses look like a bad day at the slots.
And perhaps we’re slated to ascend
To some kind of intelligence
That doesn’t need bodies, or clean water, or even air.
But I can’t shake my longing
For the last six hundred
Lberian lynx with their tufted ears.
Brazillian guitarfish, the 4
Percent of them still cruising
The seafloor, eyes staring straight up.
And all the newborn marsupials-
Red kangaroos, joeys the size of honeybees—
Steelhead trout, river dolphins,
So many species of frogs
Breathing through their damp
Permeable membranes.
Today on the buss, a woman
In a sweater the exact shade of cardinals,
And her cardinal-colored bra strap, exposed
On her pale shoulder, makes me ache
For those bright flashes in the snow.
And polar bears, the cream and amber
Of their fur, the long hollow
Hairs through which the sun slips,
Swallowed into their dark skin. When I get home
My son has a headache, and though he’s
Almost grown, asks me to sing him a song.
We lie together on the lumpy couch
And I warble out the old show tunes, “Night and Day,”…
“They Can’t take That Away from Me,”…a cheap
silver chain shimmers across his throat
rising and falling with his pulse. There never was
anything else. Only these excruciatingly
insignificant creatures we love.
Ellen Bass
The sun, ardent tongue
Licking us like a mother besotted
With her new cub, will wear itself out.
Everything is transitory.
Think of the meteor
That annihilated all the dinosaurs.
And before that, the volcanoes
Of the Permian period all those burnt ferns
And reptiles, sharks and bony fish—
That was extinction on a scale
That makes our losses look like a bad day at the slots.
And perhaps we’re slated to ascend
To some kind of intelligence
That doesn’t need bodies, or clean water, or even air.
But I can’t shake my longing
For the last six hundred
Lberian lynx with their tufted ears.
Brazillian guitarfish, the 4
Percent of them still cruising
The seafloor, eyes staring straight up.
And all the newborn marsupials-
Red kangaroos, joeys the size of honeybees—
Steelhead trout, river dolphins,
So many species of frogs
Breathing through their damp
Permeable membranes.
Today on the buss, a woman
In a sweater the exact shade of cardinals,
And her cardinal-colored bra strap, exposed
On her pale shoulder, makes me ache
For those bright flashes in the snow.
And polar bears, the cream and amber
Of their fur, the long hollow
Hairs through which the sun slips,
Swallowed into their dark skin. When I get home
My son has a headache, and though he’s
Almost grown, asks me to sing him a song.
We lie together on the lumpy couch
And I warble out the old show tunes, “Night and Day,”…
“They Can’t take That Away from Me,”…a cheap
silver chain shimmers across his throat
rising and falling with his pulse. There never was
anything else. Only these excruciatingly
insignificant creatures we love.
Ellen Bass
Barbie Joins a Twelve Step Program
Barbie is bottoming out,
She’s sitting on the pity pot. She hasn’t the know-how to express
Any of her emotions. Before she even gets
To her first meeting, she takes the first step, admits
Her life has become unmanageable.
She been kidnapped by boys
And tortured with pins. She’s been left
For months at a time between scratchy couch cushions
With cracker crumbs, pens and loose change.
She can’t help herself from being a fashion doll.
She is the ultimate victim.
She humbly sits on a folding chair
In a damp church basement. The cigarette smoke
Clouds the faces around her, the smell of bad coffee
Permeates the air. The group booms the serenity prayer:
God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom
To know the difference. Poor Barbie is lost
In a philosophical quandary. Her God must be Mattel.
How can she turn her life and will over to a toy company?
Must she accept her primary form of locomotion
Being the fists of young careless humans?
And what can she change? The only reason Barbie
Is at the meeting at all is because she wound up in the tote bag
Of a busy mother. She tipped out when the woman,
Putting on lipstick at the bathroom mirror, spilled the contents
Of her bag onto the floor. The mother didn’t see Barbie skid under a stall door
Where a confused drunk, at the meeting for warmth,
Was peeing. Never thought Barbie had problems,
She said, picking up the doll. She thought it would be funny
To prop Barbie in the last row. Now one else noticed the doll
As she fidgeted in her seat. The hungry drunk
Went on to spoon a cupful of sugar into her coffee.
Barbie sat through the meeting wondering:
What is wisdom? What is letting go?
She wished she could clap like the others
When there was a good story about recovery. She accepted
She couldn’t, hoping that if she stopped struggling,
Her higher power, Mattel, would finally let her move.
Miracles don’t happen overnight, said a speaker.
Take the action and leave the rest to God, said another.
Barbie’s prayer that she would be at the next meeting was answered.
A member of the clean-up committee squished her between the seat
And back of the folding chair and stacked her, with the others, against the wall.
—Denise Duhamel Queen For a Day.
She’s sitting on the pity pot. She hasn’t the know-how to express
Any of her emotions. Before she even gets
To her first meeting, she takes the first step, admits
Her life has become unmanageable.
She been kidnapped by boys
And tortured with pins. She’s been left
For months at a time between scratchy couch cushions
With cracker crumbs, pens and loose change.
She can’t help herself from being a fashion doll.
She is the ultimate victim.
She humbly sits on a folding chair
In a damp church basement. The cigarette smoke
Clouds the faces around her, the smell of bad coffee
Permeates the air. The group booms the serenity prayer:
God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom
To know the difference. Poor Barbie is lost
In a philosophical quandary. Her God must be Mattel.
How can she turn her life and will over to a toy company?
Must she accept her primary form of locomotion
Being the fists of young careless humans?
And what can she change? The only reason Barbie
Is at the meeting at all is because she wound up in the tote bag
Of a busy mother. She tipped out when the woman,
Putting on lipstick at the bathroom mirror, spilled the contents
Of her bag onto the floor. The mother didn’t see Barbie skid under a stall door
Where a confused drunk, at the meeting for warmth,
Was peeing. Never thought Barbie had problems,
She said, picking up the doll. She thought it would be funny
To prop Barbie in the last row. Now one else noticed the doll
As she fidgeted in her seat. The hungry drunk
Went on to spoon a cupful of sugar into her coffee.
Barbie sat through the meeting wondering:
What is wisdom? What is letting go?
She wished she could clap like the others
When there was a good story about recovery. She accepted
She couldn’t, hoping that if she stopped struggling,
Her higher power, Mattel, would finally let her move.
Miracles don’t happen overnight, said a speaker.
Take the action and leave the rest to God, said another.
Barbie’s prayer that she would be at the next meeting was answered.
A member of the clean-up committee squished her between the seat
And back of the folding chair and stacked her, with the others, against the wall.
—Denise Duhamel Queen For a Day.
Two Bears
Once
After a hard day’s forage
Two bears sat together in silence
On a beautiful vista
Watching the sun go down
And feeling deeply grateful
For life
Though, after a while
A thought-provoking conversation began
Which turned to the topic of
Fame
The one bear said,
“Did you hear about Rustam?
He has become famous
And travels from city to city
In a golden cage;
He performs to hundreds of people
Who laugh and applaud
His carnival
Stunts.”
The other bear thought for
A few seconds
Then started
Weeping.
rumi
After a hard day’s forage
Two bears sat together in silence
On a beautiful vista
Watching the sun go down
And feeling deeply grateful
For life
Though, after a while
A thought-provoking conversation began
Which turned to the topic of
Fame
The one bear said,
“Did you hear about Rustam?
He has become famous
And travels from city to city
In a golden cage;
He performs to hundreds of people
Who laugh and applaud
His carnival
Stunts.”
The other bear thought for
A few seconds
Then started
Weeping.
rumi
Ars Poetica #100: I Believe
by Elizabeth Alexander
Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves, (though Sterling Brown said
"Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'") digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising) is not all love, love, love
and I'm sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other
Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves, (though Sterling Brown said
"Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'") digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising) is not all love, love, love
and I'm sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other
Everyone is Afraid of Something
by Dannye Romine Powell
Once I was afraid of ghosts, of the dark,
of climbing down from the highest
limb of the backyard oak. Now I'm afraid
my son will die alone in his apartment.
I'm afraid when I break down the door,
I'll find him among the empties-bloated,
discolored, his face a stranger's face.
My granddaughter is afraid of blood
and spider webs and of messing up.
Also bees. Especially bees. Everyone,
she says, is afraid of something.
Another fear of mine: that it will fall to me
to tell this child her father is dead.
Perhaps I should begin today stringing
her a necklace of bees. When they sting
and welts quilt her face, when her lips
whiten and swell, I'll take her
by the shoulders. Child, listen to me.
One day, you'll see. These stings
Are nothing. Nothing at all.
Once I was afraid of ghosts, of the dark,
of climbing down from the highest
limb of the backyard oak. Now I'm afraid
my son will die alone in his apartment.
I'm afraid when I break down the door,
I'll find him among the empties-bloated,
discolored, his face a stranger's face.
My granddaughter is afraid of blood
and spider webs and of messing up.
Also bees. Especially bees. Everyone,
she says, is afraid of something.
Another fear of mine: that it will fall to me
to tell this child her father is dead.
Perhaps I should begin today stringing
her a necklace of bees. When they sting
and welts quilt her face, when her lips
whiten and swell, I'll take her
by the shoulders. Child, listen to me.
One day, you'll see. These stings
Are nothing. Nothing at all.
Praise song for the day.
- Elizabeth alexander
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.
Singapore
In Singapore, in the airport,
A darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the woman’s restroom, one compartment stood open.
A woman knelt there, washing something
In the white bowl.
Disgust argued in my stomach
And I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.
A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain
Rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
When the woman turned I could not answer her face.
Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together, and
Neither could win.
She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?
Everybody needs a job.
Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watcher her as she stares down at her labor,
Which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as
Hubcaps, with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.
I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life.
And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop
And fly down to the river.
This probably won’t happen.
But maybe it will.
If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?
Of course, it isn’t.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only
The light that can shine out of a life. I mean
The way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,
The way her smile was only for my sake; I mean
The way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.
—Mary Oliver
A darkness was ripped from my eyes.
In the woman’s restroom, one compartment stood open.
A woman knelt there, washing something
In the white bowl.
Disgust argued in my stomach
And I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.
A poem should always have birds in it.
Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.
Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.
A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain
Rising and falling.
A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
When the woman turned I could not answer her face.
Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together, and
Neither could win.
She smiled and I smiled. What kind of nonsense is this?
Everybody needs a job.
Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.
But first we must watcher her as she stares down at her labor,
Which is dull enough.
She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as
Hubcaps, with a blue rag.
Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.
She does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river.
Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird.
I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life.
And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop
And fly down to the river.
This probably won’t happen.
But maybe it will.
If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?
Of course, it isn’t.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only
The light that can shine out of a life. I mean
The way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth,
The way her smile was only for my sake; I mean
The way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.
—Mary Oliver
Curriculum Vita
1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.
2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of course I do not remember this.
3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.
4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.
5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.
6) On Sundays the city child waded through pinecones and primrose marshes, a short train ride away.
7) My country was struck by history more deadly than earthquakes or hurricanes.
8) My father was busy eluding the monsters. My mother told me the walls had ears. I learned the burden of secrets.
9) I moved into the too bright days, the too dark nights of adolescence.
10) Two parents, two daughters, we followed the sun and the moon across the ocean. My grandparents stayed behind in darkness.
11) In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually I caught up with them.
12) When I met you, the new language became the language of love.
13) The death of the mother hurt the daughter into poetry. The daughter became a mother of daughters.
14) Ordinary life: the plenty and thick of it. Knots tying threads to everywhere. The past pushed away, the future left unimagined for the sake of the glorious, difficult, passionate
present.
15) Years and years of this.
16) The children no longer children. An old man's pain, an old man's loneliness.
17) And then my father too disappeared.
18) I tried to go home again. I stood at the door to my childhood, but it was closed to the public.
19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger than mine.
20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I.
—Lisel Mueller
2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of course I do not remember this.
3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.
4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in.
5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.
6) On Sundays the city child waded through pinecones and primrose marshes, a short train ride away.
7) My country was struck by history more deadly than earthquakes or hurricanes.
8) My father was busy eluding the monsters. My mother told me the walls had ears. I learned the burden of secrets.
9) I moved into the too bright days, the too dark nights of adolescence.
10) Two parents, two daughters, we followed the sun and the moon across the ocean. My grandparents stayed behind in darkness.
11) In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually I caught up with them.
12) When I met you, the new language became the language of love.
13) The death of the mother hurt the daughter into poetry. The daughter became a mother of daughters.
14) Ordinary life: the plenty and thick of it. Knots tying threads to everywhere. The past pushed away, the future left unimagined for the sake of the glorious, difficult, passionate
present.
15) Years and years of this.
16) The children no longer children. An old man's pain, an old man's loneliness.
17) And then my father too disappeared.
18) I tried to go home again. I stood at the door to my childhood, but it was closed to the public.
19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger than mine.
20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I.
—Lisel Mueller
What To Do the First Morning the Sun Comes Back
by Roseann Lloyd
Find a clean cloth for the kitchen table, the red and blue one
you made that cold winter in Montana. Spread out
your paper and books. Tune the radio to the jazz station.
Look at the bright orange safflowers you found last August— how well they've held their color next to the black-spotted cat.
Make some egg coffee, in honor of all the people above the Arctic Circle. Give thanks to the Sufis,
who figured out how to brew coffee
from the dark, bitter beans. Remark
on the joyfulness of your dishes: black and yellow stars.
Reminisce with your lover about the history of this kitchen
where, between bites of cashew stir fry,
you first kissed each other on the mouth. Now that you're hungry,
toast some leftover cornbread, spread it with real butter,
honey from bees that fed on basswood blossoms.
The window is frosted over, but the sun's casting an eye
over all the books. Open your Spanish book.
The season for sleeping is over.
The pots and pans: quiet now, let them be.
It will be a short day.
Sit in the kitchen as long as you can, reading and writing.
At sundown, rub a smidgen of butter
on the western windowsill
to ask the sun:
Come back again tomorrow.
Find a clean cloth for the kitchen table, the red and blue one
you made that cold winter in Montana. Spread out
your paper and books. Tune the radio to the jazz station.
Look at the bright orange safflowers you found last August— how well they've held their color next to the black-spotted cat.
Make some egg coffee, in honor of all the people above the Arctic Circle. Give thanks to the Sufis,
who figured out how to brew coffee
from the dark, bitter beans. Remark
on the joyfulness of your dishes: black and yellow stars.
Reminisce with your lover about the history of this kitchen
where, between bites of cashew stir fry,
you first kissed each other on the mouth. Now that you're hungry,
toast some leftover cornbread, spread it with real butter,
honey from bees that fed on basswood blossoms.
The window is frosted over, but the sun's casting an eye
over all the books. Open your Spanish book.
The season for sleeping is over.
The pots and pans: quiet now, let them be.
It will be a short day.
Sit in the kitchen as long as you can, reading and writing.
At sundown, rub a smidgen of butter
on the western windowsill
to ask the sun:
Come back again tomorrow.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Little Ways that Encourage Good Fortune
Wisdom is having things right in your life
And knowing why.
If you do not have things right in your life
You will be overwhelmed:
You may be heroic, but you will not be wise.
If you do not have things right in your life
But do not know why,
You are just lucky, and you will not move
In the little ways that encourage good fortune.
The saddest are those not right in their lives
Who are acting to make things right for others:
They act only from the self
And that self will never be right:
No luck, no help, no wisdom.
William Stafford
And knowing why.
If you do not have things right in your life
You will be overwhelmed:
You may be heroic, but you will not be wise.
If you do not have things right in your life
But do not know why,
You are just lucky, and you will not move
In the little ways that encourage good fortune.
The saddest are those not right in their lives
Who are acting to make things right for others:
They act only from the self
And that self will never be right:
No luck, no help, no wisdom.
William Stafford
After a While
After a while you learn
The subtle difference between
Holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn
That love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t always mean security.
And you begin to learn
That kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes ahead
With the grace of a woman, not the grief
Of a child
And you learn
To build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down
In mid-flight.
After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns
If you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting for someone
To bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure,
You really are strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn
And you learn
With every goodbye, you learn…
Veronica Shoffstall
The subtle difference between
Holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn
That love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t always mean security.
And you begin to learn
That kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes ahead
With the grace of a woman, not the grief
Of a child
And you learn
To build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down
In mid-flight.
After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns
If you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting for someone
To bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure,
You really are strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn
And you learn
With every goodbye, you learn…
Veronica Shoffstall
Respite
And then this morning, on the seventh day of crying,
A calm came over me like the one I remember.
I’d been laboring all night
And into the next afternoon, the white
Room filled with doctor, midwife,
Photographer, friends. Someone
Suggested they all leave us alone.
I lay with my head in my husband’s lap,
And in that quiet, contractions ceased,
Pain stopped. A stillness
Came over the enclosed world
Like the cool emptiness coiled in a basket
Of sweetgrass. Like the air
Inside a bell. I couldn’t stand it.
I thought I should get going again,
Get back to my work.
Many times since, I’ve wished
I’d lain there longer:
A kind of Eden, a bestowed peace.
But today, when the respite came,
I didn’t move. I lay limp as a lizard
On a lizard-colored rock, spent.
I didn’t question it, this hush.
I felt my breath enter
And leave. The small wind of it
In the mesh sacs of my lungs
Like that too brief gap in labor
That I couldn’t give myself to
Then, hellbent, ignorant as I was.
Ellen Bass
A calm came over me like the one I remember.
I’d been laboring all night
And into the next afternoon, the white
Room filled with doctor, midwife,
Photographer, friends. Someone
Suggested they all leave us alone.
I lay with my head in my husband’s lap,
And in that quiet, contractions ceased,
Pain stopped. A stillness
Came over the enclosed world
Like the cool emptiness coiled in a basket
Of sweetgrass. Like the air
Inside a bell. I couldn’t stand it.
I thought I should get going again,
Get back to my work.
Many times since, I’ve wished
I’d lain there longer:
A kind of Eden, a bestowed peace.
But today, when the respite came,
I didn’t move. I lay limp as a lizard
On a lizard-colored rock, spent.
I didn’t question it, this hush.
I felt my breath enter
And leave. The small wind of it
In the mesh sacs of my lungs
Like that too brief gap in labor
That I couldn’t give myself to
Then, hellbent, ignorant as I was.
Ellen Bass
ice skating
“Just fall,” she said, and of course, at 13, falling’s easy.
You do it everyday, ballooning embarrassments
in the locker room, in English class, singeing your hair
over the Bunsen burner 6th period, a mispurchased outfit
calling attention to your breastlessness, your too-bony hips,
a school dance dismantling your chances for a boyfriend.
the lack of everything you wish would hurry up and get here.
So when she said it, her stare widening under arched brows,
there was disbelief and impatience in her voice, in the way
she eyed my frame, how she couldn’t understand the difficulty
in allowing this self-induced tumble, a brief horizontal flirtation
on the outside corner of the rink, where there was no one watching,
no one there who would stare at me with their leveling ridicule
as I lay on my knees to get the idea of what falling would feel like.
She didn’t understand my hesitation, didn’t understand why I didn’t
just shove off and go, speed down the lane like the rest of the skaters,
make long wide arcs in time to the Christmas music blasting out
the speakers rink-side, didn’t understand my wobbly comportment,
why I kept looking down but not out, why I insisted on being left
behind while she and her sister glided past like little snow angels,
like mini Olympiads. She couldn’t see the lock of my ankles
against the skates, didn’t know the heat of my back at the inside of my jacket,
my stiff arms, my flighty, fearful heart doing its best to keep me upright.
“Just fall,” she said and I couldn’t do it, not even when she showed
me how, splattering herself comically on the ice, buckling her knees,
stretching her arms flat against the cold wet, not even when it looked
so easy to just give into the rules of gravity, that sweet slip earthward,
a tumble to elicit giggles and revelry and a reason to form an impromptu
snowball to hurl at a younger sister, not even then. Standing rigid
on her right, never too far from the edge, my palms outstretched to
ward off any possible fall, I had never felt so fragile,
so far from safety, ice so slick, a sea of skaters swimming by,
“Just fall,” she said, “so you know how it feels” and instead I thought
about the poem I could write about ice skating, a beautiful poem
about grace and twilight and December and the visible air
coming out in bursts all around, small children squealing their
way around a circle, teenagers holding hands shyly, an old man,
maybe a grandfather, teaching his granddaughter something of his
past, I thought about that poem, and perfection, and the glide
and symmetry of skates, and how white the ice was, and the
mother grip of winter, and the warmth inside afterward, hot
drinks sipped gratefully, all this love intact and pure.
And then, lost in my own impossible dreaming,
I fell.
Maya Stein
You do it everyday, ballooning embarrassments
in the locker room, in English class, singeing your hair
over the Bunsen burner 6th period, a mispurchased outfit
calling attention to your breastlessness, your too-bony hips,
a school dance dismantling your chances for a boyfriend.
the lack of everything you wish would hurry up and get here.
So when she said it, her stare widening under arched brows,
there was disbelief and impatience in her voice, in the way
she eyed my frame, how she couldn’t understand the difficulty
in allowing this self-induced tumble, a brief horizontal flirtation
on the outside corner of the rink, where there was no one watching,
no one there who would stare at me with their leveling ridicule
as I lay on my knees to get the idea of what falling would feel like.
She didn’t understand my hesitation, didn’t understand why I didn’t
just shove off and go, speed down the lane like the rest of the skaters,
make long wide arcs in time to the Christmas music blasting out
the speakers rink-side, didn’t understand my wobbly comportment,
why I kept looking down but not out, why I insisted on being left
behind while she and her sister glided past like little snow angels,
like mini Olympiads. She couldn’t see the lock of my ankles
against the skates, didn’t know the heat of my back at the inside of my jacket,
my stiff arms, my flighty, fearful heart doing its best to keep me upright.
“Just fall,” she said and I couldn’t do it, not even when she showed
me how, splattering herself comically on the ice, buckling her knees,
stretching her arms flat against the cold wet, not even when it looked
so easy to just give into the rules of gravity, that sweet slip earthward,
a tumble to elicit giggles and revelry and a reason to form an impromptu
snowball to hurl at a younger sister, not even then. Standing rigid
on her right, never too far from the edge, my palms outstretched to
ward off any possible fall, I had never felt so fragile,
so far from safety, ice so slick, a sea of skaters swimming by,
“Just fall,” she said, “so you know how it feels” and instead I thought
about the poem I could write about ice skating, a beautiful poem
about grace and twilight and December and the visible air
coming out in bursts all around, small children squealing their
way around a circle, teenagers holding hands shyly, an old man,
maybe a grandfather, teaching his granddaughter something of his
past, I thought about that poem, and perfection, and the glide
and symmetry of skates, and how white the ice was, and the
mother grip of winter, and the warmth inside afterward, hot
drinks sipped gratefully, all this love intact and pure.
And then, lost in my own impossible dreaming,
I fell.
Maya Stein
Advice to Myself
Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
Louise Erdrich
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
Louise Erdrich
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