tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91152507442655127432024-03-21T06:59:11.601-07:00crow's wingPoems, never mine, and rarely with the same poet appearing twice.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-31341053875615502652011-06-16T13:11:00.000-07:002011-06-16T13:15:26.308-07:00Poppies in October (Sylvia Plath)Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.<br />Nor the woman in the ambulance<br />Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly--<br /><br />A gift, a love gift<br />Utterly unasked for<br />By a sky<br /><br />Palely and flamily <br />Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes<br />Dulled to a halt under bowlers.<br /><br />O my God, what am I<br />That these late mouths should cry open<br />In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-64496677320773432422011-06-16T12:56:00.000-07:002011-06-16T13:08:24.773-07:00The Diameter of the Bomb (Yehuda Amichai)The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters<br />and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,<br />with four dead and eleven wounded.<br />And around these, in a larger circle<br />of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered<br />and one graveyard. But the young woman <br />who was buried in the city she came from,<br />at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,<br />enlarges the circle considerably,<br />and the solitary man mourning her death<br />at the distant shores of a country far across the sea<br />includes the entire world in the circle.<br />And I won't even mention the howl of orphans<br />that reaches up to the throne of God and<br />beyond, making<br />a circle with no end and no God.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-51468244925909934402011-06-16T12:50:00.000-07:002011-06-16T12:54:41.692-07:00My Papa's Waltz (Theodore Roethke)The whiskey on your breath<br />Could make a small boy dizzy;<br />But I hung on like death:<br />Such waltzing was not easy.<br /><br />We romped until the pans<br />Slid from the kitchen shelf;<br />My mother's countenance<br />Could not unfrown itself.<br /><br />The hand that held my wrist<br />Was battered on one knuckle;<br />At every step you missed<br />My right ear scraped a buckle.<br /><br />You beat time on my head<br />with a palm caked hard by dirt,<br />Then waltzed me off to bed<br />Still clinging to your shirt.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-56406628246147293802011-06-16T12:41:00.000-07:002011-06-16T12:45:42.914-07:00Site (Catherine Barnett)The dirty sand everyone said was beautiful<br />wasn't--it was dirty, or oily,<br />something turning it into hardness.<br />It was ugly when we were told<br />beautiful, shattering when it was<br />supposed to make us whole, cold<br />when it should have been warm<br />and all of us dressed in wrong clothes<br />because everything was wrong.<br /><br />We walked the beach early,<br />lay down in the sand, and tried to sleep<br />there in the dune hardly a dune it was so low,<br />but away from the wind--<br /><br />The locals told us not much ever<br />washes up on the beach.<br /><br />How cold it got down by the water.<br />The water was cold.<br />The windsurfer wore a wet suit and sailed<br />back and forth like the birds.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-82548300864518220932011-06-16T12:34:00.000-07:002011-06-16T12:40:37.278-07:00Chestnuts of Kiso-- (Matsuo Bashō)Chestnuts of Kiso--<br />My souvenirs to those<br />In the floating world.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Kiso no tichi<br />Ukiyo no hito no<br />Miyage kana</span>Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-36628332249300718032011-06-14T19:19:00.000-07:002011-06-14T19:20:30.565-07:00Yellow Stars and Ice (Susan Stewart)I am as far as the deepest sky between clouds<br />and you are as far as the deepest root and wound,<br />and I am as far as a train at evening,<br />as far as a whistle you can't hear or remember.<br />You are as far as an unimagined animal<br />who, frightened by everything, never appears.<br />I am as far as cicadas and locusts<br />and you are as far as the cleanest arrow<br />that has sewn the wind to the light on<br />the birch trees. I am as far as the sleep of rivers<br />that stains the deepest sky between clouds,<br />you are as far as invention, and I am as far as memory.<br /><br />You are as far as a red-marbled stream<br />where children cut their feet on the stones<br />and cry out. And I am as far as their happy<br />mothers, bleaching new linen on the grass<br />and singing, "You are as far as another life,<br />as far as another life are you."<br />And I am as far as an infinite alphabet<br />made from yellow stars and ice,<br />and you are as far as the nails of the dead man,<br />as far as a sailor can see at midnight<br />when he's drunk and the moon is an empty cup,<br />and I am as far as invention and you are as far as memory.<br /><br />I am as far as the corners of a room where no one<br />has ever spoken, as far as the four lost corners<br />of the earth. And you are as far as the voices<br />of the dumb, as the broken limbs of saints<br />and soldiers, as the scarlet wing of the suicidal<br />blackbird, I am farther and farther away from you.<br />And you are as far as a horse without a rider<br />can run in six years, two months and five days.<br />I am as far as that rider, who rubs his eyes with<br />his blistered hands, who watches a ghost don his<br />jacket and boots and now stands naked in the road.<br />As far as the space between word and word,<br />as the heavy sleep of the perfectly loved<br />and the sirens of wars no one living can remember,<br />as far as this room, where no words have been spoken,<br />you are as far as invention, and I am as far as memory.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-31363365824164475252011-06-14T19:09:00.000-07:002011-06-14T19:11:29.893-07:00The River Has No Hair to Hold Onto (Ralph Angel)It's only common sense (not that they know the score,<br />they don't avoid it). And so one's life story<br />is begun on a paper napkin and folded into a coat pocket<br />to be retrieved later when it's darker<br />and cooler, and closer. And onward<br /><br />to rockier ground, where conversation is impassable<br />and human beings matter more than<br />the light that glimmers beneath the horizon<br />before sinking into our own inaudible sigh (a long way<br />from these fur-covered hands). And somehow<br /><br />the deal is struck. Money gets made.<br />And the small shocks one undergoes for no reason,<br />the bus driver handing you a transfer, a steamy<br />saxophone ascending the jungle. The city<br />lays down its blanket of rippling<br /><br />lamplight as though exhaustion too<br />was achieved by consensus, and what one does<br />and how one feels have nothing to do with one's self.<br />No, this can't be the place, but it must be<br />the road that leads there, always beginning<br /><br />when morning is slow and hazy, suffering to get somewhere<br />with all the memorable mistakes along the way,<br />piecing them together, arriving,<br />believing that one arrives at a point different from<br />the starting point, admitting things still aren't clear.<br /><br />A rag doll on a dark lawn injures the heart<br />as deeply as the sea air filling one's lungs<br />with a sadness once felt in a classroom,<br />a sadness older than any of us.<br />And the dogs barking, challenging cars. And the willows<br /><br />lining the sidewalk, lifting their veils<br />to the inscrutable surface of wood. (Someone<br />is trying to get a message through. Someone thinks<br />you'll understand it).Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-27086678400667206212011-06-14T19:07:00.000-07:002011-06-14T19:08:10.084-07:00Bird (Pablo Neruda)It was passed from one bird to another,<br />the whole gift of the day.<br />The day went from flute to flute,<br />went dressed in vegetation,<br />in flights which opened a tunnel<br />through the wind would pass<br />to where birds were breaking open<br />the dense blue air -<br />and there, night came in.<br /><br />When I returned from so many journeys,<br />I stayed suspended and green<br />between sun and geography -<br />I saw how wings worked,<br />how perfumes are transmitted<br />by feathery telegraph,<br />and from above I saw the path,<br />the springs and the roof tiles,<br />the fishermen at their trades,<br />the trousers of the foam;<br />I saw it all from my green sky.<br />I had no more alphabet<br />than the swallows in their courses,<br />the tiny, shining water<br />of the small bird on fire<br />which dances out of the pollen.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-24409625592420081532011-06-14T18:34:00.000-07:002011-06-14T18:36:59.011-07:00The Memory of Elena (Carolyn Forché)We spend our morning<br />in the flower stalls counting<br />the dark tongues of bells<br />that hang from ropes waiting <br />for the silence of an hour.<br />We find a table, ask for <span style="font-style:italic;">paella</span>,<br />cold soup and wine, where a calm <br />light trembles years behind us.<br /><br />In Buenos Aires only three<br />years ago, it was the last time his hand <br />slipped into her dress, with pearls <br />cooling her throat and bells like<br />these, chipping at the night—<br /><br />As she talks, the hollow<br />clopping of a horse, the sound <br />of bones touched together.<br />The <span style="font-style:italic;">paella</span> comes, a bed of rice <br />and <span style="font-style:italic;">camarones</span>, fingers and shells, <br />the lips of those whose lips<br />have been removed, mussels<br />the soft blue of a leg socket.<br /><br />This is not <span style="font-style:italic;">paella</span>, this is what<br />has become of those who remained <br />in Buenos Aires. This is the ring <br />of a rifle report on the stones, <br />her hand over her mouth,<br />her husband falling against her.<br /><br />These are the flowers we bought <br />this morning, the dahlias tossed<br />on his grave and bells<br />waiting with their tongues cut out <br />for this particular silence.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-61534257130332155262011-06-14T18:26:00.000-07:002011-06-14T18:30:50.515-07:00Sway (Denis Johnson)Since I find you will no longer love,<br />from bar to bar in terror I shall move<br />past Forty-third and Halsted, Twenty-fourth<br />and Roosevelt where fire-gutted cars,<br />their bones the bones of coyote and hyena,<br />suffer the light from the wrestling arena<br />to fall all over them. And what they say<br />blends in the tarantellasmic sway<br />of all of us between the two of these:<br />harmony and divergence,<br />their sad story of harmony and divergence,<br />the story that begins<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I did not know who she was</span><br />and ends <span style="font-style:italic;">I did not know who she was.</span>Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-71233786379673326982011-06-14T18:16:00.000-07:002011-06-14T18:17:21.219-07:00Epithalamium (Bob Hicok)A bee in the field. The house on the mountain<br />reveals itself to have been there through summer.<br />It's not a bee but a horse eating frosted grass<br />in the yawn light. Secrets, the anguish of smoke<br />above the chimney as it shreds what it's learned<br />of fire. The horse has moved, it's not a horse<br />but a woman doing the stations of the cross<br />with a dead baby in her arms. The anguish of the house<br />as it reveals smoke to the mountain. A woman<br />eating cold grass in Your name, shredding herself<br />like fire. The woman has stopped, it's not a woman<br />but smoke on its knees keeping secrets in what it reveals.<br />The everything has moved, it's not everything<br />but a shredding of the anguish of names. The marriage<br />of light: particle to wave. Do you take? I do.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-79719752877287249992011-06-14T18:13:00.000-07:002011-06-14T18:14:20.777-07:00Birch (Cynthia Zarin)Bone-spur, stirrup of veins—white colt<br />a tree, sapling bone again, worn to a splinter,<br />a steeple, the birch aground<br /><br />in its ravine of leaves. Abide with me, arrive<br />at its skinned branches, its arms pulled<br />from the sapling, your wrist taut,<br /><br />each ganglion a gash in the tree's rent<br />trunk, a child's hackwork, love plus love,<br />my palms in your fist, that<br /><br />trio a trident splitting the birch, its bark<br />papyrus, its scars calligraphy,<br />a ghost story written on<br /><br />winding sheets, the trunk bowing, dead is<br />my father, the birch reading the news<br />of the day aloud as if we hadn't<br /><br />heard it, the root moss lit gas,<br />like the veins on your ink-stained hand—<br />the birch all elbows, taking us in.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-51216036152403434792011-02-10T12:41:00.000-08:002011-02-10T12:57:24.251-08:00As One Listens to the Rain (Octavio Paz)Listen to me as one listens to the rain,<br />not attentive, not distracted,<br />light footsteps, thin drizzle,<br />water that is air, air that is time,<br />the day is still leaving,<br />the night has yet to arrive,<br />figurations of mist<br />at the turn of the corner,<br />figurations of time<br />at the bend in this pause,<br />listen to me as one listens to the rain,<br />without listening, hear what I say<br />with eyes open inward, asleep<br />with all five senses awake,<br />it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,<br />air and water, words with no weight:<br />what we are and are,<br />the days and years, this moment,<br />weightless time and heavy sorrow,<br />listen to me as one listens to the rain,<br />wet asphalt is shining,<br />steam rises and walks away,<br />night unfolds and looks at me,<br />you are you and your body of steam,<br />you and your face of night,<br />you and your hair, unhurried lightning,<br />you cross the street and enter my forehead,<br />footsteps of water across my eyes,<br />listen to me as one listens to the rain,<br />the asphalt's shining, you cross the street,<br />it is the mist, wandering in the night,<br />it is the night, asleep in your bed,<br />it is the surge of waves in your breath,<br />your fingers of water dampen my forehead,<br />your fingers of flame burn my eyes,<br />your fingers of air open eyelids of time,<br />a spring of visions and resurrections,<br />listen to me as one listens to the rain,<br />the years go by, the moments return,<br />do you hear the footsteps in the next room?<br />not here, not there: you hear them<br />in another time that is now,<br />listen to the footsteps of time,<br />inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,<br />listen to the rain running over the terrace,<br />the night is now more night in the grove,<br />lightning has nestled among the leaves,<br />a restless garden adrift-go in,<br />your shadow covers this page.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-29956103371888139422011-01-18T16:17:00.000-08:002011-01-18T16:28:38.283-08:00Nomadic Tutelage (Meena Alexander)You strike your head against a door<br />And pluck it back again, ancient gesture, ineluctable.<br /><br />Bone bruising wood, and the lyric rears itself,<br />A silken hood.<br /><br />Gamba Adisa, you have come to say,<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Afraid is a country with no exit visas.</span><br /><br />You taught me to fetch old meal for fire,<br />Sift through an ash heap, pick syllables, molten green,<br /><br />Butting sentences askew.<br />I try to recall the color of your face.<br /><br />Was it lighter than mine?<br />Was it the color of the East River<br /><br />When the sun drops into soil<br />And I, a child by the well side, pack my mouth with stones?<br /><br />So darkness crowns the waters<br />And the raw resurrection of flesh unsettles sight.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />We would journey<br />before light into a foreign tongue.</span><br /><br />I hear you and I am older<br />than moonlight swallows swim through.<br /><br />Cries of hawks mark out four points of the compass,<br />Nomadic tutelage of cactus and rose.<br /><br />Blunt rods strike blood,<br />Toss nets of dreams across salt shores.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">In Memory of Audre Lorde, 1934-1992</span>Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-22291205345839438222011-01-17T10:45:00.000-08:002011-01-17T10:50:55.448-08:00A Quick Note on the Three Poems Immediately Below"Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form", "I Saw a Peacock With a Fiery Tail" and "April Fools" are all what I call "wrap-around" poems, in that portions of each line or most lines work twice: both with the phrase immediately preceding and the phrase immediately following. They may seem nonsensical until they are read with this in mind...Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-45810595679028720012011-01-17T10:43:00.001-08:002011-01-17T10:51:43.356-08:00Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form (Matthea Harvey)1.<br />Pity the bathtub that belongs to the queen its feet<br />Are bronze casts of the former queen's feet its sheen<br />A sign of fretting is that an inferior stone shows through<br />Where the marble is worn away with industrious<br />Polishing the tub does not take long it is tiny some say<br />Because the queen does not want room for splashing<br />The maid thinks otherwise she knows the king<br />Does not grip the queen nightly in his arms there are<br />Others the queen does not have lovers she obeys<br />Her mother once told her <em>your ancestry is your only </em><br /><em>Support </em>then is what she gets in the bathtub she floats<br />Never holds her nose and goes under not because<br />She might sink but because she knows to keep her ears<br />Above water she smiles at the circle of courtiers below<br />Her feet are kicking against walls which cannot give<br />Satisfaction at best is to manage to stay clean<br /><br />2.<br />Pity the bathtub its forced embrace of the whims of<br />One man loves but is not loved in return by the object<br />Of his affection there is little to tell of his profession<br />There is more for it is because he works with glass<br />That he thinks things are clear (he loves) and adjustable<br />(she does not love) he knows how to take something<br />Small and hard and hot and make room for<br />His breath quickens at night as he dreams of her he wants<br />To create a present unlike any other and because he cannot<br />Hold her he designs something that can a bathtub of<br />Glass shimmers red when it is hot he pours it into the mold<br />In a rush of passion only as it begins to cool does it reflect<br />His foolishness enrages him he throws off his clothes meaning<br />To jump in and lie there but it is still too hot and his feet propel<br />Him forward he runs from one end to the other then falls<br />To the floor blisters begin to swell on his soft feet he watches<br />His pain harden into a pretty pattern on the bottom of the bath<br /><br />3.<br />Pity the bathtub its forced embrace of the human<br />Form may define external appearance but there is room<br />For improvement within try a soapdish that allows for<br />Slippage is inevitable as is difference in the size of<br />The subject may hoard his or her bubbles at different<br />End of the bathtub may grasp the sponge tightly or<br />Loosely it may be assumed that eventually everyone gets in<br />The bath has a place in our lives and our place is<br />Within it we have control of how much hot how much cold<br />What to pour in how long we want to stay when to<br />Return is inevitable because we need something<br />To define ourselves against even if we know that<br />Whenever we want we can pull the plug and get out<br />Which is not the case with our own tighter confinement<br />Inside the body oh pity the bathtub but pity us tooTesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-39213715391034918192011-01-17T10:41:00.001-08:002011-01-17T10:41:51.981-08:00I Saw a Peacock With a Fiery Tail (Anonymous)I saw a peacock with a fiery tail<br />I saw a blazing comet drop down hail<br />I saw a cloud with ivy circled round<br />I saw a sturdy oak creep on the ground<br />I saw a pismire swallow up the whale<br />I saw a raging sea brim full of ale<br />I saw a Venice glass sixteen foot deep<br />I saw a well full of men’s tears that weep<br />I saw their eyes all in a flame of fire<br />I saw a house as big as the moon and higher<br />I saw the sun even in the midst of night<br />I saw the man that saw this wondrous sight.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-82965556124309818462011-01-17T10:33:00.000-08:002011-01-17T10:45:12.696-08:00April Fools (Tessa Rumsey)Inside the pale niagara for her cruel betrayal: a paper boat, not.<br /><br />Afloat; but not sinking into azure ether either--sailing,<br /><br />The way a lost faith sails, limp and broken, but somewhere.<br /><br />Still believing, it may be, you said to me, that we are not.<br /><br />Yet built sufficiently enlightened to to the thing we must.<br /><br />Forgive her. Late winter: frozen cherries / atop a new parable.<br /><br />Of my wicked stepmother. We are cherry blossoms caught.<br /><br />Inside the static loop of loss. It's spring again--<span style="font-style:italic;">She leaves us.</span><br /><br />You say the word again, <span style="font-style:italic;">forgiveness,</span> holding your split heart.<br /><br />In your hands, a frozen boat. Paper blossom. Olive branch.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-60610564559107624392011-01-17T10:20:00.000-08:002011-01-17T10:27:35.767-08:00Oysters (Seamus Heaney)Our shells clacked on the plates.<br />My tongue was a filling estuary,<br />My palate hung with starlight:<br />As I tasted the salty Pleiades<br />Orion dipped his foot into the water.<br /><br />Alive and violated<br />They lay on their beds of ice:<br />Bivalves: the split bulb<br />And philandering sigh of ocean.<br />Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.<br /><br />We had driven to that coast<br />Through flowers and limestone<br />And there we were, toasting friendship,<br />Laying down a perfect memory <br />In the cool of thatch and crockery.<br /><br />Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,<br />The Romans hauled their oysters south to Rome:<br />I saw damp panniers disgorge<br />The frond-lipped, brine-stung<br />Glut of privilege<br /><br />And was angry that my trust could not repose<br />In the clear light, like poetry or freedom<br />Leaning in from sea. I ate the day<br />Deliberately, that its tang,<br />Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-30003280313392048812011-01-17T10:03:00.000-08:002011-01-17T10:14:50.155-08:00Scratch Harvest (Catherine Barnett)This spring hail hit the apples<br />and the tiny marks became divots.<br /><br />Into the stew pot more apples,<br />still in their skin and pocked.<br /><br />Smooth black seeds<br />keep rising to the surface.<br /><br />Outside, the trees are oblivious <br />to the disorder of their bodies,<br /><br />the divots in their offspring<br />bear them no shame.<br /><br />It's all the same to them,<br />same sweet flesh,<br /><br />same irregular songs sung<br />by the mockingbird as by the wind,<br /><br />and all beautiful, the same song<br />sung by footsteps<br /><br />as by shears radiant against <br />the black branches.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-69074692111422720702011-01-17T08:11:00.000-08:002011-01-17T08:41:02.390-08:00This Is What I See (Karla Kelsey)This is what I see through false eyes and a hole in the siding. A gape and then flooding. A gape in the ribs and then flooding called breath. Then the red curtain and phrase of one and one. As if painted, the sky approaching sunset, duration of fire. Smoke fills our lungs as we mount, two by two along the wooden railing. Placed, we receive bouquets of patience. The strum of. And guitar,<br /><br />garden dry wall crumbled and branches a-fade, fading. The call outlined with an arc of birds in the sky. Circling. Felt in my hair, a moment, then hands put to. Well of the eyes. We stoop and they sweep the tin siding, the roofing patented green. For the lost. This is the way that it has to be. As in her eyes on the edges of her lower lids. For the sight lines and valley over brilliant blue battering. A falling. Flag foment and the pages crease. And, creasing, share over the marble and granite sun. Over forms accidentally there.<br /><br />The moment clouds enter the building, in the outline of our shadows. Don't ask how this occurs, akin to roses, browning along the edges. Trees, the necessary distance from flames. We write them off shore, securing the mind's eye. As in his aviary birds of knowledge fly captive, saved from asphyxiation. A way of leaving the field of snow and fire while flying forward without a chance for adjustment, nothing caught in the clearingTesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-72336498123060497802011-01-17T07:31:00.000-08:002011-01-17T07:39:02.545-08:00Cormorants (Mary Oliver)All afternoon the sea was a muddle of birds,<br />black and spiky,<br />long-necked, slippery.<br /><br />Down they went<br />into the waters for the poor<br />blunt-headed silver<br />they live on, for a little while.<br /><br />God, how did it ever come to you to<br />invent Time?<br /><br />I dream at night<br />of the birds, of the beautiful, dark seas<br />they push through.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-4877549049618931582011-01-17T07:21:00.000-08:002011-01-17T07:26:05.759-08:00Rivers, Leaves (Susanna Lang)The leaves rust on their branches.<br />The road is a bridge, is a road again.<br />I did not see the sign--the Des Plaines, <br />the Illinois, or the Chicago, North Branch--<br />intent on staying in the lines, on moving<br />forward. The news last night was bad.<br />The lump is not benign, it does not <br />wish her well. It does not wish. But we,<br />in our rushing, our rivering, our intent,<br /><br />we wish: for these leaves to be washed <br />of their rust, for all to be well, again.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-66677734336149320272011-01-14T13:59:00.000-08:002011-01-14T14:09:03.599-08:00Goldfinches (Leigh Anne Couch)The day was a goldfinch<br />beating wings<br />against a dirty cotton sky.<br />The sky swung low on the line.<br /><br />My mother came to me, <br />an offering of her body. She<br />wasn't one to make such gestures.<br />My mother came to me, holding out<br /><br />her left arm turned over,<br />soft underside, talcum-white.<br />She could have been a child. <span style="font-style:italic;">Look</span><br />she said, <span style="font-style:italic;">Look.</span> But I was boxing<br /><br />remembrances, worrying over what<br />I'd need, and nothing was here<br />in the scented damp around her.<br />The days were emptying,<br /><br />self after self from her hands,<br />daughter, mother, wife, her fingerprints<br />slipped in someone else's milk after<br />years handling chemicals in the dairy lab.<br /><br />Germs are everywhere, she'd say--<br />incubating in the ice cream, lurking<br />in lids and glasses. How could she sleep<br />through the furious racket<br /><br />in my father's lungs, the merciless labor.<br />She came to me late that unquiet<br />summer when windowpanes screeched<br />and weeds withered at her glances.<br /><br />I was the fruit that would not fall,<br />the sapling meant to stay faithful<br />to its roots, branch for branch.<br /><br />For the settling of her fragile bones, <br />for the window-light stroking the bend<br />of her arm, for the warm blue pulse,<br /><br />I would leave to find her in her father's<br />cornfield, the beautiful creases,<br />my mother's body filled with dirt.<br /><br />Two girls, light, impossible, <br />roll through the furrows lengthwise,<br />close their eyes laughing,<br /><br />pillow-feathers on a sheet<br />shaken out wave after solid wave<br />to the robust sky, like that forever.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115250744265512743.post-55594841681205149892011-01-14T13:11:00.001-08:002011-01-14T13:11:55.956-08:00Risk (Anais Nin)And then the day came,<br />when the risk<br />to remain tight<br />in a bud<br />was more painful<br />than the risk<br />it took<br />to Blossom.Tesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06061743980285214122noreply@blogger.com0