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EQUINOX
I must keep from breaking into the story by force
for if I do I will find myself with a war club in my hand
and the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun,
your nation dead beside you.
I keep walking away though it has been an eternity
and from each drop of blood
springs up sons and daughters, trees,
a mountain of sorrows, of songs.
I tell you this from the dusk of a small city in the north
not far from the birthplace of cars and industry.
Geese are returning to mate and crocuses have
broken through the frozen earth.
Soon they will come for me and I will make my stand
before the jury of destiny. Yes, I will answer in the clatter
of the new world, I have broken my addiction to war
and desire. Yes, I will reply, I have buried the dead
and made songs of the blood, the marrow.
— Joy Harjo (b. 1951)
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RHAPSODY
No one says it
anymore, my darling,
not to the green leaves
in March, not to the stars
backing up each night, certainly
not in the nest
of rapture, who
in the beginning was
an owl, rustling
just after silence, whose
very presence drew
a mob of birds–flickers,
finches, chickadees, five cardinals
to a tree–the way a word
excites its meanings. Who
cooks for you, it calls, Who looks
for you? Sheaf of feathers, chief
of bone, the owl stands
upon the branch, but does he
understand it, think my revel,
my banquet, my tumult,
delight? The Irish have a word
for what can’t be
replaced: mavourneen, my
darling, second cousin once
removed of memory, what is not
forgotten, as truth was
defined by the Greeks.
It’s the names
on the stones in the cemetery
that ring out like rungs
on a ladder or the past
tense of bells: Nathaniel Joy,
Elizabeth Joy, Amos
Joy and Wilder Joy,
and it all comes down
to the conclusion
of the cardinal: pretty, pretty, pretty
pretty—but pretty what?
In her strip search
of scripture, St. Teresa
was seized, my darling, rapt
amid the chatter
and flutter of well-coiffed
words, the owl
in the shagbark hickory,
and all the attending dangers
like physicians
of the heard.
— Angie Estes, published in Voice-Over, copyright © 2002. Reprinted without permission.
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“Buddha can’t be avoided. Buddha is everywhere. Enlightenment possibilities are all over the place. Whether you’re going to get married tomorrow, whether you’re going to die tomorrow, whatever you may feel, that familiar awake quality is everywhere, all the time. From this point of view, everything is a footprint of Buddha, anything that goes on, whether we regard it as sublime or ridiculous. Everything we do — breathing, farting, getting mosquito bites, having fantastic ideas about reality, thinking clever thoughts, flushing the toilet — whatever occurs is a footprint.” — Chögyam Trungpa (1939 – 1987), Tibetan Buddhist teacher.
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THEY
I wondered what had
happened to the chords.
There was a music,
they were following
a pattern. It was
an intention perhaps.
No field
but they walk
in it. No place
without them, any
discretion is useless.
They want a time, they
have a time, each
one in his place, an
endless arrival.
— Robert Creeley (1926 – 2005), American poet.
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SNOW
Low clouds hang on the mountain.
The forest is filled with fog.
A short distance away the
Giant trees recede and grow
Dim. Two hundred paces and
They are invisible. All
Day the fog curdles and drifts.
The cries of the birds are loud.
They sound frightened and cold. Hour
By hour it grows colder.
Just before sunset the clouds
Drop down the mountainside. Long
Shreds and tatters of flog flow
Swiftly away between the
Trees. Now the valley below
Is filled with clouds like clotted
Cream and over them the sun
Sets, yellow in a sky full
Of purple feathers. After dark
A wind rises and breaks branches
From the trees and howls in the
Treetops and then suddenly
Is still. Late at night I wake
And look out of the tent. The
Clouds are rushing across the
Sky and through them is tumbling
The thin waning moon. Later
All is quiet except for
A faint whispering. I look
Out. Great flakes of wet snow are
Falling. Snowflakes are falling
Into the dark flames of the
Dying fire. In the morning the
Pine boughs are sagging with snow,
And the dogwood blossoms are
Frozen, and the tender young
Purple and citron oak leaves.
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905 – 1982), American Beat poet and translator
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TO PURITY
I have heard so much about you
if you claim to be you
I will know it’s not true
if you say nothing I will listen
as I do
with my own
old mixed feelings
of hope and reservation
hearing through them
whatever might be you
the way I see
the white light from
the beginning
through the colors of the garden
through a face an eye
— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet and translator.
DEBT
That ‘part
Of consciousness
That works’:
A virtue, then, a skill
Of benches and the shock
Of the press where an instant on the steel bed
The manufactured part——
New!
And imperfect. Not as perfect
As the die they made
Which was imperfect. Checked
To tolerance
Among the pin ups, notices, conversion charts,
And skills, so little said of it
— George Oppen (1908 – 1984), Pulitzer Prize winning American poet.
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“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.” — The Olympic Creed
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I AM NOT YOURS
I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.
You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.
Oh plunge me deep in love—put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.
— Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933), American Poet.
BE NEAR ME
Be near me now,
My tormenter, my love, be near me—
At this hour when night comes down,
When, having drunk from the gash of sunset, darkness comes
With the balm of musk in its hands, its diamond lancets,
When it comes with cries of lamentation,
with laughter with songs;
Its blue-gray anklets of pain clinking with every step.
At this hour when hearts, deep in their hiding places,
Have begun to hope once more, when they start their vigil
For hands still enfolded in sleeves;
When wine being poured makes the sound
of inconsolable children
who, though you try with all your heart,
cannot be soothed.
When whatever you want to do cannot be done,
When nothing is of any use;
—At this hour when night comes down,
When night comes, dragging its long face,
dressed in mourning,
Be with me,
My tormenter, my love, be near me.
— Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911 – 1984), Indian/Pakistani poet. Translated by Naomi Lazard
OPAL
You are ice and fire,
The touch of you burns my hands like snow.
You are cold and flame.
You are the crimson of amaryllis,
The silver of moon-touched magnolias.
When I am with you,
My heart is a frozen pond
Gleaming with agitated torches.
— Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925), American Poet.
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ITHAKA
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
— C.P. Cavafy (1863 – 1933), Greek poet and journalist. Translated by Edmund Keeley
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FOUR MOUNTAIN POSTURES
Walking in the mountains
unconsciously trudging along
grab a vine
climb another ridge
Standing in the mountains
how many dawns become dusk
plant a pine
a tree of growing shade
Sitting in the mountains
zig-zag yellow leaves fall
nobody comes
close the door and make a big fire
Lying in the mountains
pine wind enters the ears
for no good reason
beautiful dreams are blown apart
— Stonehouse [Shih Wu] (1272 – 1352), Chinese monk and poet. Translation by Red Pine.
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