flahute » hope

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 11:55:01 +0000

TWO COUNTRIES

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers–silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin’s secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

— Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952)

Another thought

flahute — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:43:22 +0000

I posted this for someone else, but now I’m reposting it for me … because, sometimes I need the reminder, too:

Life is an endless journey, like a broad highway that extends infinitely into the distance. The mind provides a vehicle to travel on that road. The journey consists of constant ups and downs, hope and fear, but it is a good journey. Allow yourself to experience all the textures of the roadway, which is what the journey is all about. (paraphrased from Chögyam Trungpa)

I guess, in this context, even chip-seal can be a good thing … which reminds me that I need to glue some tires tonight so I can get back on the road.

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:59:01 +0000

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.

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:23:28 +0000

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.

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:06:34 +0000

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

Quotes of the Day

flahute — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:02:49 +0000

“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

  — Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy, 12 August 1980, Democratic National Convention.

“There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination — not merely victory for our Party, but renewal for our nation … The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.”

  — Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy, 25 August 2008, Democratic National Convention.

Video Poetry (Home Edition)

flahute — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:00:39 +0000

THE 88 – COMING HOME

Won’t you be safe
Won’t you be true
I lie awake just thinking of you
I’m all alone
Honey, come home

‘Cuz when you’re here
I feel like myself
And when you’re not
I’m somebody else
I’ve got it bad
Honey, please come back

Because you need a place to stay
And I’ve been feeling dead since you went away
You better believe what I tell you cuz you’re coming home

Won’t you be good to yourself
Don’t you feel like coming home
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

And tell me that you wanna be
With nobody else but me
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

Send me a letter
Pick up the phone
Make me feel better
Don’t leave me alone
Because I’m feeling sick
Honey, please come quick

Because you need a place to stay
And I’ve been feeling dead since you went away
You better believe what I tell you cuz you’re coming home

Won’t you be good to yourself
Don’t you feel like coming home
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

And tell me that you wanna be
With nobody else but me
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

Blend all your days into weeks
Keep all your thoughts to yourself
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

Because you need a place to stay
And I’ve been feeling dead since you went away
You better believe what I tell you cuz you’re coming home

Won’t you bring light to my day
Won’t you be somebody new
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

And tell me that you wanna be
With nobody else but me
It’ll be good
It’ll be like coming home

Because you need a place to stay
And I’ve been feeling dead since you went away
You better believe what I tell you cuz you’re coming home

But oh, it’s not a joke
It’s got a butler, and a maid, and a stove
It’s nothing new
It’s up to you
And when I feel it
I hope you feel it too
Did you hear it
Yeah I heard it
And I think she’s coming home to me

La la la la la la la…

Heresy, or prophesy?

flahute — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:08:31 +0000

Sometimes being Big Ring is knowing when NOT to ride in the big ring …

The way my legs feel right now, I’m certainly glad I never used any gear bigger than the 39×14, and even that only briefly; mostly 39×15 or 39×16.

Hopefully, they’ll be less sore and twitchy in the morning so I can go ski.

Poetry Friday

flahute — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 07:43:44 +0000

THE DARKLING THRUSH

I leant upon a coppice gate
     When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
     The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
     Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
     Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
     The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
     The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
     Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
     Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
     The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
     Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
     In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
     Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
     Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
     Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
     His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
     And I was unaware.

  — Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928), English Poet

New Year’s Eve

flahute — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:42:23 +0000

A SONG FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE

Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay—
      Stay till the good old year,
So long companion of our way,
      Shakes hands, and leaves us here.
            Oh stay, oh stay,
One little hour, and then away.

The year, whose hopes were high and strong,
      Has now no hopes to wake;
Yet one hour more of jest and song
      For his familiar sake.
            Oh stay, oh stay,
One mirthful hour, and then away.

The kindly year, his liberal hands
      Have lavished all his store.
And shall we turn from where he stands,
      Because he gives no more?
            Oh stay, oh stay,
One grateful hour, and then away.

Days brightly came and calmly went,
      While yet he was our guest;
How cheerfully the week was spent!
      How sweet the seventh day’s rest!
            Oh stay, oh stay,
One golden hour, and then away.

Dear friends were with us, some who sleep
      Beneath the coffin-lid:
What pleasant memories we keep
      Of all they said and did!
            Oh stay, oh stay,
One tender hour, and then away.

Even while we sing, he smiles his last,
      And leaves our sphere behind.
The good old year is with the past;
      Oh be the new as kind!
            Oh stay, oh stay,
One parting strain, and then away.

  — William Cullen Bryant (1794 – 1878), American Poet