When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Berry is one of the best! And this is one of his best.
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
How should I not be glad to contemplate the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window and a high tide reflected on the ceiling? There will be dying, there will be dying, but there is no need to go into that. The poems flow from the hand unbidden and the hidden source is the watchful heart. The sun rises in spite of everything and the far cities are beautiful and bright. I lie here in a riot of sunlight watching the day break and the clouds flying. Everything is going to be all right
My father was Noonuccal man and kept old tribal way, His totem was the Carpet Snake, whom none must ever slay; But mother was of Peewee clan, and loudly she expressed The daring view that carpet snakes were nothing but a pest.
Now one lived inside with us in full immunity, For no one dared to interfere with fatherâs stern decree: A mighty fellow ten feet long, and as we lay in bed We kids could watch him round a beam not far above our head.
Only the dog was scared of him, weâd hear its whines and growls, But mother fiercely hated him because he took her fowls. You should have heard her diatribes that flowed in angry torrents, With words youâd never see in print, except in D.H. Lawrence.
âI kill that robber,â she would scream, fierce as a spotted cat; âYou see that bulge inside of him? My speckly hen make that!â But fatherâs loud and strict command made even mother quake; I think heâd sooner kill a man than kill a carpet snake.
That reptile was a greedy guts, and as each bulge digested Heâd come down on the hunt at night, as appetite suggested. We heard his stealthy slithering sound across the earthen floor, While the dog gave a startled yelp and bolted out the door.
Then over in the chicken-yard hysterical fowls gave tongue, Loud frantic squawks accompanied by the barking of the mung, Until at last the racket passed, and then to solve the riddle, Next morning he was back up there with a new bulge in his middle.
When father died we wailed and cried, our grief was deep and sore, And strange to say from that sad day the snake was seen no more. The wise old men explained to us: âIt was his tribal brother, And that is why it done a guyâ â but some looked hard at mother.
She seemed to have a secret smile, her eyes were smug and wary, She looked about as innocent as the cat that ate the pet canary. We never knew, but anyhow (to end this tragic rhyme) I think we all had snake for tea one day about that time.
The poet explains exactly what her poems are doing on a variety of levels. I am jealously impressed. My poems go places but send no postcardsââI have no idea what they are doing. They do whatever they want to. I give them curfews but they wake me in the middle of the night, they interrupt meetings and other situations where I have no time for them. They hang on me when I am on the phone. They do not keep my secrets and sometimes they lie. They can be sullen and withdrawn or explosively obscene. I think my poems have problems with authority, conduct disorders, attention deficit. The other poet is like the parent with the bumper sticker about their honor student while I am speeding along to get to the correctional facility before visiting hours are over. I try to give my poems direction. They tell me they have cleaned their rooms but we both know it's not true. After all these years of therapy we still don't understand each other. I write a poem and think "What the hell is that?!"
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Nov 1, 2020 - 7:35am
The Other Poet by Ellie Schoenfeld
The poet explains exactly what her poems are doing on a variety of levels. I am jealously impressed. My poems go places but send no postcards––I have no idea what they are doing. They do whatever they want to. I give them curfews but they wake me in the middle of the night, they interrupt meetings and other situations where I have no time for them. They hang on me when I am on the phone. They do not keep my secrets and sometimes they lie. They can be sullen and withdrawn or explosively obscene. I think my poems have problems with authority, conduct disorders, attention deficit. The other poet is like the parent with the bumper sticker about their honor student while I am speeding along to get to the correctional facility before visiting hours are over. I try to give my poems direction. They tell me they have cleaned their rooms but we both know it's not true. After all these years of therapy we still don't understand each other. I write a poem and think "What the hell is that?!"
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Oct 14, 2020 - 9:53am
Antigone wrote:
Messenger
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird— equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Oct 11, 2020 - 5:47pm
Family by Grace Paley
My father was brilliant embarrassed funny handsome my mother was plain serious principled kind my grandmother was intelligent lonesome for her other life her dead children silent my aunt was beautiful bitter angry loving
I fell among these adjectives in earliest childhood and was nearly buried with opportunity some of them stuck to me others finding me American and smooth slipped away
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Oct 8, 2020 - 9:37pm
I believe this needs a bump—from a couple years ago.
Manbird wrote:
August is Warm
This remarkable peach toast morning Has so clearly gifted me A bloom of rising spirit In the slow adobe air I touch stones and weave Small grasses with my hands I am light and brown and alive This season Healing season Standing and turning to the Sun To all my good good Fathers Who wear my twisted scars as the whip snake warms On broken stones On torn red rocks
I bake my bread I burn my oil I bend to the burning soil
My feet are dry and thin And anxious to run Sweeping Into the dream of the swollen blue evening Leaping Into the hulking blue yeast Of this soft and violet night I have some turquoise and amber Where the sweet and sour pull of flesh Releases my talk song whisper Releases my cactus flower scent When the tumbling clay roof of the church Gives up its heat Like the smoke from the farmer's Dark brown prayers Then I will sleep and dream Of the sad stray dog We call Abandonado Tomorrow we must visit the priest He has injured himself Again
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Aug 31, 2020 - 8:28am
Parlor by Rita Dove
We passed through on the way to anywhere else. No one lived there but silence, a pale china gleam,
and the tired eyes of saints aglow on velvet. Mom says things are made to be used. But Grandma insisted peace was in what wasn't there, strength in what was unsaid.
It would be nice to have a room you couldn't enter, except in your mind. I like to sit on my bed plugged into my transistor radio, "Moon River" pouring through my head.
How do you use life? How do you feel it? Mom says
things harden with age; she says Grandma is happier now. After the funeral, I slipped off while they stood around remembering-away from all the talking and eating and weeping
to sneak a peek. She wasn't there. Then I understood why she had kept them just so:
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Aug 13, 2020 - 8:50am
oldviolin wrote:
ScottN wrote:
French Chocolates by Ellen Bass
If you have your health, you have everything is something that's said to cheer you up when you come home early and find your lover arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.
Or it could be you lose your job at Happy Nails because you can't stop smudging the stars on those ten teeny American flags.
I don't begrudge you your extravagant vitality. May it blossom like a cherry tree. May the petals of your cardiovascular excellence and the accordion polka of your lungs sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.
But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue, with bones brittle as spun sugar, with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith
in the flaming forge of your skull, may you be spared from friends who say, God doesn't give you more than you can handle and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.
May they just keep their mouths shut and give you French chocolates and daffodils and maybe a small, original Matisse, say, Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out at the boats floating on the dappled pink water.
