the blessing/ joyce carol oates

Barefoot daring
to walk
amid
the thrashing eye-glitter
of  what remains
when the tide
retreats
we ask ourselves
why did it matter
so much
to have the last
word?
Or any
word?

Here, please—
take what
remains.
It is yours.


: joyce carol oates, ‘the blessing’; poetry magazine july/august 2020

suggested donation/ heather christie

In the morning I drink
coffee until I can see
a way to love life
again. It's okay, there's
no difference between
flying and thinking
you're flying until
you land. Somehow
I own like six nail clippers
and I honestly can't
remember ever buying
even one. My sister
came to visit and
saw them in a small
wooden bowl. I
heard her laughing in
the bathroom. I hope
she never dies. There's
no harm in hoping
until you land.
The deer are awake.
Is one pregnant?
If they kept diaries
the first entry would
read: Was born
Was licked
Tried walking
Then they'd walk
away and no second
entry would ever exist.
I run the deer's
archive. It's very
light work. Visitors
must surrender
their belongings.
Surrender to me
your beautiful shirt.

: heather christie, ‘suggested donation’; via poetryisnotaluxury

the morning paper/ mary oliver

 Read one newspaper daily (the morning edition
     is the best
for by evening you know that you at least
     have lived through another day)
and let the disasters, the unbelievable
     yet approved decisions,
soak in.

I don't need to name the countries,
     ours among them.

What keeps us from falling down, our faces
     to the ground; ashamed, ashamed?

: mary oliver, ‘the morning paper’; a thousand mornings

the visit/ jane kenyon

The talkative guest has gone,
and we sit in the yard
saying nothing. The slender moon
comes over the peak of the barn.

The air is damp, and dense
with the scent of honeysuckle. . . .
The last clever story has been told
and answered with laughter.

With my sleeping self I met
my obligations, but now I am aware
of the silence, and your affection,
and the delicate sadness of dusk.

: jane kenyon, ‘the visit’; the boat of quiet hours

#1099/ emily dickinson

My Cocoon tightens — Colors
   teaze —
I'm feeling for the Air —
A dim capacity for Wings
Demeans the Dress I wear —

A power of Butterly must be —
The aptitude to fly
Meadows of Majesty concedes
And easy Sweeps of Sky —

So I must baffle at the Hint
And cipher at the Sign
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clue divine

: emily dickinson, #1099; the complete poems of emily dickinson

sometimes/ david whyte

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.

: david whyte, ‘sometimes’; everything is waiting for you

small kindnesses/ danusha laméris

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat," "Go ahead—you first," "I like your hat."

: danusha laméris, ‘small kindnesses’ (translated by armando alcaraz); via poetryisnotaluxury

the fall/ russell edson

There was a man who found two leaves and came
indoors holding them out saying to his parents
that he was a tree.

To which they said then go into the yard and do
not grow in the living room as your roots may
ruin the carpet.

He said I was fooling I am not a tree and he
dropped his leaves.

But his parents said look it is fall.

: russell edson, ‘the fall’; what a man can see

rain/ raymond carver

Woke up this morning with
a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgiveable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

: raymond carver, ‘rain’; all of us: the collected poems

is my soul asleep?/ antonio machado

      Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that labor
at night stopped? And the water
wheel of thought,
it is dry, the cups empty,
wheeling, carrying only shadows?

     No my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its clear eyes open,
far-off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.

: antonio machado, ‘is my soul asleep?’ (tr. robert bly); times alone: selected poems of antonio machado

after the fire/ ada limón

You ever think you could cry so hard
that there'd be nothing left in you, like
how the wind shakes a tree in a storm
until every part of it is run through with
wind? I live in the low parts now, most
days a little hazy with fever and waiting
for the water to stop shivering out of the
body. Funny thing about grief, its hold
is so bright and determined like a flame,
like something almost worth living for.

: ada limon, ‘after the fire’; the carrying

praise the rain/ joy harjo

Praise the rain; the seagull dive

The curl of plant, the raven talk—

Praise the hurt, the house slack

The stand of trees, the dignity—

Praise the dark, the moon cradle

The sky fall, the bear sleep—

Praise the mist, the warrior name

The earth eclipse, the fired leap—

Praise the backwards, upward sky

The baby cry, the spirit food—

Praise canoe, the fish rush

The hole for frog, the upside-down

Praise the day, the cloud cup

The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.

Praise the path on which we're led.

Praise the roads on earth and water.

Praise the eater and the eaten.

Praise beginnings; praise the end.

Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

: joy harjo, ‘praise the rain’; conflict resolution for holy beings

declaration/ tracy k. smith

 He has

 

              sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people

 

He has plundered our—

 

                                           ravaged our—

 

                                                                         destroyed the lives of our—

 

taking away our­—

                                  abolishing our most valuable—

and altering fundamentally the Forms of our—

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for

Redress in the most humble terms:

 

                                                                Our repeated

Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

 

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration

and settlement here.

 

                                    —taken Captive

                                              

                                                                    on the high Seas

 

                                                                                                     to bear— 

: tracy k. smith, ‘declaration’; wade in the water

+ tracy k. smith leest dit gedicht voor in deze aflevering the new yorker poetry podcast: radical imagination: marilyn nelson, tracy k. smith, and terrance hayes on poetry in our times.