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
Abonneren op:
Posts (Atom)