The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

One Great Thing

There's only one great thing

And that one great thing

Is just to live

To open our eyes

To the great light of dawn

Moving across the land

And the beginning of the day

-Inuit saying, per the creators of
"Return to Noatak"

Time

Time is the substance from which I am made. 

Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; 

it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; 

it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.


- Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

Happiness

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
                  It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

—Jane Kenyon

The Risk

One runs the risk
of weeping a
little

if one lets
oneself be
tamed.

--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince
(arranged quote)

The Cure

The cure for 
anything 

is salt water: 

sweat, 

tears 

or the sea.

 - Isak Dinesen

Working Together

We shape our self
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause,

to produce
the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

passed at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,
and look for the true

shape of our own self,
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.

- David Whyte

A Wreath to the Fish

Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth,
flat on my drainboard, dead asleep,
its suit of mail proof only against the stream?
What is it to live in a stream,
to dwell forever in a tunnel of cold,
never to leave your shining birthsuit,
never to spend your inheritance of thin coins?
And who is the stream, who lolls all day
in an unmade bed, living on nothing but weather,
singing, a little mad in the head,
opening her apron to shells, carcasses, crabs,
eyeglasses, the lines of fisherman begging for
news from the interior-oh, who are these lines
that link a big sky to a small stream
that go down for great things:
the cold muscle of the trout,
the shinning scrawl of the eel in a difficult passage,
hooked-but who is this hook, this cunning
and faithful fanatic who will not let go
but holds the false bait and the true worm alike
and tears the fish, yet gives it up to the basket
in which it will ride to the kitchen
of someone important, perhaps the Pope
who rejoices that his cook has found such a fish
and blesses it and eats it and rises, saying,
"Children, what is it to live in the stream,
day after day, and come at last to the table,
transfigured with spices and herbs,
a little martyr, a little miracle;
children, children, who is this fish?"

—Nancy Willard

A Momentary Creed

I believe in the ordinary day
that is here at this moment and is me

I do not see it going its own way
but I never saw how it came to me

it extends beyond whatever I may
think I know and all that is real to me

it is the present that it bears away
where has it gone when it has gone from me

there is no place I know outside today
except for the unknown all around me

the only presence that appears to stay 
everything that I call mine it lent me

even the way that I believe the day
for as long as it is here and is me

— W.S. Merwin 
from his Pulitzer-Prize winning book 
The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon Press, 2008)

Machines

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.

—Michael Donaghy

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- W.B. Yeats (1919)

A Good Love

They say 
a good love 
is one that sits you down,

gives you a drink of water, and
pats you on top of the head.

But I say 
a good love
is one that casts you into the wind,
sets you ablaze,
makes you burn through the skies
and ignite the night
like a phoenix;

the kind that cuts you loose like a wildfire
and you can't stop running simply because
you keep on burning everything 
that you touch!

I say
that's a good love; 
one that burns and flies, 
and you run with it!

― C. JoyBell C.
(arranged quote)

Sacred Rite of America

American life is
based on a reassurance

that we like one another
but
won’t violate one another’s

privacies.

This makes it a
land of
small
talk.

Two people greet each other
happily, with friendliness,

but might know each other
for years before
venturing
basic questions about
each other’s
backgrounds.

In the East, there's
intimacy
without friendship;

in the West, there's
friendship
without intimacy.

Why is it so many Americans
so value friendliness
with commerce?

Perhaps the exchanging of cash is the
sacred rite
of American capitalism -
of American life.

As a newly minted American,
I feel oddly depressed on a day
when I don't spend money,

for it is my main form of
social interaction -

as it is for millions of other Americans
who live alone, or away
from family.

- Karan Mahajan
  [arranged quote]

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious
to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter, for always
there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

- Max Ehrmann, 1927

Be Kind

Not merely because Henry James said
there were but four rules of life—
be kind be kind be kind be kind—but
because it’s good for the soul, and,
what’s more, for others; it may be
that kindness is our best audition
for a worthier world, and, despite
the vagueness and uncertainty of
its recompense, a bird may yet wander
into a bush before our very houses,
gratitude may not manifest itself in deeds
entirely equal to our own, still there’s
weather arriving from every direction,
the feasts of famine and feasts of plenty
may yet prove to be one, so why not
allow the little sacrificial squinches and
squigulas to prevail? Why not inundate
the particular world with minute particulars?
Dust’s certainly all our fate, so why not
make it the happiest possible dust,
a detritus of blessedness? Surely
the hedgehog, furling and unfurling
into its spiked little ball, knows something
that, with gentle touch and unthreatening
tone, can inure to our benefit, surely the wicked
witches of our childhood have died and,
from where they are buried, a great kindness
has eclipsed their misdeeds. Yes, of course,
in the end so much comes down to privilege
and its various penumbras, but too much
of our unruly animus has already been
wasted on reprisals, too much of the
unblessed air is filled with smoke from
undignified fires. Oh friends, take
whatever kindness you can find
and be profligate in its expenditure:
It will not drain your limited resources,
I assure you, it will not leave you vulnerable
and unfurled, with only your sweet little claws
to defend yourselves, and your wet little noses,
and your eyes to the ground, and your little feet.

- Michael Blumenthal
(from No Hurry. © Etruscan Press, 2012)

Blessing the Boats

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

-- Lucille Clifton, 1936 - 2010

A New Poet

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.

—Linda Pastan

Farewell Robert Pirsig

The truth knocks on the door 
and you say, 

“Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” 

and so it goes away. 
Puzzling.

 – Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Chapter 1

The only Zen you 
find 
on the tops of 
mountains 

is the Zen you 
bring 
up there.

 – Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Chapter 20

Running

In the beginning

yes, death
or pausing
is a question.

Now
each step
tells
of the work I've 
done
or
work I need to 
do.

Of course,
the action itself,
repetitive,

is both
liberating and
cleansing.

- Daniel Nelson
(arranged quote)

Midnight in Early Spring

At one moment a few old leaves come in
frightened
and lie down together and stop moving
the nights now go in threes
as in a time of danger
the flies
sleep like sentries on the darkened panes

some alien blessing
is on its way to us
some prayer ignored for centuries
is about to be granted to the prayerless
in this place

who were you
cold voice born in captivity
rising
last martyr of hope
last word of a language
last son
other half of grief
who were you

so that we may know why
when the streams
wake tomorrow and we are free

- W.S. Merwin

Corpus and Cosmos

Wandering 

re-establishes 

the original harmony 

which once existed 

between 

man and the universe.

- Anatole France

The Heart of Solitude

When you inhabit

your solitude

fully

you will find that at its heart

there is neither

loneliness

nor emptiness

but intimacy

and

shelter.

There is a lantern

in the soul,

which makes your solitude

luminous.

- John O’Donohue

(arranged quote)

A Shadow of a Nest

The Human Cannon Ball climbs down into
      the barrel of the cannon, safe in the tube’s
darkness, waiting, like me, for the film to punch
      him up the metal shaft and into the canvas

air, down-tent, to the inflated landing bag.
      I’m holding my breath because a pair
of purple finches have nested in the exploding
      fuschia next to the door and are gun-shy

when anyone comes or goes, so their young
      are fed more on my family’s comings and
goings than their own hunger. Mother
      flits from the willow to the box elder,

waiting for evening, for a lull long enough
      to poke a seed into a new throat. So I
ask everyone to use the back door which is
      easy to forget to do and not to scent the nest

with our kind, out of curiosity or the wish
      to kiss a berry into one of the four blind
gaping mouths. Father, rosy and raspberry,
      not purple, stays on a near branch, as if

standing on a spring, waiting to see if I will
      have the courage to breathe, when the Human
Cannon Ball is launched into the air
      and turns himself like a maple leaf, a snow

goose feathering into a corn field, toward
      the arms of the audience, which can never
take the place of the pink blown-up plastic
      bag that will save him a few frames and words

from now – if I can stand here, still as a shadow
      of a nest, breathing like the wind that flies
through the weedy branches of the box elder,
      here, empty as the air that needs to take him up.

—Gary Margolis

The Devil is in the Details

Books being written

Are strewn with pitfalls

For those who write them

A tendency to sermonize

A veering into allegory

A lack of plausibility.

If one creates an imaginary garden,

The toads in it should be real.

Only tell of events which have already happened

In Joyce's "nightmare" of history

Only describe technology

Already available.

No made-up gizmos

No made-up laws

No made-up atrocities.

God is in the details,

They say.

So is the

Devil.

Margaret Atwood

(arranged quote,

derived from her NYT article,

on "What the Handmaids Tale Means")

Let This Darkness Be A Bell Tower

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

- Rainer Maria Rilke
Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
(translation by Joanna Macy + Anita Barrows)

Nature Teaches Us How to Be

The scenery, when it is 

truly seen, reacts on the life 
of the seer, 

how to live, 

how to get the most 

of life, 

how to extract its honey 
from the 

flower of the world.  

Nature spontaneously keeps us well. 

Do not resist her!

~ Henry David Thoreau
(arranged quote)

New Eyes

One's destination
is never a
place,

but a new way
of seeing
things.

- Henry Miller
(arranged quote)

A Birthday Poem

Just past dawn, the sun stands
with its heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come
with his bucket
for the foamy white light,
and then a long day in the pasture.
I too spend my days grazing,
feasting on every green moment
till darkness calls,
and with the others
I walk away into the night,
swinging the little tin bell
of my name.

—Ted Kooser

Back in Business

Prediction was for silence until the twelfth month of 2016. 

Proving to be as accurate as most forecasts, that length stretched out nearly three more months. 

Yet, the rains DO come, even if it seems as if they've been absent ever since one can remember. 

Given that today is a celebratory date for this Poetastic Presence, then a sampling entitled "A Birthday Poem" seems most appropriate. 

Without further expanding on these predictions of precipitation, let's rejoin the streams of poetry.