Monday, September 30, 2019
SLOW CROW
Slow crow
in winter.
We want
so much
to want
nothing,
and you've
already
got it.
Sweet the
darkness
in your joy.
Sweet, too,
the light
in your loss.
Sunday, September 29, 2019
EVENING
Saturday, September 28, 2019
THE NIGHT SKY
The night sky
you see
never existed.
The light of
stars just
reaching us
is of many
different
ages, none of
them exactly
the same.
We are seeing
time as time
is, as
all time in
this moment,
some time
as old as
the Big Bang,
and some
are younger
wonders. What
we see
tomorrow,
who knows, but
what we
won't see now
is Before and
we won't
see After.
In some cases
we won't
know which stars
are gone until
after
we ourselves
are gone.
Friday, September 27, 2019
IN THE DREAM
In the dream
every rock
is the stone
of God; and
I do not
know what is
in the stone's
heart; and God
does not speak.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
HOW THE POEM
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
OLD MAN
Old man
with nothing
to say says
it with silence.
What he knows
cannot be
spoken. What
he promises
cannot be
kept. Every
day is like
this, a white
bird in the sun.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
WHERE THE MOUNTAINS
Monday, September 23, 2019
SEPTEMBER: EQUINOX
9-23-19
Branches
and grasses
in wind
and leaves
falling,
the coneflowers
shaking.
Is it
motion
we notice,
or the way
this autumn
light lays on
everything?
Branches
and grasses
in wind
and leaves
falling,
the coneflowers
shaking.
Is it
motion
we notice,
or the way
this autumn
light lays on
everything?
EVERYWHERE
Everywhere
the wind telling
the cottonwoods
what to do,
the cottonwoods
discussing it
at some length.
No one wants
to go first.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
YOU SAY
You say
what cannot
be said
in the space
between.
Leave room
for silence, for
the surprise
that comes in
emptiness.
Saturday, September 21, 2019
THE OLD MAN
Friday, September 20, 2019
PANSIES: AN APPRECIATION
Carol Barrett, PANSIES: VIGNETTES (Sonder Press, New York, 2018 : www.thesonderpress.com )
She calls them "vignettes." They could also be "prose-poems," if we knew what the prose-poem is. This is a story told in little scenes, about a 15-year-old care-giver for the narrator's daughter. Abigail is one of the "plain folks" (Apostolics) who "live in my town." You think it is story about that girl.
Instead, it may be a story about the narrator's own journey, from calling the girl Abigail to calling her Abby, from some unspoken prejudice against the plain folks with religious belief different from her own to a kind of understanding which transcends religion, which transcends difference.
Why "pansies?"
"Pansies are a persistent breed. They take to the same soil, year after year. You rarely find an aberration, a cast-off, a hybrid wild with defiance. They never crowd each other for the light. When night comes, those velvet hearts prepared to propagate."
No one says the flower is a metaphor for anything else, but you know it is.
The narrator is surprised that Abigail didn't know how to make soup from a can. "It took some time to figure out how this girl-child could escape such a simple task: Abigail only makes soup from scratch." Plain folks. Pansies.
"All these years my father has drummed the difference between lay and lie," the narrator tells us. "As for Abigail -- she has won me over. I side with her, deciding 'it don't matter.' "
By the end, "Abbie is beaming. She is getting married." And, soon enough, "Abbie and her mother are both pregnant.... They are Mary and Elizabeth. They are mother and child, 'with child, with child.' "
Why pansies?"
"The French call the flower 'pensee,' meaning thought." And the thought is kindness. And the flower grows on both sides of the fence between us, whatever our differences.
There is sweetness in these "vignettes," light, comfort. As lovely as pansies moving in the wind. I come away thinking: kindness, my friends. You will too.
She calls them "vignettes." They could also be "prose-poems," if we knew what the prose-poem is. This is a story told in little scenes, about a 15-year-old care-giver for the narrator's daughter. Abigail is one of the "plain folks" (Apostolics) who "live in my town." You think it is story about that girl.
Instead, it may be a story about the narrator's own journey, from calling the girl Abigail to calling her Abby, from some unspoken prejudice against the plain folks with religious belief different from her own to a kind of understanding which transcends religion, which transcends difference.
Why "pansies?"
"Pansies are a persistent breed. They take to the same soil, year after year. You rarely find an aberration, a cast-off, a hybrid wild with defiance. They never crowd each other for the light. When night comes, those velvet hearts prepared to propagate."
No one says the flower is a metaphor for anything else, but you know it is.
The narrator is surprised that Abigail didn't know how to make soup from a can. "It took some time to figure out how this girl-child could escape such a simple task: Abigail only makes soup from scratch." Plain folks. Pansies.
"All these years my father has drummed the difference between lay and lie," the narrator tells us. "As for Abigail -- she has won me over. I side with her, deciding 'it don't matter.' "
By the end, "Abbie is beaming. She is getting married." And, soon enough, "Abbie and her mother are both pregnant.... They are Mary and Elizabeth. They are mother and child, 'with child, with child.' "
Why pansies?"
"The French call the flower 'pensee,' meaning thought." And the thought is kindness. And the flower grows on both sides of the fence between us, whatever our differences.
There is sweetness in these "vignettes," light, comfort. As lovely as pansies moving in the wind. I come away thinking: kindness, my friends. You will too.
THE RAIN
The rain
a blue
grace. Then
the green
sing
of things.
Heaven is
the moment
you have now
and how
you hold it.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
EVEN THE QUIET
Even the quiet
birds break
the morning.
The blue sky
does not resist.
Desire is not
the patient thing
hope is.
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
IT IS
It is
the smallest
yellow bird,
the shyest
grasses
which save us.
Do not
wait for God.
We have
all we need
this moment.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
SOLITUDE
Solitude is a stern task-
master. Let loose morning and hold
this moment only, in its
hard light. Do not hope for more than
a shush of wind, the sound of your
last breath. You are alone when you're
born, and when you die, and now, this
is to remind you how far
you've come, how far you still must go.
Monday, September 16, 2019
GRASSES
Sunday, September 15, 2019
SEEING
See how he keeps
pointing at things,
they say.
See how things
keep pointing back,
he responds.
It is not
enough to see,
he says.
We must also
be seen
to understand.
Saturday, September 14, 2019
NOT THE IDEA
Not the idea
of plums
but actual plums
in the sun,
in the icebox,
in the mouth,
in their promise,
as if they could
be as sweet as
your lover's breasts.
Friday, September 13, 2019
HOLY FRENZY
If it is
holy frenzy
you seek
watch the hawk.
Silent, motion-
less, alone
in sun and wind,
shadow and
not shadow.
Its patience. Not
this moment.
Not this
moment. This
moment. Strike.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
SEEING
We have learned
to see across
or through, beyond,
not into.
Not the flower
but the arrangement;
not the grasses
but the horizon;
not the stars
but the far darkness.
Mother Hawk
would counsel
patience, to sit
like a broken branch
in the naked tree
and wait. And wait.
What you see
will approach
in silence.
She says, Wait.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
SHADOW
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
A SMALL SPRING
A small spring
burbles its
water
into the world.
We do not
know where that
water
comes from.
It comes.
We do not
know where that
water
will go.
It goes. It is
water.
It does not
need us to
know.
Monday, September 09, 2019
THE PATH
Between the mountain locust
and the bird-feeder
the squirrels have marked
their path to heaven.
You can see, almost,
the angels.
Sunday, September 08, 2019
PATIENCE
Patience is
still waiting.
The day
has carried
its sunset
with it.
Red-winged
blackbirds call
the wind up.
From here
you can see
the end, if
it's an end
you want.
Saturday, September 07, 2019
JULY MORNING
Monday, September 02, 2019
SILENCE
Sunday, September 01, 2019
ROADSIDE
Brightness
of the day-
lilies
where hope
once lived.
An orange
cast to
emptiness,
and silence
rides the
wind away.
