Muriel Rukeyser: "Poem"

I lived in the first century of world wars.

Most mornings I would be more or less insane.

The news would pour out of various devices

The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,

Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.

I would call my friends on other devices;

They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

Slowly I would get to pen and paper,

Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.

In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,

Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,

Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.

As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,

We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,

To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile

Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,

Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means

To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,

To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.

"Poem" by Muriel Rukeyser, from The Speed of Darkness: Poems (Random House, 1968). Text as published online by the Poetry Foundation. 

Curator's note: This poem is offered in observance of Veterans Day in the United States. 

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Muriel Rukeyser: "Islands"

                                          O for God’s sake
                                          they are connected
                                          underneath

                                          They look at each other
                                          across the glittering sea
                                          some keep a low profile

                                          Some are cliffs
                                          The Bathers think
                                          islands are separate like them



"Islands" by Muriel Rukeyser, from The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser, edited by Janet Kaufman and Anne Herzog. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006.  

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer (originally color). Presented with this quote from William James: "We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep."

Muriel Rukeyser: "Poem White Page White Page Poem"

Poem      white page      white page      poem
something is streaming out of a body in waves
something is beginning from the fingertips
they are starting to declare for my whole life
all the despair and the making music
something like wave after wave
that breaks on a beach
something like bringing the entire life
to this moment
the small waves bringing themselves to white paper
something like light stands up and is alive

"Poem White Page White Page Poem" by Muriel Rukeyser, from A Muriel Rukeyser Reader, edited by Jan Heller Levi. © W. W. Norton & Company, 1995.  

Image credit: "Writing My Heart Out," acrylic on canvas, by Gladiola Sotomayor (originally color).


 

Muriel Rukeyser: "A Little Stone in the Middle of the Road, in Florida"

My son as a child saying
God
Is anything, even a little stone in the middle of the road, in
    Florida.
Yesterday
Nancy, my friend, after long illness:
You know what can lift me up, take me right out of despair?
No, what?
Anything.



"A Little Stone in the Middle of the Road, in Florida" by Muriel Rukeyser, from Out of Silence: Selected Poems. © Northwestern University Press, 1994.

Photograph: "Single Pebble on Sandy Beach," by Marie-Louise Avery (originally color).