Naomi Shihab Nye: "Missing the Boat"

It is not so much that the boat passed
and you failed to notice it.
It is more like the boat stopping
directly outside your bedroom window,
the captain blowing the signal-horn,
the band playing a rousing march.

The boat shouted, waving bright flags,
its silver hull blinding in the sunlight.

But you had this idea you were going by train.

You kept checking the time-table,
digging for tracks.

And the boat got tired of you,
so tired it pulled up the anchor
and raised the ramp.

The boat bobbed into the distance,
shrinking like a toy—
at which point you probably realized
you had always loved the sea.

"Missing the Boat" by Naomi Shihab Nye, from Different Ways to Pray: Poems. © Breitenbush Publications, 1980.

Art credit: "Cwch ar y Gorwel / Boat on Horizon," by Dylan Arnold (originally color). Note: The image has since been removed at the request of the artist.


 

Andrea Potos: "Praise Your Life"

When on a June morning heavy with rain,

you can taste the best cappuccino
this side of Rome, in a cafe
with scarred maplewood tables,
a book of Caravaggio splayed open:
The Calling of St. Matthew

that could be set in a tavern,

a gambling den, a dank office where

tax collectors are counting their day’s work,

while in the top right of the frame, a gold-

seared light slices in, and with it,

the figure of a god made man—

a bolt of radiance shoots through

his finger, pointed as if to say: You,

it is you, I have called to this life.

 


"Praise Your Life" by Andrea Potos, published online by Escape Into Life, November 6, 2013. © Andrea Potos.  

Art credit: "The Calling of Saint Matthew," oil on canvas, by Caravaggio, 1599-1600.

J. Patrick Lewis: "Make the Earth Your Companion"

             

Make the Earth your companion.                 

Walk lightly on it, as other creatures do.

Let the Sky paint her beauty—she is always watching over you.

Learn from the Sea how to face harsh forces.

Let the River remind you that everything will pass.

Let the Lake instruct you in stillness.

Let the Mountain teach you grandeur.

Make the Woodland your house of peace.

Make the Rainforest your house of hope.

Meet the Wetland on twilight ground.

Save some small piece of Grassland for a red kite on a windy day.

Watch the Icecaps glisten with crystal majesty.

Hear the Desert whisper hush to eternity.

Let the Town weave a small basket of togetherness.

Make the Earth your companion.

Walk lightly on it, as other creatures do.

"Make the Earth Your Companion" by J. Patrick Lewis, from National Geographic's Book of Animal Poetry: 200 Poems with Photographs that Squeak, Soar, and Roar! Edited by J. Patrick Lewis. © National Geographic Children's Books, 2012.  

Photography credit: "Walking on Water," by Mike Moruzi (originally color).

J. Allyn Rosser: "Then Too There Is This"

                               joy in the day's being done, however   

                               clumsily, and in the ticked-off lists,   

                               the packages nestling together,   

                               no one home waiting for dinner, for   

                               you, no one impatient for your touch   

                               or kind words to salve what nightly   

                               rises like heartburn, the ghost-lump feeling   

                               that one is really as alone as one had feared.   

                               One isn't, not really. Not really. Joy   

                               to see over the strip mall darkening   

                               right on schedule a neon-proof pink   

                               sunset flaring like the roof of a cat's mouth,   

                               cleanly ribbed, the clouds laddering up   

                               and lit as if by a match struck somewhere   

                               in the throat much deeper down.

"Then Too There Is This" by J. Allyn Rosser, from Poetry (March, 2004).

Photography credit: "Once Upon a Time," by Heidi Fry, © Heidi Fry/Spring Burst Photography (originally color).

 

Ruth Moose: "Laundry"

All our life
so much laundry;
each day’s doing or not
comes clean,
flows off and away
to blend with other sins
of this world. Each day
begins in new skin,
blessed by the elements
charged to take us
out again to do or undo
what’s been assigned.
From socks to shirts
the selves we shed
lift off the line
as if they own
a life apart
from the one we offer.
There is joy in clean laundry.
All is forgiven in water, sun
and air. We offer our day’s deeds
to the blue-eyed sky, with soap and prayer,
our arms up, then lowered in supplication.




"Laundry" by Ruth Moose, from Making the Bed. © Main Street Rag Press, 2004.

Art credit: "Doin' Laundry," oil painting by Mikki Senkarik (originally color).

Edward Field: "A Journey"

When he got up that morning everything was different:
He enjoyed the bright spring day,
But he did not realize it exactly, he just enjoyed it.

And walking down the street to the railroad station
Past magnolia trees with dying flowers like old socks—
It was a long time since he had breathed so simply.

Tears filled his eyes and it felt good,
But he held them back
Because men didn't walk around crying in that town.

And waiting on the platform at the station

The fear came over him of something terrible about to happen:
The train was late and he recited the alphabet to keep hold.

And in its time it came screeching in
And as it went on making its usual stops,
People coming and going, telephone poles passing,

He hid his head behind a newspaper
No longer able to hold back the sobs, and willed his eyes
To follow the rational weavings of the seat fabric.

He didn't do anything violent as he had imagined.
He cried for a long time, but when he finally quieted down
A place in him that had been closed like a fist was open,

And at the end of the ride he stood up and got off that train:

And through the streets and in all the places he lived in later on
He walked, himself at last, a man among men,

With such radiance that everyone looked up and wondered.

"A Journey" by Edward Field, from After the Fall: Poems Old and New. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007.  

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer (originally color).


 

Raymond Carver: "The Cobweb"

A few minutes ago, I stepped onto the deck
of the house. From there I could see and hear the water,
and everything that's happened to me all these years.
It was hot and still. The tide was out.
No birds sang. As I leaned against the railing
a cobweb touched my forehead.
It caught in my hair. No one can blame me that I turned
and went inside. There was no wind. The sea
was dead calm. I hung the cobweb from the lampshade.
Where I watch it shudder now and then when my breath
touches it. A fine thread. Intricate.
Before long, before anyone realizes,
I'll be gone from here.

"The Cobweb" by Raymond Carver, from Ultramarine. © Random House, 1986.

Art credit: "Spider web painting with spray paint," by witchee1014 (originally black and white).

 

William Carlos Williams: "To a Poor Old Woman"

munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand 

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand 

Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her

"To a Poor Old Woman" by William Carlos Williams, from Collected Poems: 1909-1939, Volume I. © New Directions Publishing, 1938.

Art credit: Detail from "Light Through Paper Bag with Plums," oil painting by Loren DiBenedetto (originally color).

Alice Walker: "Expect Nothing"

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress
Unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human giant
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But live frugally
on surprise.



"Expect Nothing" by Alice Walker, from Anything We Love Can Be Saved. © Ballantine Books, 1998.

Photography credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer (originally sepia).

 

Richard Vargas: "why i feed the birds"

once
i saw my grandmother hold out
her hand cupping a small offering
of seed to one of the wild sparrows
that frequented the bird bath she
filled with fresh water every day

she stood still
maybe stopped breathing
while the sparrow looked
at her, then the seed
then back as if he was
judging her character

he jumped into her hand
began to eat
she smiled

a woman holding
a small god

"why i feed the birds" by Richard Vargas, from Guernica, Revisited: Poems. © Press 53, 2014.

Photography credit: Untitled image by Jill Freedman (originally black and white).

 

Walt Whitman: "A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim"

A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,
Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious I halt and silent stand,
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first
          just lift the blanket;
Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair,
          and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you my dear comrade?
Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and darling?
Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?
Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of
          beautiful yellow-white ivory;
Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face
          of the Christ himself,
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.


"A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim" by Walt Whitman, from The Leaves of Grass: The Death-Bed Edition. © Digireads.com, 2008.  

Photography credit: "Aerial View of Arlington National Cemetery," by J. D. Leipold (originally color). Caption: "Shown in this aerial view is just a small section of Arlington National Cemetery's 624 acres."

Mary Oliver: "Heavy"

                              That time
                              I thought I could not
                              go any closer to grief
                              without dying

                              I went closer,
                              and I did not die.
                              Surely God
                              had His hand in this,

                              as well as friends.
                              Still, I was bent,
                              and my laughter,
                              as the poets said,

                              was nowhere to be found.
                              Then said my friend Daniel
                              (brave even among lions),
                              “It’s not the weight you carry

                              but how you carry it—
                              books, bricks, grief—
                              it’s all in the way
                              you embrace it, balance it, carry it

                              when you cannot, and would not,
                              put it down.”
                              So I went practicing.
                              Have you noticed?

                              Have you heard
                              the laughter
                              that comes, now and again,
                              out of my startled mouth?

                              How I linger
                              to admire, admire, admire
                              the things of this world
                              that are kind, and maybe

                              also troubled—
                              roses in the wind,
                              the sea geese on the steep waves,
                              a love
                              to which there is no reply?


"Heavy" by Mary Oliver, from Thirst: Poems. © Beacon Press, 2007.

Photography credit: "Typical Vietnamese figure on Mui Ne dunes. Mui Ne, Vietnam," by QY Luong. © 2012 QT Luong/Terragalleria.com.

Curator's Note: I'm Off, Poetry's Still On

I'll be taking a wee break for a week or so. In my absence a volunteer will be managing the daily poems across all Year of Being Here platforms. (Thanks much, RW!) I know that you'll all be patient and kind as RW learns the ropes. Be well! Back with you soon!

Deep peace,
PCD

Denise Levertov: "About Marriage"

Don’t lock me in wedlock, I want
marriage, an
encounter—
 
I told you about the
green light of
May
 
        (a veil of quiet befallen
        the downtown park,
        late
 
        Saturday after
        noon, long
        shadows and cool
 
        air, scent of
        new grass,
        fresh leaves,
 
        blossom on the threshold of
        abundance—
 
        and the birds I met there,
        birds of passage breaking their journey,
        three birds each of a different species:
 
        the azalea-breasted with round poll, dark,
        the brindled, merry, mousegliding one,
        and the smallest, golden as gorse and wearing
        a black Venetian mask
 
        and with them the three douce hen-birds
        feathered in tender, lively brown—
 
        I stood
        a half-hour under the enchantment,
        no-one passed near,
        the birds saw me and
 
        let me be
        near them.)
 
It’s not
irrelevant:
I would be
met
 
and meet you
so,
in a green
 
airy space, not 
locked in.

"About Marriage" by Denise Levertov, from Selected Poems. © New Directions, 2003.

Image credit: "Green," by unknown artist.

Sarah Salway: "You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book"

Just get up from your desk
and open the window,
keep silent until you hear three
sounds you've never heard before,
run your tongue around your mouth,
smell the air.
I tell you what, put down this book
and do this one thing now:
let your hands drift out and touch,
then drift again;
run your fingers
over rough wood, then let them fall
against your own soft skin. I met a woman once
who told me to touch her jumper,
Expensive, she said. It bobbled
under my hand so she told me
I wasn't feeling it right,
and for too long I believed her
because she said quality spoke.
I didn't see how beautiful
the world is
with its only wish
that I belong,
and how my touch,
my smell, hearing, sight,
so different from hers
is the only one that matters.

"You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book" by Sarah Salway, from You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book. © Pindrop Press, 2012.

Photography credit: "Touching Cloth," by Jimmy Magnetic (originally black and white).

Touching Cloth by Jimmy Magnetic

Touching Cloth by Jimmy Magnetic

Jane Hirshfield: "My Weather"

Wakeful, sleepy, hungry, anxious,
restless, stunned, relieved.

Does a tree also?
A mountain?

A cup holds
sugar, flour, three large rabbit-breaths of air.

I hold these.

"My Weather" by Jane Hirshfield. Published in Poetry, September 2012. © Jane Hirshfield.

Image credit: "Molecules of Emotion," painting by Jolanta Anna Karolska (originally color).

Charlie Ritch: "The Importance of Symmetry"

                                      Standing across from you,

                                      our eyes meet in perfect alignment.

                                      Matching height and no slanting angle,

                                      pupil to pupil, iris to iris.

                                      You see to my soul, I to yours.

                                      How is it we came to stand

                                      with such perfect symmetry?

                                      How is it the space between us

                                      contains a chasm so deep?

"The Importance of Symmetry" by Charlie Ritch. Published in Birmingham Arts Journal, Vol. 10, Issue 4 (2014). © Charlie Ritch.

Photography credit: Untitled image by Reuters/Jaime Saldarriaga. "A close-up photo taken on March 23, 2011, shows the eyes of a chimpanzee at the Villa Lorena animal refuge center in Cali, Colombia" (originally color).

 

James Broughton: "Not dawdling"

                                                   Not dawdling

                                                   not doubting

                                                   intrepid all the way

                                                   walk toward clarity

                                                   with sharp eye

                                                   With sharpened sword

                                                   clearcut the path

                                                   to the lucent surprise

                                                   of enlightenment

                                                   At every crossroad

                                                   be prepared to bump into wonder

"Not dawdling" by James Broughton, as presented online by Poetry Chaikhana, May 13, 2011. From Little Sermons of the Big Joy: Poems. © Insight to Riot Press, 1994.  

Photography credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer (originally color).

 

William Kloefkorn: "My Love for All Things Warm and Breathing"

I have seldom loved more than one thing at a time,
yet this morning I feel myself expanding, each
part of me soft and glandular, and under my skin
is room enough now for the loving of many things,
and all of them at once, these students especially,
not only the girl in the yellow sweater, whose
name, Laura Buxton, is somehow the girl herself,
Laura for the coy green mellowing eyes, Buxton
for all the rest, but also the simple girl in blue
on the back row, her mouth sad beyond all reasonable
inducements, and the boy with the weight problem,
his teeth at work even now on his lower lip, and
the grand profusion of hair and nails and hands and
legs and tongues and thighs and fingertips and
wrists and throats, yes, of throats especially,
throats through which passes the breath that joins
the air that enters through these ancient windows,
that exits, that takes with it my own breath, inside
this room just now my love for all things warm and
breathing, that lifts it high to scatter it fine and
enormous into the trees and the grass, into the heat
beneath the earth beneath the stone, into the
boundless lust of all things bound but gathering.

"My Love For All Things Warm and Breathing" by William Kloefkorn, from Cottonwood County: Poems by William Kloefkorn and Ted Kooser. © Windflower Press, 1979.

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer, attributed to Getty Images (originally color).

 

Mark Doty: "Golden Retrievals"

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,

or else you’re off in some fog concerning
—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.

"Golden Retrievals" by Mark Doty, from Sweet Machine: Poems. © HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.

Photography credit: "Golden Retriever Fetching Stick on Muddy Dirt Path," by Johan & Santina De Meester (originally color).