Rita Dove: "Flirtation"

After all, there’s no need
to say anything

at first. An orange, peeled
and quartered, flares

like a tulip on a wedgwood plate.
Anything can happen.

Outside the sun
has rolled up her rugs

and night strewn salt
across the sky. My heart

is humming a tune
I haven’t heard in years!

Quiet’s cool flesh—
let’s sniff and eat it.

There are ways
to make of the moment

a topiary
so the pleasure’s in

walking through.

"Flirtation" by Rita Dove, from Museum. © Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1983.

Image credit: "Moonlight Topiary," by Peter Bond (originally color).


 

Jared Carter: "Geodes"

They are useless, there is nothing
to be done with them, no reason, only

the finding: letting myself down holding
to ironwood and the dry bristle of roots

into the creekbed, into clear water shelved
below the outcroppings, where crawdads spurt

through silt; clawing them out of clay, scrubbing
away the sand, setting them in a shaft of light

to dry. Sweat clings in the cliff's downdraft.
I take each one up like a safecracker listening

for the lapse within, the moment crystal turns
on crystal. It is all waiting there in darkness.

I want to know only that things gather themselves
with great patience, that they do this forever.

"Geodes" by Jared Carter, from Work, for the Night Is Coming. © Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1995.

Photography credit: "Amethyst Landscape," by Jenwytch (originally color).


 

Juhan Liiv: "Leaves Fell"

A gust roused the waves,
leaves blew into the water,
the waves were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.

It was good for my heart:
there my feelings were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.

The breath of wind brought cooler air,
the waves of mourning brought separation:
autumn and autumn
befriend each other.



"Leaves Fell" by Juhan Liiv, translated from the Estonian by H. L. Hix and Jüri Talvet. Published in Poetry (June 2011).

Photography credit: "Leaves Floating on the Waves," still from video clip by Bote1973 (originally color).


 

Miriam Pederson: "What Is Our Deepest Desire?"

To be held this way in our mother’s arms,
to be nestled deep in the warmth
of her body, her gaze,
to be adored, to overwhelm her
with our sweetness.
This is what we seek in chocolate,
in the food and drink and drugs
that stun the senses, that fill the veins
with the rich cream of well being.
What we take for lust—can it be, perhaps,
a heavy pang of longing to be swaddled,
close, close to the heartbeat of our mother?
No bucket seats, Jaccuzi, or even a lover’s embrace
can duplicate this luxuriance,
this centered place on the roiling planet.

When the old woman, small and light,
can be carried in the arms of her son,
he, at first, holds her tentatively,
a foreign doll,
but gradually, as the pool loses its ripples,
he sees his face in hers
and draws her to him,
rocking to the rhythm of her breathing.
This is the way to enter and leave the world.

"What Is Our Deepest Desire?" by Miriam Pederson, from New Poems from the Third Coast: Contemporary Michigan Poetry, edited by Conrad Hilberry, Josie Kearns, Michael Delp and Donald Hall. © Wayne State University Press, 2000.

Image credit: "Saigonese mother," oil on canvas, by Pham Viet Song, 1969 (originally color).

Robert Frost: "October"

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

"October" by Robert Frost. Published online at this link.

Photography credit: "one autumn leaf hanging on," by Leo Reynolds (originally color).

Yehuda Amichai: "The Place Where We Are Right"

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.

"The Place Where We Are Right" by Yehuda Amichai, from The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, edited and translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. © University of California Press, 1996.

Image credits: Author photograph: © Dan Porges. Artwork: "Plowed Fields 1," reduction linocut, by Dave Leeper (originally color).


 

Kitlinermiut Song: ["And I Think Over Again"]

And I think over again
My small adventures
When from a shore wind I drifted out
In my kayak
And I thought I was in danger.

My fears,
Those small ones
That I thought so big,
For all the vital things
I had to get and to reach.

And yet, there is only
One great thing,
The only thing.
To live and see in huts and on journeys
The great day that dawns,
And the light that fills the world.

["And I Think Over Again"], a Ktlinermiut (Copper Eskimo) song, attributed to The Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921-1924, as quoted here.

Photography credit: "Arctic Sunrise," by Tiger-I (originally color).


 

Anna Swir: "Priceless Gifts"

An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.

I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.

"Priceless Gifts" by Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska), from Talking to My Body, translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan. © Copper Canyon Press, 1996.

Image credit: "Plenty of Emptiness," oil on canvas, by Horacio Cardozo.

Ellen Bass: "The World Has Need of You"

everything here seems to need us…
—Rilke

I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs? The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple as well.

"The World Has Need of You" by Ellen Bass. Published in American Poetry Review (March/April 2011).  

Photography credit: "Walking Toward the Lighthouse / Camminando verso il Faro," by Claudia Dal Ceredo, 2006 (originally black and white).

Wendell Berry: "October 10"

Now constantly there is the sound,

quieter than rain,
of the leaves falling.

Under their loosening bright
gold, the sycamore limbs
bleach whiter.

Now the only flowers
are beeweed and aster, spray
of their white and lavender
over the brown leaves.

The calling of a crow sounds
loud—a landmark—now
that the life of summer falls
silent, and the nights grow.




"October 10" by Wendell Berry, Collected Poems, 1957-1982. © North Point Press, 1987.

Image credit: "Falling Leaves," oil on canvas, by Julia Swartz (originally color).


 

Edwin Romond: "In Asbury Park, NJ"

It is the end
of my first day
without a cigarette
and I’ve come here
to breathe
the ocean air, feel

my lungs fill with life
instead of smoke and,
at Asbury Park,
swear to myself
I will never again
inhale what subtracts
even one future chance
to walk this beach,
see these waves,
and feel my heart beat
to the music
of this boardwalk
carousel turning
like the earth
where tonight
I live.

"In Asbury Park, NJ" by Edwin Romond. © Edwin Romond.

Photography credit: "Beautiful Asbury Park Boardwalk," by Daniel Beard (originally black and white).

Beautiful Asbury Park Boardwalk

Beautiful Asbury Park Boardwalk

Lal Ded: Untitled ["I Was Passionate"]

I was passionate,
filled with longing,
I searched
far and wide.

But the day
that the Truthful One
found me,
I was at home.

Untitled ["I Was Passionate"] by Lal Ded, translated by Jane Hirshfield, from Women in Praise of the Sacred. © HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.

Photography credit: "Worn Blue Tennis Shoes Outside Door," by jpainting (originally color).


 

Malena Mörling: "Gone"

          The world
is gone
      like the exact
shape of a cloud
          or the exact shape

of a hand waving
      in the sunlight
from across
          a crowded
train-station
      parking-lot
to another hand
          that waves back.

Come to think of it,
      everything up to now
is gone.
          And I have also
already left
      even though
I still ride
          the train
through the outskirts
      of the city.

And I still sit
          by the window,
the filthy
      train-window
while what is left
          of the demolished
buildings
      go past
and the empty
          billboards
and the transitory
      architecture.

It's amazing
          we're not
more amazed.
      The world
is here
          but then it's gone
like a wave
      traveling toward
other waves.

          Or like
the delicate white
      spaceships
of the Dogwood
          that float
as if there were
      no gravity,
as if there were
          no moments
isolated from
      any other
moments
          anywhere.

"Gone" by Malena Mörling, from Astoria: Poems. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006.

Photography credit: Detail from "Left-behind children say goodbye to their migrant-working parents," by Xinhua/Ju Huanzong, 2010 (originally color).


 

Czeslaw Milosz: "This Only"

A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map leads him there.
Or perhaps memory. Once long ago in the sun,
When snow first fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,
Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast in motion.
He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

  

"This Only" by Czeslaw Milosz, from The Collected Poems, 1931-1987, translated by Robert Hass. © Ecco Press, 1988.

Photography credit: "Horse and Rider Riding Off," by Joe Boyle (originally black and white).

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: "# 46"

And every poem and every picture
                       a sensation in the eye and heart
Something that jolts you awake
                from the rapt sleep of living
        in a flash of pure epiphany
                     where all stands still
                                  in a diamond light
        transfixed
                      revealed
                                  for what it truly is
                                                           in all its mystery
So a bird is an animal
                       flown into a tree
                                            singing inscrutable melodies
As a lover stands transparent
              Screened against the sun
                            Smiling darkly in the blinding light

"# 46" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems. © New Directions, 1968.

Image credit: "Radiance," acrylic on canvas, by Simon Cook (originally color).


 

Sidney Hall, Jr.: "Something about the Wind"

There's something about the wind coming off
the ocean, the waves washing the rocks

that makes a person who is quickly annoyed
by cigarette smoke and men
putting nails into roofs

forgetful and unconcerned.

If you are easily disturbed
you need to get an ocean.

"Something about the Wind" by Sidney Hall, Jr., from Fumbling in the Light. © Hobblebush Books, 2008.

Photography credit: "Wave Crashing Against Rocks," by Aaron Feinberg (originally color).


 

Barbara Crooker: "All That Is Glorious Around Us"

is not, for me, these grand vistas, sublime peaks, mist-filled
overlooks, towering clouds, but doing errands on a day
of driving rain, staying dry inside the silver skin of the car,
160,000 miles, still running just fine. Or later,
sitting in a café warmed by the steam
from white chicken chili, two cups of dark coffee,
watching the red and gold leaves race down the street,
confetti from autumn's bright parade. And I think
of how my mother struggles to breathe, how few good days
she has now, how we never think about the glories
of breath, oxygen cascading down our throats to the lungs,
simple as the journey of water over a rock. It is the nature
of stone / to be satisfied / writes Mary Oliver, It is the nature
of water / to want to be somewhere else, rushing down
a rocky tor or high escarpment, the panoramic landscape
boundless behind it. But everything glorious is around
us already: black and blue graffiti shining in the rain's
bright glaze, the small rainbows of oil on the pavement,
where the last car to park has left its mark on the glistening
street, this radiant world.



"All That Is Glorious Around Us" by Barbara Crooker, from Radiance. © Word Press, 2005.

Photography credit: "Wet Graffiti," by Todd Tripp © 2009 (originally color).

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).


 

William Slaughter: "Laozi in Indiana"

Whatever it is
presents itself
to you,
accept it.
Beneficence
is at work
in the universe.
Live with it
awhile.
It has much
to teach you.
Patience
is its first
and second virtue.
Do not
spend yourself
carelessly.
It requires
nothing of you.
Be glad.
Patience
is its third
and last virtue.

"Laozi in Indiana" by William Slaughter, from The Politics of My Heart. © Pleasure Boat Studio, 1996. (Published elsewhere as "Lao-tse in Indiana.")

Image credit: "Gone Fishing," oil, by Donald Zolan (originally color).

Curator's Note: My Bowl Is Not My Bowl

I want to publicly thank artist Lynda Lowe for recognizing A Year of Being Here through her beautiful Patra Passage project. I can't wait to see the bowl with which you have gifted me, which I will then be able to pass on, when the moment seems right.

According to its website, Patra Passage is

an art-based experiment in the ongoing act of giving and receiving. The word patra refers to the name of alms bowls that monks carry in various cultures and translates as the vessel that never goes empty. Whatever is received in the bowl is enough for the day, a reminder of the offerings of the present moment....
The Passage centers on the gifting of 108 hand-built ceramic vessels to participants who will re-gift them to others. The giftism cycle will continue for one year until each bowl has been presented and received at least three times, creating a community of over 324 participants. At the end of their circulation, the Patra will be returned and exhibited at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA, sold, and all proceeds given to charity.

Learn more about Patra Passage, which is (among other things) all about mindfulness, at the project's website.

Thanks again, Lynda!

Burton D. Carley: "September Meditation"

I do not know if the seasons remember their history or if the days and
nights by which we count time remember their own passing.

I do not know if the oak tree remembers its planting or if the pine
remembers its slow climb toward sun and stars.

I do not know if the squirrel remembers last fall's gathering or if the
bluejay remembers the meaning of snow.

I do not know if the air remembers September or if the night remembers
the moon.

I do not know if the earth remembers the flowers from last spring or if
the evergreen remembers that it shall stay so.

Perhaps that is the reason for our births—to be the memory for
creation.

Perhaps salvation is something very different than anyone ever expected.

Perhaps this will be the only question we will have to answer:
"What can you tell me about September?"

"September Meditation" by Burton D. Carley. © Burton D. Carley. [Curator's Note: The source of this poem is often listed online as the 1997 UUMA Worship Materials Collection, but I can't locate the poem in that document. I therefore have no good authority for the format of the poem's presentation in this post.]

Image credit: "Oak Tree in Autumn," hand-painted in watercolors with ink out-lines on Arches watercolor paper (hot press), by Lisa Winne © 2011 (originally color).


 

Naomi Shihab Nye: "Breaking the Fast"

1.

Japanese teacher says:
At first light, rise.
Don’t hover between
sleep and waking,
this makes you heavy,
puts a stone inside your heart.

The minute you drift back to shore,
anchor. Breathe.
Remember your deepest name.

2.

Sometimes objects stun me,
bamboo strainer, gray mug,
sitting exactly where
they were left.

They have not slept
or dreamt of lost faces.

I touch them carefully,
saying, tell me what you know.

3.

Cup of waves,
strawberry balanced
in a seashell.

In morning the water seems
clear to the bottom.

No fish blocks my view.



"Breaking the Fast" by Naomi Shihab Nye, from Red Suitcase. © BOA Editions, 1994.

Image credit: "Waking Up," acrylic on canvas, by Douglas Simonson (originally color).

Sonia Sanchez: Untitled (from Morning Haiku)

Let me wear the day
Well so when it reaches you
You will enjoy it.

Untitled by Sonia Sanchez, from Morning Haiku. © Beacon Press, 2010.

Image credit: "Freedom Painting," by vivainstitute (originally color).


 

Wendell Berry: "Sabbaths 2001, VIII"

The question before me, now that I
am old, is not how to be dead,
which I know from enough practice,
but how to be alive, as these worn
hills still tell, and some paintings
of Paul Cézanne, and this mere
singing wren, who thinks he's alive
forever, this instant, and may be.

"Sabbaths 2001, VIII" by Wendell Berry. Published in Poetry, October/November 2002.

Image credit: "Curtain, Jug and Fruit," oil on canvas, by Paul Cézanne, 1894 (originally color).


 

Sara Teasdale: "September Midnight"

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
       Ceaseless, insistent.  

The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
       Tired with summer.  

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
       Snow-hushed and heavy.  

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
       Lest they forget them.

"September Midnight," by Sara Teasdale. Published in Poetry, March 1914.

Photography credit: Untitled, by Zachary Koontz (originally color).

David Wagoner: "Lost"

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

"Lost" by David Wagoner, from Collected Poems, 1956-1976 © Indiana University Press, 1976.

Photography credit: "A Grove of Sequoia Trees," by mit19237 (originally color).