Nina Corwin: "What Morning Looks Like"

Another dawn poem. A virgin Thursday
morning that sparkles and blushes before
falling to the spatterings of day.

I'm starting a journey, dragging my suitcase
and carry-on bags to the taxi stand
at the corner. It's an hour before the earliest

alarm I know. Before the street lights shut down
at the tired end of their shift; when the air bites
crisp and clean. Before the turbulent machine of day

accelerates into full throttle. An orange cab
pulls up, driver devout as desert sand,
serenity riding in the passenger seat.

I slide into the back, give my destination.
He glances at my face in the rear view mirror.
I can see only his eyes, the dark oasis

of them. It seems as if we're sharing
a secret, though we are not. Red streaks
begin to reach along the horizon.

Obviously he and dawn are old acquaintances
having peered into each other's blinking,
bloodshot eyes a time or two. Can't remember

the last time I was out at this hour, I say
reaching for conversation. I ask him what time
his day starts and he tells me 4 a.m.

So then I ask what 4 a.m. looks like and he says:
It looks like anything else. It looks like God.
He accelerates easily. An occasional car rolls toward us.

Headlights nod as they pass.

"What Morning Looks Like" by Nina Corwin. Published online at the e-poets network (date unknown), where the poem is said to have first appeared in Flyway.  

Photography credit: Detail from "Close Up of a Taxi Driver's Eyes in Rearview Mirror of His Cab," by Jim Richardson (originally color).

Nura Yingling: "Step Six and Step Seven"

Let me be where I am.
Let this bread, this morning, be their own ceremony.
Let me pass the gilt mirrors without looking.

When the lead mouth of fear clamps onto mine
and blasts her wind of rope and iron filings into me,
let my breath be forgiveness returned for her black sadness.

Let poems be cups of praying
made for holding silence.

"Step Six and Step Seven" by Nura Yingling, from for Holding Silence. © BlazeVOX, 2013.  

Image credit: "Hovis Bread and Knife," painting by Alan Gwynne-Jones, 1945 (originally color).

 

D. H. Lawrence: "Maximus"

God is older than the sun and moon
and the eye cannot behold him
nor voice describe him.

But a naked man, a stranger, leaned on the gate
with his cloak over his arm, waiting to be asked in.
So I called him: Come in, if you will!––
He came in slowly, and sat down by the hearth.
I said to him: And what is your name?––
He looked at me without answer, but such a loveliness
entered me, I smiled to myself, saying: He is a God!
So he said: Hermes!

God is older than the sun and moon
and the eye cannot behold him
nor the voice describe him:
and still, this is the God Hermes, sitting by my hearth.



"Maximus" by D. H. Lawrence, from The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence. © Wordsworth Editions, 1994.

Image credit: "Hermes," oil on canvas, by Salvador Dali, 1981 (originally color).

 

Izumi Shikibu: Untitled ["Although the Wind"]

                                                  Although the wind
                                                  blows terribly here,
                                                  the moonlight also leaks
                                                  between the roof planks
                                                  of this ruined house.

Untitled ["Although the Wind"] by Izumi Shikibu, from The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, edited and translated from the Japanese by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani. © Vintage Classics, 1990.

Photography credit: Untitled image by Lexie in NZ (originally color).

 

Edgar Lee Masters: "111. Ernest Hyde"

My mind was a mirror:
It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew.
In youth my mind was just a mirror
In a rapidly flying car,
Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.
Then in time
Great scratches were made on the mirror,
Letting the outside world come in,
And letting my inner self look out.
For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,
A birth with gains and losses.
The mind sees the world as a thing apart,
And the soul makes the world at one with itself.
A mirror scratched reflects no image—
And this is the silence of wisdom.

"111. Ernest Hyde" by Edgar Lee Masters, from Spoon River Anthology. © The Macmillan Company, 1916.  

Photography credit: "Scratched Mirror," by Chris Schmalz (originally color).

Laura Davies Foley: "The Offering"

These woods
on the edges of a lake
are settling now
to winter darkness.
Whatever was going to die
is gone—
crickets, ferns, swampgrass.
Bare earth fills long spaces of a field.
But look:
a single oak leaf
brown and shining
like a leather purse.
See what it so delicately offers
lying upturned on the path.
See how it reflects in its opened palm
a cup of deep, unending sky.

"The Offering" by Laura Davies Foley. © Laura Davies Foley. Published here via poet submission.

Photography credit: "Leaf on the Water," by Noemy009 (originally color).   

Bertolt Brecht: "Everything Changes"

Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.
But what has happened has happened. And the water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again.

What has happened has happened. The water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again, but
Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.

"Everything Changes" by Bertolt Brecht, from Poetry and Prose. © Continuum, 2003.

Image credit: "Warli Painting about Life Cycle," clay on cotton fabric, by unknown artist, found at this link (originally color).

Dana Gioia: "Entrance"

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.


(After Rilke)



"Entrance" by Dana Gioia, from Interrogations at Noon: Poems. © Graywolf Press, 2001.

Photography credit: Detail from "Angel Oak Tree," by Amy Tyler Photography (originally black and white).

Suheir Hammad: "talisman"

it is written
the act of writing is
holy words are
sacred and your breath
brings out the
god in them
i write these words
quickly repeat them
softly to myself
this talisman for you
fold this prayer
around your neck fortify
your back with these
whispers
may you walk ever
loved and in love
know the sun
for warmth the moon
for direction
may these words always
remind you your breath
is sacred words
bring out the god
in you

"talisman" by Suheir Hammad. Published online by TheScreamOnline.com (date unknown).

Image credit: "Amulet, 11th century, Fatimid, Egypt," ink on paper (originally color). Note from source: "Centuries before block printing was introduced in Europe, the technique was used in the Islamic world to produce miniature texts consisting of prayers, incantations, and Qur’anic verses that were kept in amulet boxes. The text on this amulet is in the angular kufic script. The six-pointed star, a familiar symbol in Islamic art, is usually called `Solomon's seal.'"

David Whyte: "The Winter of Listening"

No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.

All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.

What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,

what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.

What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.

All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.

All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.

All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.

And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.

Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.

So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.

"The Winter of Listening" by David Whyte, from The House of Belonging. © Many Rivers Press, 1997.

Photography credit: Detail from "Seeking Warmth: A Kashmiri man warmed his hands over a fire on a street on a cold morning in Srinagar, India, Wednesday," by Fayaz Kabli/Reuters (originally color).

Meister Eckhart: "Love Does That"

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,

he looks into the burro's eyes and touches her ears

and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,

because love does
that.

Love frees.

"Love Does That" by Meister Eckhart, from Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, edited by Daniel Ladinsky. Translated from the German by Daniel Ladinsky. © Penguin Books, 2002.

Photography credit: Untitled image by Mike Allegra (originally color).

Wendell Berry: "How to Be a Poet"

 

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your work,

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

There are only sacred places

And desecrated places.

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

"How to Be a Poet" by Wendell Berry. Published in Poetry (January 2001). 

Photography credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer, found at this link (originally color).

 

Nancy Shaffer: "Because We Spill Not Only Milk"

Because we spill not only milk
Knocking it over with an elbow
When we reach to wipe a small face
But also spill seed on soil we thought was fertile but isn't,
And also spill whole lives, and only later see in fading light
How much is gone and we hadn't intended it

Because we tear not only cloth
Thinking to find a true edge and instead making only a hole
But also tear friendships when we grow
And whole mountainsides because we are so many
And we want to live right where black oaks lived,
Once very quietly and still

Because we forget not only what we are doing in the kitchen
And have to go back to the room we were in before,
Remember why it was we left
But also forget entire lexicons of joy
And how we lost ourselves for hours
Yet all that time were clearly found and held
And also forget the hungry not at our table

Because we weep not only at jade plants caught in freeze
And precious papers left in rain
But also at legs that no longer walk
Or never did, although from the outside they look like most others
And also weep at words said once as though
They might be rearranged but which
Once loose, refuse to return and we are helpless

Because we are imperfect and love so
Deeply we will never have enough days,
We need the gift of starting over, beginning
Again: just this constant good, this
Saving hope.

"Because We Spill Not Only Milk" by Nancy Shaffer, from Instructions in Joy: Meditations. © Skinner House, 2002.

Photography credit: "Splatter," by 2happy (originally black and white).

 

Michael Cope: "Tea Ceremony"

To this cup, I pay homage.
To the designer of this cup,
to the workers who made this cup,
who mined the ores, I pay homage.
To the workers who dug the clay,
ground the glazes, the farmers
who fed those workers I pay homage.
To the great cycles which give us
clean air, clear water, to all living things,
all the earth, I pay homage.

To this tea, I pay homage.
To the growth in the bud,
to the cells exchanging
air, water and light, I pay homage.
to the workers who grew, tended,
picked the tea, who packed, transported,
distributed the tea, I pay homage.
To the great cycles which give us
clean air, clear water, to all living things,
all the earth, I pay homage.

To this water, I pay homage.
To the rain which falls,
to the rivers, the dams,
the builders and plumbers, I pay homage.
To the oceans and the sun,
the great trade winds
and the world’s turning, I pay homage.
To all the cycles which bring us
clean air, clear water, to all living things,
all the earth, I pay homage.

"Tea Ceremony" by Michael Cope, from Scenes and Visions. © Snailpress, 1990.  

Photography credit: Detail from "How to Pray the Japanese Way," by © Kalandrakas | www.jessleecuizon.com (originally black and white).

Curator's Note: I Bow to You

My friends, I scarcely know what to say.

Our "change jar" is overflowing. Your generosity astounds me. Yesterday, instead of working on my novel-in-progress, I did little more than write thank-you notes, one after another after another, to readers across the United States, Mexico, Canada, Switzerland, Australia—country after country. Our community of readers is even more widespread and diverse than I knew, and the outpouring of your donations for A Year of Being Here has been nothing short of wondrous. The project is now on solid footing.

I scarcely know what to say. So I will simply put my hands together, and bow deeply.

Toyohiko Kagawa: "A Prayer"

I want to be ever a child.
I want to feel an eternal friendship
for the raindrops, the flowers,
the insects, the snowflakes.
I want to be keenly interested in everything,
with mind and muscle ever alert,
forgetting my troubles in the next moment.
The stars and the sea, the ponds and the trees,
the birds and the animals, are my comrades.
Though my muscles may stiffen, though my skin may
wrinkle, may I never find myself yawning
at life.

"A Prayer" by Toyohiko Kagawa, from Songs of the Slums. Translated from the Japanese by Lois Erickson. © Cokesbury, 1935.

Image credit: "Rain," by unknown artist, found at this link (originally color).

 

Curator's Note: A Penny for the Jar?

Friends, my original "labor of love" is in full bloom. Our community of readers at A Year of Being Here has grown so fast in one year that it has exceeded my technical ability to distribute the poems. My modest tools, all of them free, no longer suffice for such a crowd. Therefore, I've had to choose: quit, or upgrade.

I never considered quitting. I just plunged ahead, trying to find solutions to the problems. And I've found them, thanks to kind souls answering my endless questions. But these solutions will come at a cost I hadn't foreseen. Beware of labors of love that take over your life....

So, with reluctance, and at the urging of friends, I've decided to invite our community of readers to help sustain this project by donating through a tip jar, located in the right sidebar on this site.

Let me be clear: I don't want to profit off the remarkable poetry (and artwork) I'm posting here. I'm well aware of my role. I'm here to serve the poets (and the artists). I'm here to serve the poems (and the art). I neither seek nor deserve any compensation for doing this. But the truth is, the service I'm performing is becoming somewhat expensive.

Here's my pledge: I'll be a wise steward of whatever donations are made to the project. No donation will ever be required of any reader. No dollar amount will ever be suggested to any donor. Any "lucky pennies" dropped (via PayPal) into the tip jar—or "change jar," as I prefer to call it—will be used to defray operational expenses, so that this project can flourish.

Why do I prefer calling it a "change" jar? First, because I believe that these expenses can be met by modest donations. Small change, not big bills. Second, because I believe that mindfulness teaches us how change is built into the nature of What Is—and what is happening, happily, with this project is just more evidence of that. Finally, because I believe that the more mindful we and other people become, the more the world within, around and beyond us changes for the better. "Change" jar, indeed. Drop in your pennies, and something will happen. It always does.

As I'm writing this, having just set the change jar on the tabletop of this site, somebody has already dropped in a donation. Some dear reader from Down Under, in Australia. How wonderful. I'm laughing out loud.

As Muriel Rukeyser said, "Flower   flower   flower   flower .... "

Julia Donaldson: "I Opened a Book"

I opened a book and in I strode.
Now nobody can find me.
I've left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

I'm wearing the cloak, I've slipped on the ring,
I've swallowed the magic potion.
I've fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.

"I Opened a Book" by Julia Donaldson, from Crazy Mayonnaisy Mum: Poems. © Macmillan Children's Books, 2005.

Image credit: "Storybook," by © Jeannette Woitzik (originally color).

Curator's Note: In Case of Hiccups....

If you're an email subscriber to A Year of Being Here, or would like to be, this message is for you.

Due to the increasing unreliability of Feedburner, my automated email subscription service, I'm likely going to switch to an alternative called FeedPress. I'll make every effort (with FeedPress's help) to make this transition as smooth as possible.

I'm not certain when the transition will happen, but it will probably be soon. My hope is that your subscription will continue uninterrupted, but I wanted you to be aware of the upcoming change in case there are hiccups. (A spoonful of peanut butter works well for those, by the way....)

If you're among those who have at some point tried to subscribe by email without success, I think this transition will provide a remedy. Stay tuned. I want you to be included in our reading community and am very grateful that you brought the problems with Feedburner to my attention.

Thanks in advance for your forbearance and patience during this transition.

W. S. Merwin: "To the New Year"

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible



"To the New Year" by W. S. Merwin, from Present Company: Poems by W. S. Merwin. © Copper Canyon Press, 2007.  

Image credit: "Palo Verde and Mourning Dove," acrylic painting, by Peter Mathios (originally color).

Louise Erdrich: "Advice to Myself"

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic—decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.



"Advice to Myself" by Louise Erdrich, from Original Fire: Selected and New Poems. © HarperCollins Publishers, 2003. 

Image credit: "Sink," ink still life, by © Jeff Fichera, 2003 (originally color).

David Budbill: "The Sixth of January"

The cat sits on the back of the sofa looking
out the window through the softly falling snow
at the last bit of gray light.

I can’t say the sun is going down.
We haven’t seen the sun for two months.
Who cares?

I am sitting in the blue chair listening to this stillness.
The only sound: the occasional gurgle of tea
coming out of the pot and into the cup.

How can this be?
Such calm, such peace, such solitude
in this world of woe.

"The Sixth of January" by David Budbill, from Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse. © Copper Canyon Press, 1999.

Photography credit: "Watching the Snow Falling," by akinosora (originally color).

Amber Coverdale Sumrall: "Fifty Robins"

January rain, fine spray from a celestial hose, blows across the yard,
beads on the bare branches of the neighbor’s walnut tree.

The first robins of winter descend like drunken paratroopers;
I imagine they’ve been feasting on fermented pyracantha berries

the way they drop, woozy and chortling, to the ground,
gleefully snagging drowning worms from the saturated soil.

Beneath the dripping camellia bush my cats tremble with desire
outnumbered, they know it is futile to attack.

Caught between mind and year, yearnings like so many baited hooks
drifting into deep water, I surface, summoned back

to this moment by the raucous delight of fifty robins,
their tangerine breasts small hearths in the grey morning.

"Fifty Robins" by Amber Coverdale Sumrall. Published online by Gratefulness.org (date unknown).

Photography credit: "Part of a Feeding Flock of Winter Robins," by Jim Cerny (originally color).


 

William Stafford: "Next Time"

Next time what I'd do is look at

the earth before saying anything. I'd stop

just before going into a house

and be an emperor for a minute

and listen better to the wind

      or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether

blame or praise or just passing time,

I'd watch the face, how the mouth

has to work, and see any strain, any

sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all, I'd know more—the earth

bracing itself and soaring, the air

finding every leaf and feather over

forest and water, and for every person

the body glowing inside the clothes

      like a light.

"Next Time" by William Stafford, from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems. © Graywolf Press, 1998.

Photography credit: "Winter Wren, Sax Zim Bog, St. Louis County, MN," June 20, 2011 © John Schwarz (originally color).


 

Tom Hennen: "Report from the West" [Prose Poem]

Snow is falling west of here. The mountains have more than a
foot of it. I see the early morning sky dark as night. I won't lis-
ten to the weather report. I'll let the question of snow hang.
Answers only dull the senses. Even answers that are right often
make what they explain uninteresting. In nature the answers
are always changing. Rain to snow, for instance. Nature can
let the mysterious things alone—wet leaves plastered to tree
trunks, the intricate design of fish guts. The way we don't fall
off the earth at night when we look up at the North Star. The
way we know this may not always be so. The way our dizziness
makes us grab the long grass, hanging by our fingertips on the
edge of infinity.

"Report from the West" by Tom Hennen, from Darkness Sticks to Everything. © Copper Canyon Press, 2013.

Photography credit: "This long-exposure photo shows how the North Star, Polaris, stays fixed in the night sky as other stars appear to move during the night due to Earth's rotation," by M. Menefee (originally color).

John Stone: "Whittling: The Last Class"

What has been written
about whittling
is not true

most of it

It is the discovery
that keeps
the fingers moving

not idleness

but the knife looking for
the right plane
that will let the secret out

Whittling is no pastime

he says
who has been whittling
in spare minutes at the wood

of his life for forty years

Three rules he thinks
have helped
Make small cuts

In this way

you may be able to stop before
what was to be an arm
has to be something else

Always whittle away from yourself

and toward something.
For God's sake
and your own
know when to stop

Whittling is the best example
I know of what most
may happen when

least expected

bad or good
Hurry before
angina comes like a pair of pliers

over your left shoulder

There is plenty of wood
for everyone
and you

Go ahead now

May you find
in the waiting wood
rough unspoken

what is true

or
nearly true
or

true enough.

"Whittling: The Last Class" by John Stone, from Music from Apartment 8: New and Selected Poems. © Louisiana State University Press, 2004.

Photography credit: "A Castle Whittled by Hand," by John Burcham for The New York Times (originally color).

Curator's Note: New Link for O'Donohue Poem (1/1/2014)

My apologies for the bad link to John O'Donohue's recital of "Beannacht" (1/1/2014). Here's the good one in case you want to listen.

It's never too late for a blessing.

John O'Donohue: "Beannacht"

For Josie.


On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets in to you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.



[Curator's note: "Beannacht" is the Gaelic word for "blessing." A "currach" is a large boat used on the west coast of Ireland.]

"Beannacht" by John O'Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. © Doubleday, 2008. The poem is listed in the book as a blessing for the New Year.

Video credit: O'Donohue recited this poem for Krista Tippett's OnBeing program shortly before his death in 2008. The video was produced by Colleen Scheck and Trent Gilliss. If you can't see the viewer above, click here to hear the poet's reading, presented with a collage of images selected by his friends.