Jeanne Lohmann: "Shaking the Tree"

                         Vine and branch we’re connected in this world

                         of sound and echo, figure and shadow, the leaves
                         contingent, roots pushing against earth. An apple

                         belongs to itself, to stem and tree, to air
                         that claims it, then ground. Connections
                         balance, each motion changes another. Precarious,

                         hanging together, we don’t know what our lives
                         support, and we touch in the least shift of breathing.
                         Each holy thing is borrowed. Everything depends.

"Shaking the Tree" by Jeanne Lohmann, from Shaking the Tree: New and Selected Poems. © Fithian Press, 2010.  

Art credit: "Apple Picking in Julian, CA," photograph likely by Marlena Maidhof (originally color).

Gary Margolis: "Consider Yourself"

Consider yourself
the way you would the wind.

Allow sun to approach you
so the rain can follow.

This will include caring
for things inside
of things.

Let some blossoms suppose
they are playing
into your hands,

As a rule stones will sing,

Give what you can,
what you have been given,
what you have to give.



"Consider Yourself" by Gary Margolis, from Raking the Winter Leaves: New and Selected Poems. © Bauhan Publishing, 2013. Presented here by poet submission.

Art credit: "The Autumn Wind," acrylic on canvas, by Elena Kotliarker.

Billy Collins: "Aimless Love"

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor's window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door—
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor—
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

"Aimless Love" by Billy Collins, from Aimless Love: A Selection of Poems. © Random House, 2013.

Art credit: "Sudsy Soap Dish," photograph from the website Coastal Plain Soap Company (originally color).

 

Adam Zagajewski: "Try to Praise the Mutilated World"

                                Try to praise the mutilated world.
                                Remember June’s long days,
                                and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
                                The nettles that methodically overgrow
                                the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
                                You must praise the mutilated world.
                                You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
                                one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
                                while salty oblivion awaited others.
                                You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
                                you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
                                You should praise the mutilated world.
                                Remember the moments when we were together
                                in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
                                Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
                                You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
                                and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
                                Praise the mutilated world
                                and the gray feather a thrush lost,
                                and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
                                and returns.

"Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski. Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanaugh. Written more than a year before the terrible events of 9/11. Published in The New Yorker, September 24, 2001. 

Photography credit: Photograph from a series entitled "Photos: America commemorates 11th anniversary of 9/11 attacks" (8 of 14), by AP/Jason DeCrow (originally color). Caption: "Roses and a flag left by mourners adorn the names of victims of 9/11 during a ceremony marking the 11th anniversary of the attacks at the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012, in New York."

 

Norman MacCaig: "Small boy"

He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.

And another, and another.
He couldn't stop.

He wasn't trying to fill the sea.
He wasn't trying to empty the beach.

He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.

Like a kitten playing
he was practicing for the future

when there'll be so many things
he'll want to throw away

if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.

"Small boy" by Norman MacCaig, from The Poems of Norman MacCaig. © Birlinn, 2009.

Art credit: "Fun at the beach on a glorious day," photograph by WILLSIE (originally color).

 

Hafiz: "Today"

I

Do not

Want to step so quickly

Over a beautiful line on God's palm

As I move through the earth's

Marketplace

Today.

I do not want to touch any object in this world

Without my eyes testifying to the truth

That everything is

My Beloved.

Something has happened

To my understanding of existence

That now makes my heart always full of wonder

And kindness.

I do not

Want to step so quickly

Over this sacred place on God's body

That is right beneath your

Own foot

As I

Dance with

Precious life

Today.

"Today" by Hafiz, from The Gift: Poems of Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master. Purported to be translated from the original Persian (Farsi) by Daniel Ladinsky. © Penguin Compass, 1999.

Please note that Ladinsky's "translations" are controversial, considered by many to be less Hafiz than Ladinsky himself. 

Art credit: "One Step Closer," photograph taken in 2006 in Washington Square, San Francisco, by Victor Zhang (originally black and white).

Ralph Murre: "The Light This Day"

                                                  

                                                The light this day
                                                has every leaf of the forest
                                                   crying for its beauty
                                                   every ripple on this lake
                                                   outshining the next
                                                   a far crow
                                                   fearing
                                                   the loss of his darkness



"The Light This Day" by Ralph Murre, from The Price of Gravity. © Auk Ward Editions, 2010.

Art credit: "Crows—Towards the sun I fly, not as Icarus," photograph by Hash Milhan (originally color, digitally manipulated by curator).

 

Jason Shinder: "Coda"

And now I know what most deeply connects us

after that summer so many years ago,
and it isn’t poetry, although it is poetry,

and it isn’t illness, although we have that in common,

and it isn’t gratitude for every moment,
even the terrifying ones, even the physical pain,

though we are halfway through
it, or even the way you describe the magnificence

of being alive, catching a glimpse,

in the store window, of your blowing hair and chapped lips,
though it is beautiful, it is; but it is

that you’re my friend out here on the far reaches

of what humans can find out about each other.


 
"Coda" by Jason Shinder. Published in American Poetry Review (November/December, 2008). © Jason Shinder.

This poem was written during the illness that claimed the poet's life in April 2008.

Art credit: "Wind," photograph by AislingImages (originally black and white).

Mark Jarman: "After Disappointment"

To lie in your child’s bed when she is gone

Is calming as anything I know. To fall

Asleep, her books arranged above your head,

Is to admit that you have never been

So tired, so enchanted by the spell

Of your grown body. To feel small instead

Of blocking out the light, to feel alone,

Not knowing what you should or shouldn’t feel,

Is to find out, no matter what you’ve said

About the cramped escapes and obstacles

You plan and face and have to call the world,

That there remain these places, occupied

By children, yours if lucky, like the girl

Who finds you here and lies down by your side.

"After Disappointment" by Mark Jarman, from Bone Fires: New and Selected Poems. © Sarabande Books, 2011.

Art credit: "Waldorf/Steiner dolls on my daughter's bed," photograph by Jacinta Gleeson Munn (originally color).

Julia Fehrenbacher: "Hold Out Your Hand"

Let's forget the world for a while
fall back and back
into the hush and holy
of now

are you listening? This breath
invites you
to write the first word
of your new story

your new story begins with this:
You matter

you are needed—empty
and naked
willing to say yes
and yes and yes

Do you see
the sun shines, day after day
whether you have faith
or not
the sparrows continue
to sing their song
even when you forget to sing
yours

stop asking: Am I good enough?
Ask only
Am I showing up
with love?

Life is not a straight line
it's a downpour of gifts, please—
hold out your hand

"Hold Out Your Hand" by Julia Fehrenbacher. Presented here by poet submission. © Julia Fehrenbacher.

Art credit: "Woman Holding Hands Out with Palms Facing Up," photograph by Alain Couillaud (originally sepia).

Mary Oliver: "Mysteries, Yes"

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
    to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
    mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
    in allegiance with gravity
        while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
    never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
    scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
    who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
    "Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
 and bow their heads.



"Mysteries, Yes" by Mary Oliver, from Evidence: Poems. © Beacon Press, 2010.

Art credit: "Waterfall on the Trail of the Cedars in Glacier National Park, Montana," photograph taken in July, 2014, by curator Phyllis Cole-Dai.

John Glenday: "Concerning the Atoms of the Soul"

Someone explained once how the pieces of what we are
fall downwards at the same rate
as the Universe.
The atoms of us, falling towards the centre

of whatever everything is. And we don’t see it.
We only sense their slight drag in the lifting hand.
That’s what weight is, that communal process of falling.
Furthermore, these atoms carry hooks, like burrs,

hooks catching like hooks, like clinging to like,
that’s what keeps us from becoming something else,
and why in early love, we sometimes
feel the tug of the heart snagging on another’s heart.

Only the atoms of the soul are perfect spheres
with no means of holding on to the world
or perhaps no need for holding on,
and so they fall through our lives catching

against nothing, like perfect rain,
and in the end, he wrote, mix in that common well of light
at the centre of whatever the suspected
centre is, or might have been.

"Concerning the Atoms of the Soul" by John Glenday, from Undark. © Peterloo Poets, 1995.

Art credit: "Quantum Gravity," photograph by unknown photographer (originally color).

 

Ted Kooser: "Porch Swing in September"

The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun
that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion
whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,
and a small brown spider has hung out her web
on a line between porch post and chain
so that no one may swing without breaking it.
She is saying it's time that the swinging were done with,
time that the creaking and pinging and popping
that sang through the ceiling were past,
time now for the soft vibrations of moths,
the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,
the cool dewdrops to brush from her work
every morning, one world at a time.



"Porch Swing in September" by Ted Kooser, from Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005.

Art credit: "Painting No. 36: Porch Swing," oil on gessoboard, by Jessica Green (originally color).

Wendell Berry: "Enriching the Earth"

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and of various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.



"Enriching the Earth" by Wendell Berry, from Collected Poems, 1957-1982. © North Point Press, 1985.

Art credit: "The Sower," pastel and crayon or pastel on cream buff paper, by Jean-François Millet (originally color).

Lynn Ungar: "Camas Lilies"

Consider the lilies of the field,

the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers’ hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: “Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I’m through with blooming.”
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

 
"Camas Lilies" by Lynn Ungar, from Blessing the Bread: Meditations. © Skinner House, 1995. Presented here as posted on the poet's website.

Art credit: "A red winged blackbird among spring camas blooms," photograph by Greg Stahl.

W. S. Merwin: "By the Front Door"

                                       Rain through the morning
                                       and in the long pool a toad singing
                                       happiness old as water



"By the Front Door" by W. S. Merwin, from The Moon Before Morning. © Copper Canyon Press, 2014.

Art credit: Detail from "Common Frog Croaking," photograph by © Chris Grady (originally color).

 

David Barber: "Corn Maze"

Here is where
You can get nowhere
Faster than ever
As you go under
Deeper and deeper

In the fertile smother
Of another acre
Like any other
You can’t peer over
And then another

And everywhere
You veer or hare
There you are
Farther and farther
Afield than before

But on you blunder
In the verdant meander
As if   the answer
To looking for cover
Were to bewilder

Your inner minotaur
And near and far were
Neither here nor there
And where you are
Is where you were



"Corn Maze" by David Barber. Published in Poetry (March 2013). © David Barber.  

Art credit: "Get Lost in the Maize!", photograph by unknown photographer (originally color).

 

Mary Chivers: "Late August"

It's as if we're always preparing
for something, the endless  roll of the earth
ripening us.
Even on the most tranquil
late August afternoon when heavy heads
of phlox bow in the garden
and the hummingbird sits still for a moment
on a branch of an apple tree—
even on such a day,
evening approaches sooner
than yesterday, and we cannot help
noticing whole families of birds
arrive together in the enclosure,
young blue birds molted a misty grey,
colored through no will of their own
for a journey.
On such an evening
I ache for what I cannot keep—the birds,
the phlox, the late-flying bees—
though I would not forbid the frost,
even if I could. There will be more to love
and lose in what's to come and this too: desire
to see it clear before it's gone.

"Late August" by Mary Chivers, from Lasting Words: A Guide to Finding Meaning Toward the Close of Life, by Claire B. Willis. © Green Writers Press, 2014.

Thanks to subscriber Claire Willis for suggesting this poem. 

Art credit: "Western Bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) Flock at the Water Tanks," photograph by Arlene Ripley © 2010 (originally color).

Denise Levertov: "The Breathing"

An absolute
patience.
Trees stand
up to their knees in
fog. The fog
slowly flows
uphill.
          White
cobwebs, the grass
leaning where deer
have looked for apples.
The woods
from brook to where
the top of the hill looks
over the fog, send up
not one bird.
So absolute, it is
no other than
happiness itself, a breathing
too quiet to hear.



"The Breathing" by Denise Levertov, from Poems: 1960-1967. © New Directions Publishing, 1983.

Art credit: Image 13 of 15 by Stephen Matera (originally black and white). Caption: "Fog rolls through old growth forest in summer, Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River Valley, Central Cascades."
 
 

Marge Piercy: "The Art of Blessing the Day"

[Curator's note: If you can't see the viewer above, watch the video here.]


This is the blessing for rain after drought:
Come down, wash the air so it shimmers,
a perfumed shawl of lavender chiffon.
Let the parched leaves suckle and swell.
Enter my skin, wash me for the little
chrysalis of sleep rocked in your splashing.
In the morning the world is peeled to shining.

This is the blessing for sun after long rain:
Now everything shakes itself free and rises.
The trees are bright as pushcart ices.
Every last lily opens its satin thighs.
The bees dance and roll in pollen
and the cardinal at the top of the pine
sings at full throttle, fountaining.

This is the blessing for a ripe peach:
This is luck made round. Frost can nip
the blossom, kill the bee. It can drop,
a hard green useless nut. Brown fungus,
the burrowing worm that coils in rot can
blemish it and wind crush it on the ground.
Yet this peach fills my mouth with juicy sun.

This is the blessing for the first garden tomato:
Those green boxes of tasteless acid the store
sells in January, those red things with the savor
of wet chalk, they mock your fragrant name.
How fat and sweet you are weighing down my palm,
warm as the flank of a cow in the sun.
You are the savor of summer in a thin red skin.

This is the blessing for a political victory:
Although I shall not forget that things
work in increments and epicycles and sometime
leaps that half the time fall back down,
let's not relinquish dancing while the music
fits into our hips and bounces our heels.
We must never forget, pleasure is real as pain.

The blessing for the return of a favorite cat,
the blessing for love returned, for friends'
return, for money received unexpected,
the blessing for the rising of the bread,
the sun, the oppressed. I am not sentimental
about old men mumbling the Hebrew by rote
with no more feeling than one says gesundheit.

But the discipline of blessings is to taste
each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet
and the salty, and be glad for what does not
hurt. The art is in compressing attention
to each little and big blossom of the tree
of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,
its savor, its aroma and its use.

Attention is love, what we must give
children, mothers, fathers, pets,
our friends, the news, the woes of others.
What we want to change we curse and then
pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can
with eyes and hands and tongue. If you
can't bless it, get ready to make it new.

"The Art of Blessing the Day" by Marge Piercy, from The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with a Jewish Theme. © Knopf, 1999.

Video credit: "Ode to Joy" flash mob in Sabadell, Spain, posted to YouTube by Be Inzpired! on April 2, 2013. Featuring Ludwig Van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and "Ode to Joy."