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or so the story goes.
But I’m not tired, it says.
And the mother says, You may not be tired but I’m tired—
You can see it in her face, everyone can.
So the snow has to fall, sleep has to come.
Because the mother’s sick to death of her life
and needs silence.
~ Louise Gluck
one of us
will be lost
to the other
this has been
talked about but
lightly turning
away shyness this
business of con-
fronting the
preference for
survival
my mother said the
children are grown we
are both so sick let us
die together my father
replied no no you
will be well he lied
of course I
want you in the world
whether I’m in it or
not your spirit
I probably mean
there is always
something to say in
the end speaking
without breath one
of us will be lost
to the other
~ Grace Paley
At the last minute a word is waiting
not heard that way before and not to be
repeated or ever be remembered
one that always had been a household word
used in speaking of the ordinary
everyday recurrences of living
not newly chosen or long considered
or a matter for comment afterward
who would ever have thought it was the one
saying itself from the beginning through
all its uses and circumstances to
utter at last that meaning of its own
for which it had long been the only word
though it seems now that any word would do
~W.S. Merwin
How long ago the day is
when at last I look at it
with the time it has taken
to be there still in it
now in the transparent light
with the flight in the voices
the beginning in the leaves
everything I remember
and before it before me
present at the speed of light
in the distance that I am
who keep reaching out to it
seeing all the time faster
where it has never stirred from
before there is anything
the darkness thinking the light
~W.S. Merwin
| Translated by Lillian Jean Stafford and William Stafford | |
It is night, in my study. The deepest solitude; I hear the steady shudder in my breast --for it feels all alone, and blanched by my mind-- and I hear my blood with even murmur fill up the silence. You might say the thin stream falls in the waterclock and fills the bottom. Here, in the night, all alone, this is my study; the books don't speak; my oil lamp bathes these pages in a light of peace, light of a chapel. The books don't speak; of the poets, the meditators, the learned, the spirits drowse; and it is as if around me circled cautious death. I turn at times to see if it waits, I search the dark, I try to discern among the shadows its thin shadow, I think of heart failure, think about my strong age; since my fortieth year two more have passed. Toward a looming temptation here, in the solitude, the silence turns me-- the silence and the shadows. And I tell myself: "Perhaps when soon they come to tell me that supper awaits, they will discover a body here pallid and cold --the thing that I was, this one who waits-- just like those books quiet and rigid, the blood already stopped, jelling in the veins, the chest silent under the gentle light of the soothing oil, a funeral lamp. I tremble to end these lines that they do not seem an unusual testament, but rather a mysterious message from the shade beyond, lines dictated by the anxiety of eternal life. I finished them and yet I live on. ~Miguel de Unamuno |
|
| From Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975, translated by William Stafford and Lillian Jean Stafford, edited by Hardie St. Martin, and published by Harper & Row. © 1976 by Hardie St. Martin. Used with permission. All rights reserved. |
You give me cloudberry jam from Lapland,
Bog amber, snow-line tidbits, scrumptious,
Cloudberries sweetened slowly by the cold,
And costly enough for cloudberry wars
(Diplomatic wars, my dear).
Imagine us
Among the harvesters, keeping our distance
In sphagnum fields on the longest day
W hen dawn and dusk like frustrated lovers
Can kiss, legend has it, once a year. Ah,
Kisses at our age, cloudberry kisses.
Michael Longley
Still Life Or
mobiles:
that the wind can catch at,
against itself,
a leaf or a contrivance of wires,
in the stairwell,
to be looked at from below.
We have arranged the form of a formula here,
have taken the heart out
& the wind
is vague emotion.
To count on these aspirants
these contenders for the to-be-looked-at part
of these actions
these most hopeful movements
needs
a strong & constant wind.
That will not rise above the speed
which we have calculated,
that the leaf
remain
that the wires
be not too much shaken.
© 1987 Robert Creeley
Fall of the Evening Star
Speak softly, sun going down
out of sight. Come near me now.
Dear dying fall of wings from birds
Complain against the gathering dark…
Exaggerate the green blood in grass;
the music of leaves scraping space;
Multiply the stillness by one sound;
by one syllable of your name…
And all that is little is soon giant,
all that is rare grows in common beauty
To rest with my mouth on your mouth
as somewhere a star falls
And the earth takes it softly, in natural love…
exactly as we take each other…
and go to sleep…
A melancholy autumn wind
Blows through the world;
The pampas grass waves,
As we drift to the moor,
Drift to the sea.
What can be done
With the mind of a man
That should be clear
But though he is dressed up in a monk’s robe,
Just lets life pass him by?
Why do people
Lavish decorations
On this set of bones
Destined to disappear
Without a trace?
No one really knows
The nature of birth
Nor the true dwelling place.
We return to the source
And turn to dust.
Many paths lead
from the foot of the mountain,
But at the peak
We all gaze at the
Single bright moon.
If at the end of our journey
There is no final
Resting place,
Then we need not fear
Losing our Way.
No beginning,
No end.
Our mind
is born and dies:
The emptiness of emptiness!
Rain, hail, snow and ice:
All are different,
But when they fall
They become the same water
As the valley stream.
The ways of proclaiming
The Mind vary,
But the same heavenly truth
Can be seen
In each and every one.
Cover your path
With the fallen pine needles
So no one will be able
To locate your
True dwelling place.
As Ikkyu does not think of his body
As if it were his body,
He lives in the same place,
Whether it is town or country.
This world
Is but
A fleeting dream
So why by alarmed
At its evanescence?
The vagaries of life,
Though painful
Teach us
Not to cling
To this floating world.
If you break open the cherry tree,
Where are the flowers?
But in the spring time, see how they bloom!
To write something and leave it behind us,
It is but a dream.
When we awake we know
There is not even anyone to read it.
Look at the cherry blossoms!
Their color and scent fall with them,
Are gone forever,
Yet mindless
The spring comes again.
why is it all so beautiful this fake dream
this craziness why?
The Coming of Light
Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light. You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air. Even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow's dust flares into breath. ~ Mark Strand
