Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog

Alicia Suskin Ostriker

To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God's love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow

To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended
skirt

To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other dogs
can smell it

From The Book of Seventy. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009

Going to Bed

George Bilgere

I check the locks on the front door
and the side door,
make sure the windows are closed
and the heat dialed down.
I switch off the computer,
turn off the living room lights.

I let in the cats.

Reverently, I unplug the Christmas tree,
leaving Christ and the little animals
in the dark.

The last thing I do
is step out to the back yard
for a quick look at the Milky Way.

The stars are halogen-blue.
The constellations, whose names
I have long since forgotten,
look down anonymously,
and the whole galaxy
is cartwheeling in silence through the night.

Everything seems to be ok.

From Haywire. © Utah State University Press, 2006

December

Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels singing overhead? Hark.

For Warmth

Thich Nhat Hanh

I hold my face between my hands

no I am not crying

I hold my face between my hands

to keep my loneliness warm

two hands protecting

two hands nourishing

two hands to prevent

my soul from leaving me

in anger

Tourists

Sherman Alexie

(excerpt)

3. Marilyn Monroe

drives herself to the reservation. Tired and cold,

she asks the Indian women for help.

Marilyn cannot explain what she needs

but the Indian women notice the needle tracks

on her arms and lead her to the sweat lodge

where every woman, young and old, disrobes

and leaves her clothes behind

when she enters the dark of the lodge.

Marilyn's prayers may or may not be answered here

but they are kept sacred by Indian women.

Cold water is splashed on hot rocks

and steam fills the lodge. There is no place like this.

At first, Marilyn is self-conscious, aware

of her body and face, the tremendous heat, her thirst

and the brown bodies circled around her.

But the Indian women do not stare. It is dark

inside the lodge. The hot rocks glow red

and the songs begin. Marilyn has never heard

these songs before, but she soon sings along.

Marilyn is not Indian. Marilyn will never be Indian

but the Indian women sing about her courage.

The Indian women sing for her health.

The Indian women sing for Marilyn.

Finally, she is no more naked than anyone else.

Today, Like Every Other Day

Rumi

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don't open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

I Am Not I

Juan Ramo'n Jime'nez

translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly

I am not I.

I am this one

Walking beside me whom I do not see,

Whom at times I manage to visit,

And whom at other times I forget;

The one who remains silent when I talk,

The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,

The one who takes a walk where I am not,

The one who will remain standing when I die.

Sweet Darkness

David Whyte

(excerpt)

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

For the Anniversary of my Death

W.S. Merwin

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveler

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what.

A Book of Luminous Things, Edited by Czeslaw Milosz,

Harcourt Publishing, 1996, pg. 221

Morning

Yannis Ritsos

translated from the Greek by Nikos Stangos

She opened the shutters. She hung the sheets over the sill.

She saw the sky.

A bird looked at her straight in the eyes. "I am alone," she whispered.

"I am alive." She entered the room. The mirror too is a window.

If I jump from it I will fall into my arms.

On the Back of a Photograph

Ja'nos Pilinszky

translated from the Hungarian by Peter Jay

Hunched I make my way, uncertainly.

The other hand is only three years old.

An eighty-year-old hand and a three-year-old.

We hold each other. We hold each other tight.

From Staying Alive, Real Poems for Unreal Times,

Miramax Books, 2003

Lightenings

Seamus Heaney
(excerpt)

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
"This man can't bear our life here and will drown,"

The abbot said, "unless we help him." So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvelous as he had known it.

From Staying Alive, Real Poems for Unreal Times,

Miramax Books, 2003

Naked

Jennifer Michael Hecht

The reason you so often in literature have a naked woman

walk out of her house that way, usually older, in her front garden

or on the sidewalk, oblivious, is because of exactly how I feel right

now.

You tend to hear about how it felt to come upon such a mythical

beast,

the naked woman on the street, the naked man in a tree, and that

makes

sense because it is wonderful to take the naked woman by the

hand

And know that you will remember that moment for the rest of

your life

because of what it means, the desperation, the cataclysm of what

it takes

to leave your house naked or to take off your clothes in a tree.

It feels good to get the naked man to come down from there by a

series

of gentle commands and take him by the elbow or her by the hand

and

lead him to his home like you would care for a bird or a human

heart.

Still, if you want instead, for once, to hear about how the person

came to be

standing there, naked, outside, you should talk to me right now,

quickly,

before I forget the details of this way that I feel. I feel like walking

out.

Things

Lisel Mueller

What happened is, we grew lonely

living among the things,

so we gave the clock a face,

the chair a back,

the table four stout legs

which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues

as smooth as our own

and hung tongues inside bells

so we could listen

to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles

the pitcher received a lip,

the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us

was recast in our image;

we gave the country a heart,

the storm an eye,

the cave a mouth

so we could pass into safety.

Snowbound

Natasha Lynne Vogdes

There is a time to stop traveling...

to get off other people's subways

to halt airplanes from landing in your life.

A time to refuel yourself.

A time to be snowbound

within your private space

where the only number you dial

is your own.

Dawn Revisited

Rita Dove

Imagine you wake up

with a second chance. The blue jay

hawks his pretty wares

and the oak still stands, spreading

glorious shade. If you don't look back,

the future never happens.

How good to rise in sunlight,

in the prodigal smell of biscuits--

eggs and sausage on the grill.

The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open

to a blank page. Come on,

shake a leg! You'll never know

who's down there, frying those eggs,

if you don't get up and see.

Teaching a Child the Art of Confession

David Shumate

It is best not to begin with Adam and Eve. Original Sin is

baffling, even for the most sophisticated minds. Besides,

children are frightened of naked people and apples. Instead,

start with the talking snake. Children like to hear what animals

have to say. Let him hiss for a while and tell his own tale.

They'll figure him out in the end. Describe sin simply as those

acts which cause suffering and leave it at that. Steer clear of

musty confessionals. Children associate them with outhouses.

Leave Hell out of the discussion. They'll be able to describe it

on their own soon enough. If they feel the need to apologize

for some transgression, tell them that one of the offices of the

moon is to forgive. As for the priest, let him slumber a while

more.

The Rider

Naomi Shihab Nye

A boy told me

if he roller-skated fast enough

his loneliness couldn't catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard

for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight

pedaling hard down King William Street

is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness

panting behind you on some street corner

while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,

pink petals that have never felt loneliness,

no matter how slowly they fell.

Apothecary, in Time of Joy

Phil West

Give your old love letters over

to the fire. There is nothing

that can come of them now.

If you keep them, though, take the praises

and petal them together, in such a way

that I love you simply becomes you are loved,

and all the kisses you collected become

radium as the Curies knew it:

light rested in the palms,

fingertips touching,

a mystery housed

in hands.

Regard the sun as a rare thing

that has come out for you. Use

words like phoenix and resurrection, and believe them.

Be with the cherry trees in the courtyard

in spring, the Japanese Rorschach

of pink and white on the skeletons

you have been avoiding all winter.

Pick your heart out of the branches,

and let it rest. There.

People Like Us

Robert Bly

There are more like us. All over the world

There are confused people, who can't remember

The name of their dog when they wake up, and

people

Who love God but can't remember where

He was when they went to sleep. It's

Alright. The world cleanses itself this way.

A wrong number occurs to you in the middle

Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house. And the second-story man

Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,

And he's lonely, and they talk, and the thief

Goes back to college. Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom,

And hear great poems lovingly spoken

By the wrong professor. And you find your soul

And greatness has a defender, and even in death

you're safe

Postscript

Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightening of a flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you'll park or capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here or there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open

From Staying Alive, Real Poems for Unreal Times,

Miramax Books, 2003

Watching the Moon

Izumi Shikibu (974? - 1034?)

translated from the Japanese by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani

Watching the moon

at midnight,

solitary, mid-sky,

I knew myself completely,

no part left out.

From Women in Praise of the Sacred,

42 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women,

HarperCollins, 1995

In the Book of Beauty

Bibi Hayati (? - 1853, Persia, now Iran)

(excerpt)

In the book of beauty, is this the first line?

Or merely a fragment I scribble, tracing your eyebrows?

Is this boxwood gathered in the orchard, or the rose garden's

cypress?

The Tree of Paradise, heavy with dates, or the shape of your

standing?

Is this scent from a Chinese deer, or the fragrance of infused water?

Is it the breathing of roses carried on the wind, or your perfume? [...]

Is this magic, or a chalice of red wine at dawn?

Your narcissus eye drunk with the way, or a sorcerer's work?

Is it the garden of Eden, or some earthly paradise?

The temple of those who have mastered the heart, or an alley?

From Women in Praise of the Sacred,

42 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women,

HarperCollins, 1995

On Foot I Had to Walk Through the Solar Systems

Edith Sodergran (1892-1923)

translated from the Swedish by Stina Katchadourian

On foot

I had to walk through the solar systems,

before I found the first thread of my red dress.

Already, I sense myself.

Somewhere in space hangs my heart,

sparks fly from it, shaking the air,

to other reckless hearts.

From Women in Praise of the Sacred,

42 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women,

HarperCollins, 1995

Resurrection

Vladimi'r Holan

translated from the Czech by George Theiner

Is it true that after this life of ours we shall one day be awakened

by a terrifying clamor of trumpets?

Forgive me, God, but I console myself

that the beginning and resurrection of all us dead

will simply be announced by the crowing of the cock.

After that we will remain lying down a while...

The first to get up

will be Mother...We'll hear her

quietly laying the fire,

quietly putting the kettle on the stove

and cosily taking the teapot out of the cupboard.

We'll be home once more.

Gate C22

Ellen Bass

At gate C22 in the Portland airport

a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed

a woman arriving from Orange County.

They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after

the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons

and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,

the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other

like she'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,

like she'd been released from ICU, snapped

out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down

from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.

She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine

her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish

kisses like the ocean in the early morning,

the way it gathers and swells, sucking

each rock under, swallowing it

again and again. We were all watching--

passengers waiting for the delayed flight

to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,

the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling

sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could

taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back

and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost

as if he were a mother still open from giving birth,

as your mother must have looked at you, no matter

what happened after--if she beat you or left you or

you're lonely now--you once lay there, the vernix

not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you

as you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.

The whole wing of the airport hushed,

all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-

aged body,

her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,

little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

A Haiku

Issa

I'm going out,

flies, so relax,

make love.

Having It Out with Melancholy

Jane Kenyon

(excerpt)

The dog searches until he finds me

upstairs, lies down with a clatter

of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing

saves my life--in and out, in

and out: a pause, a long sigh...

In Memory of George Lewis, Great Jazzman

Lou Lipsitz

(excerpt)

Alright. There is a frailness

in all our music.

Sometimes we're broken

and it's lost.

Sometimes we forget

for years it's even in us, heads

filled with burdens and smoke.

And sometimes we've held

to it, and it's there,

waiting to break out

walking back from the end.

Love Is

May Swenson

a rain of diamonds

in the mind

the soul's fruit

sliced in two

a dark spring

loosed at the lips of light

under-earth waters

unlocked from their lurking

to sparkle in a crevice

parted by the sun

a temple

not of stone but cloud

beyond the heart's roar

and all violence

outside the anvil-stunned domain

unfrenzied space

between the grains of change

blue permanence

one short step

to the good ground

the bite into bread again