Colors Passing Through Us

MARGE PIERCY (excerpt)

Purple as tulips in May, mauve

into lush velvet, purple

as the stain blackberries leave

on the lips, on the hands,

the purple of ripe grapes

sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,

like a new flower in a bud vase

on your desk. Every day

I will paint you, as women

color each other with henna

on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,

as coals after the fire is banked,

the cardinal in the feeder,

the roses tumbling on the arbor

their weight bending the wood

the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit

hanging their globes on the glossy tree,

orange as pumpkins in the field,

orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs

who come to eat it, orange as my

cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,

yellow as a hill of daffodils,

yellow as dandelions by the highway,

yellow as butter and egg yolks,

yellow as a school bus stopping you,

yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing

song of all the things you make

me think of, here is oblique

praise for the height and depth

of you and the width too.

Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green

Ask For Nothing

PHILLIP LEVINE

Instead walk alone in the evening
heading out of town toward the fields
asleep under a darkening sky;
the dust risen from your steps transforms
itself into a golden rain fallen
earthward as a gift from no known god.
The plane trees along the canal bank,
the few valley poplars, hold their breath
as you cross the wooden bridge that leads
nowhere you haven’t been, for this walk
repeats itself once or more a day.
That is why in the distance you see
beyond the first ridge of low hills
where nothing ever grows, men and women
astride mules, on horseback, some even
on foot, all the lost family you
never prayed to see, praying to see you,
chanting and singing to bring the moon
down into the last of the sunlight.
Behind you the windows of the town
blink on and off, the houses close down;
ahead the voices fade like music
over deep water, and then are gone;
even the sudden, tumbling finches
have fled into smoke, and the one road
whitened in moonlight leads everywhere.

Ask Me

William Stafford

Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.

A Small Treatise on Analogy

Janusz Szuber

In the car, before the synagogue in Lesko,

Waiting for Madame M.R.,

I watched a trapped bee trying

To force the slanted windshield,

Its efforts composing a simple

Parable about existence.

I picked up the notebook in which I'm

Now recording this incident, and with its help

I directed the insect toward the slightly open door,

Halfway believing that one day

Someone will treat me the same way.

From they carry a promise, selected poems,

Alfred A. Knopf, 2009

Dr. Seuss

I meant what I said and I said what I meant.

Proust

But when nothing remains of a faraway past, after the living beings have died, the objects destroyed, there alone remain--frailer yet more lively, less material yet more tenacious, more faithful--the fragrance and the taste, for a long time lingering as spirits, recalling, awaiting, hoping, upon the ruins of everything else, supporting without bending, as upon a nearly intangible droplet, the enormous edifice of memory.

Langston Hughes

Poetry is the human soul, entire, squeezed like a lemon or a lime, drop by drop, into atomic words.

Small Release

To find ourselves spoken for in art gives dignity to our pain, our anger, our lust, our loves. We can hear what we hope for and what we must fear in the small release of cadenced utterances (Kenneth Gorlick).

Prospective Immigrants Please Note

Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

Syllogisms

Lewis Carroll

1) Babies are illogical.

2) Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.

3) Illogical persons are despised.

____________________________________

Therefore, babies can not manage crocodiles.

Steve Martin

I'm not going home tonight:

I'm going to Bananaland,

a place where only two things are true,

only two things:

One, all chairs are green; and two,

no chairs are green.

from Born Standing Up, Steve Martin

Simon & Schuster, New York, 2007

The Ladder

Michael Chitwood

He worked for years on the tablet,

deciphering the pictographs. He knew

it was a kind of language, those images.

An eye. A bird, maybe a crow.

A basket of wheat. A ladder.

Did the order of the images matter?

He cross-referenced similar texts.

He studied the history of the region

and satisfied many hours in the tablet's service.

In a cousin language, a ladder

was the word for happiness, to rise up,

to be lifted above the ordinary.

After years of work, he sorted it out.

It was poetry, bad poetry, adolescent.

It read: "Today, I am happy,

happy all this day, today."

from Clamor, 2010

Nasty Rumors and Final Remarks

Excerpted from a play by Susan Miller

MAX, a woman in her forties, talks to her female lover, Raleigh, who is in a coma.

The nurse said I could have a couple of words with you. [...] We're having a bitch of a time here with all your worldly goods, such as they are. I'm probably going to sell my car and buy yours from the kids. They could use the money. And, besides, I like the way your car smells. As far as the taxes and bills and all the business shit, Nicky's got a good lawyer....except you did stuff the Sears bill between pages 104 and 105 of Tennessee Williams' collected plays, so God knows where the Dept. of Water and Power will show up. Now all of this is just in case. This does not mean you have to take it seriously. You can change your mind. I'll keep my crummy car. I'm only telling you these things so you won't be worried about details. But you can sit up and shock the hell out of everyone, as far as I'm concerned. This place could use a little slap in the face, you know. Or...I mean, if that's too hard, right now, just move your index finger. Curse. Whatever. All miracles accepted. Clap if you believe in miracles.

This is terrific. I could sit here all day and talk, repeat all my old stories and you can't even tell me to shut up. Except you aren't laughing and that's really what's kept me talking all these years.

(Pause)

Actually, I'd love to hear you say SHUT UP. Go on, go ahead. Just for old times sake. Give it to me good. C'mon. SHUT UP, Max. Huh? How about it...please. Please tell me to shut the f--k up!

(Pause)

God, you're beautiful. You're not supposed to be that beautiful. This is intensive care, remember?

One on One, the Best Women's Monologues for the Nineties

Applause Theatre Books, New York, 1993

Night Sky

Excerpted from a play by Susan Yankowitz

A female astronomy teacher stands within a star-filled night sky completing a lecture to her class.

ANNA: ...But do you realize that what we see represents only ten percent--possibly only one percent--of what exists? Most of the universe is hidden, invisible to us still, a mysterious absence. We know very little. Even the most basic insights elude us. How many stars are there, and how do we know there aren't more? Why do the planets spin, and if they don't spin, where do they go? If a black hole is truly black, and it it is really a hole, how can we be sure it's there? And within that dark matter, somewhere, does life exist? Oh, that reminds me: the word "consider" means literally "with the stars."

One on One, the Best Women's Monologues for the Nineties

Applause Theatre Books, New York, 1993

White Heron

John Ciardi

What lifts the heron leaning on the air

I praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,

a long stroke through the cumulus of trees,

a shaped thought at the sky--then gone. O rare!

Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,

would have cried Father! Cry anything you please.

But praise. By any name or none. But praise

the white original burst that lights

the heron on his two soft kissing kites.

When saints praise heaven lit by doves and rays,

I sit by pond scums till the air recites

Its heron back. And doubt all else. But praise.

From Sightings, Sam Keen, pg. 177,

Chronicle Books, LLC, 2007

Magic Words

Eskimo (anonymous)

translated from the Inuit by Edward Field

In the very earliest time,

when both people and animals lived on earth,

a person could become an animal if he wanted to

and an animal could become a human being.

Sometimes they were people

and sometimes animals

and there was no difference.

All spoke the same language.

That was the time when words were like magic.

The human mind had mysterious powers.

A word spoken by chance

might have strange consequences.

It would suddenly come alive

and what people wanted to happen could

happen--

all you had to do was say it.

Nobody could explain this:

That's the way it was.

A Book of Luminous Things, Edited by Czeslaw Milosz,

Harcourt Publishing, 1996, pg. 268

Adult

Linda Gregg

I've come back o the country where I was happy

changed. Passion puts no terrible strain on me now.

I wonder what will take the place of desire.

I could be the ghost of my own life returning

to the places I lived best. Walking here and there,

nodding when I see something I cared for deeply.

Now I'm in my house listening to the owls calling

and wondering if slowly I will take on flesh again.

A Book of Luminous Things, Edited by Czeslaw Milosz,

Harcourt Publishing, 1996, pg. 221

The Meadow

Kate Knapp Johnson

Half the day lost, staring

at this window. I wanted to know

just one true thing

about the soul, but I left thinking

for thought, and now--

two inches of snow have fallen

over the meadow. Where did I go,

how long was I out looking

for you?, who would never leave me,

my withness, my here.

From poetry 180, selected by Billy Collins, pg. 177,

Random House, 2003

Somebody Consoles Me With a Poem

Sa'ndor Csoo'ri

translated from the Hungarian by Len Roberts and Ldszlo' Ve'rtes

Can you hear it? Somebody's reading a poem to me over the telephone,

he's consoling me for my dead,

for myself,

he's promising a snowfall on my forehead.

snow on our common resting place:

on a bed, forests, beyond the skeletons of yesterday's flowers,

and healing silence in a gentle cellar,

where plum-tree logs

will burn, blazing

there will be wine on the table,

onion

and bread,

otherworldly light gleaming from a sharp knife,

and on the timeless, white cellar wall

an ant, separate from its army,

marches toward future centuries.

Can you hear it? What he says, he says to you as well:

don't flap into the night,

into mourning, into soot,

you're not a angel, nor a condor,

you're a sweet country's sole dweller [...]

From This Art, Poems about Poetry, pg. 83,

edited by Michael Wiegers,

Copper Canyon Press, 2003

At the Cancer Clinic

Ted Kooser

She is being helped toward the open door
that leads to the examining rooms
by two young women I take to be her sisters.
Each bends to the weight of an arm
and steps with the straight, tough bearing
of courage. At what must seem to be
a great distance, a nurse holds the door,
smiling and calling encouragement.
How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004

The Book of Questions #XXI

Pablo Neruda

translated from the Spanish by William O'Daly

And when light was forged

did it happen in Venezuela?

Where is the center of the sea?

Why do waves never go there?

Is it true that the meteor

was a dove of amethyst?

Am I allowed to ask my book

whether it's true I wrote it?

From This Art, Poems about Poetry,

edited by Michael Wiegers,

Copper Canyon Press, 2003

Speech Alone

Jean Follain

translated from the French by W.S. Merwin

It happens that one pronounces

a few words just for oneself

alone on this strange earth

then the small white flower

the pebble like those that went before

the sprig of stubble

find themselves reunited

at the foot of the gate

which one opens slowly

to enter the house of clay

while chairs, table, cupboard,

blaze in a sun of glory.

From This Art, Poems about Poetry,

Copper Canyon Press, 2003

White Towels

Richard Jones

I have been studying the difference

between solitude and loneliness,

telling the story of my life

to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer.

I carry them through the house

as though they were my children

asleep in my arms.

From poetry 180, selected by Billy Collins

Random House, 2003

Night Flight

George Bilgere

I am doing laps at night, alone
In the indoor pool. Outside
It is snowing, but I am warm
And weightless, suspended and out
Of time like a fly in amber.

She is thousands of miles
From here, and miles above me,
Ghosting the stratosphere,
Heading from New York to London.
Though it is late, even
At that height, I know her light
Is on, her window a square
Of gold as she reads mysteries
Above the Atlantic. I watch

The line of black tile on the pool’s
Floor, leading me down the lane.
If she looks down by moonlight,
Under a clear sky, she will see
Black water. She will see me
Swimming distantly, moving far
From shore, suspended with her
In flight through the wide gulf
As we swim toward land together.

From Haywire, Utah State University Press, 2006

In a Garden

Amy Lowell

(excerpt)

And I wished for night and you.

I wanted to see you in the swimming pool,

White and shining in the silver-flecked water.

While the moon rode over the garden,

High in the arch of night,

And the scent of the lilacs was heavy with stillness.

Night, and the water, and you in your whiteness, bathing!

From Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914)

Time Slip

Laurie Sutherland

The bus leaves First and Pike

And I open my new old book,

Just rescued from the thrift store.

A yellowed schedule tumbles out,

Seattle Municipal Railway, 1924,

With a note in faded pencil:

Dance tonight at hall -- Joe.

Outside the rain-splashed windows

A Model T glides by.

From Poetry on Wheels,

King County's Poetry on Buse,

Floating Bridge Press, 2006

The Woman I Love

Hafiz

Persia, now Iran, 1320-1389

translated by Daniel Ladinsky

(excerpt)

Because the woman I love lives inside of you.

I lean as close to your body with my words as I can--

and I think of you all the time,

dear pilgrim.

Because the one I love goes with you wherever you go,

Hafiz will always be

near.

If you sat before me, wayfarer, with your aura bright from

your many charms,

my lips could resist rushing to you, but my eyes, my eyes

can no longer hide the wondrous fact of who

you really are.

From Love Poems from God,

Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2002

Who

Jane Kenyon

These lines are written

by an animal, an angel,

a stranger sitting in my chair;

by someone who already knows

how to live without trouble

among books, and pots and pans...

Who is it who asks me to find

language for the sound

a sheep's hoof makes when it strikes

a stone? And who speaks

the words which are my food?

From Jane Kenyon Collected Poems,

Graywolf Press, 2005