Reminder

For God is in heaven, and you upon earth.
—Ecclesiastes 5:2

Don’t take your eyes off the road.
Accept nothing as given.
Watch where you put your hands.
You’re here and God’s in heaven.

Be careful where you step.
The drop-off’s somewhere near.
The fog won’t lift tonight.
God’s in heaven. You’re here.

That word you wish to say,
That score you’d like to even—
Don’t hurry either while
You’re here and God’s in heaven.

The earth says, “Take the wheel.
But no matter how you steer,
I’ll still go round in circles.
God’s in heaven. You’re here.”

by Mark Jarman

The Poem as Mask

When I wrote of the women in their dances and wildness, it was a mask,
on their mountain, gold-hunting, singing, in orgy,
it was a mask; when I wrote of the god,
fragmented, exiled from himself, his life, the love gone down with song,
it was myself, split open, unable to speak, in exile from myself.

There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory
of my torn life, myself split open in sleep, the rescued child
beside me among the doctors, and a word
of rescue from the great eyes.

No more masks!  Mo more mythologies!

Now, for the first time, the god lifts his hand,
the fragments join in me with their own music.

~ Muriel Rukeyser (1968)

Your Place

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things. Mary Oliver (b. 1935)

This, too, was a gift

The Uses Of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

― Mary Oliver, Thirst

Turn an Envious Look

Fish in the Unruffled Lakes

    Fish in the unruffled lakes
    Their swarming colours wear,
    Swans in the winter air
    A white perfection have,
    And the great lion walks
    Through his innocent grove;
    Lion, fish and swan
    Act, and are gone
    Upon Time's toppling wave.

    We, till shadowed days are done,
    We must weep and sing
    Duty's conscious wrong,
    The Devil in the clock,
    The goodness carefully worn
    For atonement or for luck;
    We must lose our loves,
    On each beast and bird that moves
    Turn an envious look.

    Sighs for folly done and said
    Twist our narrow days,
    But I must bless, I must praise
    That you, my swan, who have
    All gifts that to the swan
    Impulsive Nature gave,
    The majesty and pride,
    Last night should add
    Your voluntary love.

W. H Auden

Lines

Man alive, that mournst thy lot,
Desiring what thou hast not got,
Money, beauty, love, what not;

Deeming it blesseder to be
A rotted man, than live to see
So rude a sky as covers thee;

Deeming thyself of all unblest
And wretched souls the wretchedest,
Longing to die and be at rest;

Know: that however grim the fate
Which sent thee forth to meditate
Upon my enviable state,

Here lieth one who would resign
Gladly his lot, to shoulder thine.
Give me thy coat; get into mine.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

Prose and Poetry

This blog is titled "Mostly Poetry," but for more than a year now it's been "Mostly Not Poetry."  I simply haven't had time to discover new poets and new poems.  The poetry that has become part of my soul, of which I've shared much here, remains there and informs and shapes my days and my life.  I was happy today to come cross a new poem by one of my favorite poets.  It's about where the line is between prose and poetry.

The timing of finding this was interesting for me because I find more and more as I become busier and busier with work as a tenured professor (not just the busyness of teaching and grading and planning but also that of involvement in the politics and structure of the college, committees, grant work, etc.) that I have to work harder to find ways to make my life poetic rather than prosaic - a hard thing to do when time becomes more and more limited.  

It's interesting as well how these changes in life take place on a spectrum on which it is hard to determine when a change has actually occurred.  More and more in recent months I want to remember how to "fly," and I find I have forgotten.  So this poem has hit me at a number of different levels.

So, without further ado, and whether you asked or not, here it is:

Because You Asked About The Line Between Prose And Poetry Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle That while you watched turned into pieces of snow Riding a gradient invisible From silver aslant to random, white, and slow. There came a moment that you couldn't tell. And then they clearly flew instead of fell. Howard Nemerov

Those Great Goddesses of Peace

LORELEI It is no night to drown in: A full moon, river lapsing Black beneath bland mirror-sheen, The blue water-mists dropping Scrim after scrim like fishnets Though fishermen are sleeping, The massive castle turrets Doubling themselves in a glass All stillness. Yet these shapes float Up toward me, troubling the face Of quiet. From the nadir They rise, their limbs ponderous With richness, hair heavier Than sculptured marble. They sing Of a world more full and clear Than can be. Sisters, your song Bears a burden too weighty For the whorled ear's listening Here, in a well-steered country, Under a balanced ruler. Deranging by harmony Beyond the mundane order, Your voices lay siege. You lodge On the pitched reefs of nightmare, Promising sure harborage; By day, descant from borders Of hebetude, from the ledge Also of high windows. Worse Even than your maddening Song, your silence. At the source Of your ice-hearted calling- Drunkenness of the great depths. O river, I see drifting Deep in your flux of silver Those great goddesses of peace. Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

The Fly

Little Fly
Thy summer's play,
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink & sing;
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength & breath;
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

William Blake (1794)

Thought Revisited

DU REVE, DE LA MATHEMATIQUE, ET DE LA MORT

On dreams, on mathematics, and on death.
Card-catalogues turn up such heady stuff
Sometimes as this, this rapture from the depths
Which isn't where it should be on the shelf.
For a moment, remembering Borges' poor young clerk,
I idly consider writing it myself,
Setting a record for the shortest work
The world had ever seen on three such themes
Of such import as death and math and dreams.

I think of asking that a search be made,
But give it up, my French is not so great
And right now I've got plenty on my plate
Without this title turned up by pure chance
As if desinged to bait my ignorance.
And yet -- ? But I shall let this once-glimpsed fish
Swim through the deep of thought beyond my wish,
And resign myself to knowing nothing more
Du reve, de la mathematique, et de la mort. 

Howard Nemerov (1920-1991)

Time o' Year for Hay

I'm sorry for the Dead—Today—
It's such congenial times
Old Neighbors have at fences—
It's time o' year for Hay.

And Broad—Sunburned Acquaintance
Discourse between the Toil—
And laugh, a homely species
That makes the Fences smile—

It seems so straight to lie away
From all of the noise of Fields—
The Busy Carts—the fragrant Cocks—
The Mower's Metre—Steals—

A Trouble lest they're homesick—
Those Farmers—and their Wives—
Set separate from the Farming—
And all the Neighbors' lives—

A Wonder if the Sepulchre
Don't feel a lonesome way—
When Men—and Boys—and Carts—and June,
Go down the Fields to "Hay"— 

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Recess Never Comes

J 413

I never felt at Home — Below —-
And in the Handsome Skies
I shall not feel at Home — I know —
I don't like Paradise —

Because it's Sunday — all the time —
And Recess — never comes —
And Eden'll be so lonesome
Bright Wednesday Afternoons —

If God could make a visit —
Or ever took a Nap —
So not to see us — but they say
Himself — a Telescope

Perennial beholds us —
Myself would run away
From Him — and Holy Ghost — and All —
But there's the "Judgement Day"!

-Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Elegy

Let them bury your big eyes
In the secret earth securely,
Your thin fingers, and your fair,
Soft, indefinite-colored hair,—
All of these in some way, surely,
From the secret earth shall rise;
Not for these I sit and stare,
Broken and bereft completely;
Your young flesh that sat so neatly
On your little bones will sweetly
Blossom in the air.

But your voice,—never the rushing
Of a river underground,
Not the rising of the wind
In the trees before the rain,
Not the woodcock's watery call,
Not the note the white-throat utters,
Not the feet of children pushing
Yellow leaves along the gutters
In the blue and bitter fall,
Shall content my musing mind
For the beauty of that sound
That in no new way at all
Ever will be heard again.

Sweetly through the sappy stalk
Of the vigorous weed,
Holding all it held before,
Cherished by the faithful sun,
On and on eternally
Shall your altered fluid run,
Bud and bloom and go to seed;
But your singing days are done;
But the music of your talk
Never shall the chemistry
Of the secret earth restore.
All your lovely words are spoken.
Once the ivory box is broken,
Beats the golden bird no more.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

To What Purpose?

O what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

-"Spring" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

Response to Hard News Heard Today

About suffering they were never wrong, 
The Old Masters; how well, they understood 
Its human position; how it takes place 
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; 
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting 
For the miraculous birth, there always must be 
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating 
On a pond at the edge of the wood: 
They never forgot 
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course 
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot 
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse 
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. 
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away 
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may 
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, 
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone 
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green 
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen 
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, 
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

-W. H. Auden

Reminder to Self - L'Chaim

O Taste and See

The world is
not with us enough
O taste and see

the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

-Denise Levertov

It Must Be Your

"though your sorrows not
any tongue may name,
three i'll give you sweet
joys for each of them
But it must be your"
whispers that flower

murmurs eager this
"i will give you five
hopes for any fear,
but it Must be your"
perfectly alive
blossom of a bliss

"seven heavens for
just one dying,i'll
give you" silently
cries the(whom we call
rose a)mystery
"but it must be Your"

e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

No Longer, Nor Yet

Brother, that breathe the August air

Ten thousand years from now,

And smell --- if still your orchards bear

Tart apples on the bough ---

The early windfall under the tree,

And see the red fruit shine,

I cannot think your thoughts will be

Much different from mine.

Should at that moment the full moon

Step forth upon the hill,

And memories hard to bear at noon,

By moonlight harder still,

Form in the shadows of the trees, ---

Things that you could not spare

And live, or so you thought, yet these

All gone, and you still there,

A man no longer what he was,

Nor yet the thing he'd planned,

The chilly apple from the grass

Warmed by your living hand ---

I think you will have need of tears;

I think they will not flow;

Suppposing in ten thousand years

Men ache, as they do now.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Early Euphoria

"Stimulated by parents who loved poetry and were determined to impart it to their children, I have been trying to write it since 1903, when I was about five; but I produced little that I now think worth keeping until about the age of thirty. I wish I could have retained more of the glory of this long immaturity. It produced artless art, but it was a wonderful mode of life. The sophistication of age makes a poor exchange for the early euphoria."

Ruth Pitter

Turn an Envious Look

Fish in the unruffled lakes
Their swarming colours wear,
Swans in the winter air
A white perfection have,
And the great lion walks
Through his innocent grove;
Lion, fish and swan
Act, and are gone
Upon Time's toppling wave.

We, till shadowed days are done,
We must weep and sing
Duty's conscious wrong,
The Devil in the clock,
The goodness carefully worn
For atonement or for luck;
We must lose our loves,
On each beast and bird that moves
Turn an envious look.

Sighs for folly done and said
Twist our narrow days,
But I must bless, I must praise
That you, my swan, who have
All gifts that to the swan
Impulsive Nature gave,
The majesty and pride,
Last night should add
Your voluntary love.

W. H. Auden 1936