[Water Lily]

My Garden with Walls   
by William Brooks 


My heart a garden is, a garden walled;
And in the wide white spaces near the gates
Grow tall and showy flowers, sun-loving flowers,
Where they are seen of every passer-by;
Who straightway faring on doth bear the tale
How bright my garden is and filled with sun.

But there are shaded walks far from the gates,
So far the passer-by can never see,
Where violets grow for thoughts of those afar,
And rue for memories of vanished days,
And sweet forget-me-nots to bid me think

With tenderness,—lest I grow utter cold
And hard as women grow who never weep.
And when come times I fear that Love is dead
And Sorrow rules as King the world's white ways,
I go with friends I love among these beds.
Where friend and flower do speak alike to me,
Sometimes with silences, sometimes with words.

'Tis then I thank my God for those high walls
That shut the friends within, the world without,
That passers-by may only see the sun.
That friends I loVe may share the quiet shade.

[Water Lily]

The Final Love



Love is to live an eternal death.
The solemn weep of lily fields in the heart of winter.
Your withered ruby red kisses that suffocate my oxygen.
Yet, a broken heart still bleeds; a closed mouth sighs to the sky.
Expectations have vanished in the midnight stream. I scream forever.
Less pain and hurt in empty cups that collect dust in my memories.
I reverence in its burial; the space where my candle was blown away.
If such a word causes the weak to be strong and the strong to become weak,
than I am a vessel ebbing in the ocean's deepest water.
I am both the moon and sun shedding  light alone. 
So my truth lies in love's resistance to overpower my tragic spirit.
As its seed dies within itself, added to the ground ,unearthed like a fallen star,
I shall never see a flower bloom in thine eye anymore.
Tear it down, until it builds on the sandy shores.
May it be the last song for the record.  The dance we have yet to dance.
Then you must ask,without a precious gift to hold I shall give it to you.
Love was meant for the naïve and brave in a trusting destiny.
However, fate has dealt with me in the most vulnerable betrayal.
It will eventually pry into those bleeding souls.
There shall be not a lick in a spring fountain to drink.
The harlot shall quietly take their sweet slumber.
Love will vanish in the blink of dawn, casting a shadow upon their walls.
Open up! Open your heart, you unknowing silhouettes of fire.
Soon the ashes will burn like the joker's wicked laughter.
To see the sorrow run upon your shattered faces... 
Then and only then shall love live an eternal death


JH

[Sven2]

Hey, Miz.Lily,

Up to a poetry marathon? You post one poem every other day, I'd do the same?

I realize that'd be difficult if not impossible, some days are just to survive, or to have fun, or simply "bad hair days"... but let's attempt the run?

[Sven2]

Ocean World

1.

I saw a vast ocean on which sailed the fleets of every navy that had ever
           been. The ocean was still too vast for them. The fleets were specks
           of color on a canvas that was light and movement. Years and months
           fell like snowflakes.
The fleets met rarely, and always without warning: a swell would fall and
           there they'd be, and then they mostly traded.
The Phoenicians traded with the Spanish Armada, and Soviet submarines
           surfaced like whales to swap beluga caviar for bootlegged tapes of
           Frank Sinatra or the Ottoman Empire's famous rugs.
It was easy to communicate when everyone had the same questions: who
           are you? do you know what has happened? have you seen land? have
           you found a way out?
Only once or twice did navies pass each other silent running and the admirals
           would not stop for tea or schnapps, remnants of the old creation, poor
           things.
Only once or twice were shots fired, and those shots fell in sea mist, and the
           men who gave the orders were set adrift on the small boats of their
           disgrace, rudderless and without provisions.

2.

You showed me your crow's nest and how to trust my human eyes, and to
           navigate by stars and sexton, and to smell with my sea nose where
           we'd been. I learned that solitude is riches.
And when I showed you sonar—that to hear is to see—you stood transfixed,
           and afterwards played such strange music on your flute your
           shipmates had to listen and had to admit the beauty of it though
           many did not want to.

3.

What kind of prison is this, with the windows and the doors wide open? And
           a map transmitted endlessly, in the rat-a-tat of rigging in a stiff breeze,
           in the cry of seagulls at sunset, in the path the moon paves on the
           waves: live in peace live in peace live in peace live in peace, until
           we get it right.

--Alpay Ulku

[Sven2]

Le Pont Mirabeau

Under Eads Bridge over the Mississippi at Saint Louis
Flows the Seine

And our past loves.
Do I really have to remember all that again

And remember
Joy came only after so much pain?

Hand in hand, face to face,
Let the belfry softly bong the late hour.

Nights go by. Days go by.
I'm alive. I'm here. I'm in flower.

The days go by. But I'm still here. In full flower.
Let night come. Let the hour chime on the mantel.

Love goes away the way this river flows away.
How violently flowers fade. How awfully slow life is.

How violently a flower fades. How violent our hopes are.
The days pass and the weeks pass.

The past does not return, nor do past loves.
Under the Pont Mirabeau flows the Seine.

Hand in hand, standing face to face,
Under the arch of the bridge our outstretched arms make

Flows our appetite for life away from us downstream,
And our dream

Of getting back our love of life again.
Under the Pont Mirabeau flows the Seine.


--Guillaume Apollinaire
translated from the French by the Editors of The Paris Review


What a magical, unique translation. I read some Apollinaire poems, - nothing even close to the melodic rhyme of this poem. Interesting, there was apparently a group - small or large, doesn't matter, of translators that made it so beautiful. One might want to know if the original French text is that astounding as well.
Now I'll have to read it again!

[Water Lily]

The Watcher

She always leaned to watch for us, anxious if we were late.
In winter by the window, in summer by the gate.

And though we mocked her tenderly,
who had such foolish care.
The long way home would seem more safe,
because she waited there.

Her thoughts were all so full of us,
she never could forget!
And so I think that where she is
She must watching yet.

Waiting till we come home to her
anxious if we are late ~

Watching from Heaven's window
Leaning from Heaven's gate.

Margaret Widdemer

[Sven2]

My dearest Miz.Lily,

I'm glad you accepted the challenge, oh, yes, it'll ask for some effort, as finding a meaningful for oneself poem every other day is not easy. Often I read, or, rather, quit in the beginning of a poem that is nothing more than noise or a mindless word game.
So, what makes a poem poetry? I wish I knew.

[Sven2]

The Figure on the Hill


When I saw the figure on the crown of the hill,
high above the city, standing perfectly still

against a sky so saturated with the late-
afternoon, late-summer Pacific light

that granules of it seemed to have come out
of solution, like a fine precipitate

of crystals hanging in the brightened air,
I thought whoever it was standing up there

must be experiencing some heightened state
of being, or thinking-or its opposite,

thoughtlessly enraptured by the view.
Or maybe, looking again, it was a statue

of Jesus or a saint, placed there to bestow
a ceaseless blessing on the city below.

Only after a good five minutes did I see
that the figure was actually a tree-

some kind of cypress, probably, or cedar.
I was both amused and let down by my error.

Not only had I made the tree a person,
but I'd also given it a vision,

which seemed to linger in the light-charged air
around the tree's green flame, then disappear.


--Jeffrey Harrison

[Water Lily]

It's all I have to bring today (26)   
by Emily Dickinson 


It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

[Sven2]

Great comeback, Miz.Lily!

Sorry, wasn't neglecting the marathon, I am sick, a cold and all that stuff.

[Water Lily]

O M G...as they say!  :( Hope you are feeling better...

[Sven2]

Yes, better, thanks, Miz.Lily.

[Sven2]

What is Divinity

What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch,
These are the measures destined for her soul.

--Wallace Stevens

[Sven2]

In Heaven It Is Always Autumn
                                                                         
                                                     "In Heaven It Is Always Autumn"
                                                                    John Donne

In heaven it is always autumn. The leaves are always near
to falling there but never fall, and pairs of souls out walking
heaven's paths no longer feel the weight of years upon them.
Safe in heaven's calm, they take each other's arm,
the light shining through them, all joy and terror gone.
But we are far from heaven here, in a garden ragged and unkept
as Eden would be with the walls knocked down,
    the paths littered
with the unswept leaves of many years, bright keepsakes
for children of the Fall. The light is gold, the sun pulling
the long shadow soul out of each thing, disclosing an outcome.
The last roses of the year nod their frail heads,
like listeners listening to all that's said, to ask,
What brought us here? What seed? What rain? What light?
What forced us upward through dark earth? What made us bloom?
What wind shall take us soon, sweeping the garden bare?
Their voiceless voices hang there, as ours might,
if we were roses, too. Their beds are blanketed with leaves,
tended by an absent gardener whose life is elsewhere.
It is the last of many last days. Is it enough?
To rest in this moment? To turn our faces to the sun?
To watch the lineaments of a world passing?
To feel the metal of a black iron chair, cool and eternal,
press against our skin? To apprehend a chill as clouds
pass overhead, turning us to shivering shade and shadow?
And then to be restored, small miracle, the sun
    shining brightly
as before? We go on, you leading the way, a figure
leaning on a cane that leaves its mark on the earth.
My friend, you have led me farther than I have ever been.
To a garden in autumn. To a heaven of impermanence
where the final falling off is slow, a slow and radiant happening.
The light is gold. And while we're here, I think it must
    be heaven.

--Elizabeth Spires

[Water Lily]

Fall   
by Edward Hirsch 


Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer's
Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.