[Sven2]

Tightening the Cinch

Hurry, for the horses are galloping along the road.
Our death is being saddled now. They are tightening the cinch.
Just keep shouting, "My heart is never bitter!"
 
Come, only a moment is left, the sun is touching
The sea at Point Lobos; those waves that Jeffers knew
Will soon wear the Lincolnish coats of night!
 
You've waited so long for me. And where was I?
Whatever pleases the greedy soul is like a drop
Of burning oil to the heart. What shall we do?
 
While they saddle the horses, just keep shouting,
"My grief is a horse; I am the missing rider!"
The grief of absence is the only bread I eat.
 
Whatever pleases the heart is like a drop of burning
Oil to the greedy soul, which can't bear one moment
When men and women are tender with each other.
 
You know the writer of this poem has a thin
Hold on the reins, and is about to fall off.
Hold on. The horses are galloping toward the night.

--Robert Bly 

[Sven2]

Serenade

Some night under a pale moon and geraniums
he would come with his incredible hands and mouth
to play the flute in the garden.
I am beginning to despair
and can see only two choices:
either go crazy or turn holy.
I, who reject and reprove
Anything that's not natural as blood and veins,
discover that I cry daily,
my hair saddened, strand by strand,
my skin attacked by indecision.
When he comes, for it's clear that he's coming,
how will I go out onto the balcony without my youth?
He and the moon and the geraniums will be the same –
only women of all things grow old.
How will I open the window, unless I'm crazy?
How will I close it, unless I'm holy?

--Adelia Prado

[Sven2]

Waking


Waking, I look at you sleeping beside me.
It is early and the baby in her crib
has begun her conversation with the gods
that direct her, cooing and making small hoots.
Watching you, I see how your face bears the signs
of our time together—for each objective
description, there is the romantic; for each
scientific fact, there's the subjective truth—
this line was caused by days at a microscope,
this from when you thought I no longer loved you.
Last night a friend called to say that he intends
to move out; so simple, he and his wife splitting
like a cell into two separate creatures.
What would happen if we divided ourselves?
As two colors blend on a white pad, so we
have become a third color; or better,
as a wire bites into the tree it surrounds,
so we have grown together. Can you believe
how frightening I find this, to know I have
no life except with you? It's almost enough
to make me destroy it just to protest it.
Always we seemed perched on the brink of chaos.
But today there's just sunlight and the baby's
chatter, her wonder at the way light dances
on the wall. How lucky to be ignorant,
to greet joy without a trace of suspicion,
to take that first step without worrying what
comes trailing after, as night trails after day,
or winter summer, or confusion where all
seemed clear and each moment was its own reward.

--Stephen Dobyns

[Sven2]

Immortality


I feel like Emily Dickinson did, running her pale finger over each blade of grass, then caressing each root in the depths of the earth's primeval dirt, each tip tickling heaven's soft underbelly. I feel like Emily alone in her room, her hands folded neatly in her lap, waiting forever for one of those two daguerreotypes to embalm her precious soul.

         At my most attuned, the present is a pair of wings stretching forever in all directions, flapping calmly, calmly flapping. But as soon as I notice how happy I am, how close to the sun, there I go plummeting into the background of the same damn painting as ever.

         If I could reach my hand out to you now, would you take it? How do you think it would feel? Warm and soft and certain? Or like Emily's: clammy and brittle as hardened paste? Is that not how you imagine her hands? Look again--they were like that, otherwise she could never, would never, have written those poems.

----Craig Morgan Teicher

[Water Lily]

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning   
by John Donne 


As virtuous men pass mildly away,
   And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
   "The breath goes now," and some say, "No,"

So let us melt, and make no noise,
   No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
   To tell the laity our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
   Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
   Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
   (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
   Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined
   That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
   Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
   Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion.
   Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
   As stiff twin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
   To move, but doth, if the other do;

And though it in the center sit,
   Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
   And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
   Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
   And makes me end where I begun.

[Water Lily]

So Long   
by Walt Whitman 


1

To conclude—I announce what comes after me;   
I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart.
   
I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all,   
I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations.   
   
When America does what was promis'd,
When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and seaboard,   
When through These States walk a hundred millions of superb persons,   
When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them,   
When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America,   
Then to me and mine our due fruition.
   
I have press'd through in my own right,   
I have sung the Body and the Soul—War and Peace have I sung,   
And the songs of Life and of Birth—and shown that there are many births:   
I have offer'd my style to everyone—I have journey'd with confident step;   
While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, So long!
And take the young woman's hand, and the young man's hand, for the last time.   
     

2

I announce natural persons to arise;   
I announce justice triumphant;   
I announce uncompromising liberty and equality;   
I announce the justification of candor, and the justification of pride.
   
I announce that the identity of These States is a single identity only;   
I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble;   
I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics of the earth
     insignificant.   
   
I announce adhesiveness—I say it shall be limitless, unloosen'd;   
I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.
   
I announce a man or woman coming—perhaps you are the one, (So long!)   
I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate,
     compassionate, fully armed.   
   
I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold;   
I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation;   
I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded;
I announce a race of splendid and savage old men.   
   

3

O thicker and faster! (So long!)   
O crowding too close upon me;   
I foresee too much—it means more than I thought;   
It appears to me I am dying.
   
Hasten throat, and sound your last!   
Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more.   
   
Screaming electric, the atmosphere using,   
At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing,   
Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,
Curious envelop'd messages delivering,   
Sparkles hot, seed ethereal, down in the dirt dropping,   
Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring,   
To ages, and ages yet, the growth of the seed leaving,   
To troops out of me, out of the army, the war arising—they the tasks I have
     set promulging, 
To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing—their affection me more
     clearly explaining, 
To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the muscle of their
     brains trying,   
So I pass—a little time vocal, visible, contrary;   
Afterward, a melodious echo, passionately bent for—(death making me really
     undying;)   
The best of me then when no longer visible—for toward that I have been
     incessantly preparing.
   
What is there more, that I lag and pause, and crouch extended with unshut mouth?   
Is there a single final farewell?   
   

4

My songs cease—I abandon them;   
From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally, solely to you.   
   
Camerado! This is no book;
Who touches this, touches a man;   
(Is it night? Are we here alone?)   
It is I you hold, and who holds you;   
I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth.   
   
O how your fingers drowse me!
Your breath falls around me like dew—your pulse lulls the tympans of my
     ears;   
I feel immerged from head to foot;   
Delicious—enough.   
   
Enough, O deed impromptu and secret!   
Enough, O gliding present! Enough, O summ'd-up past!
   

5

Dear friend, whoever you are, take this kiss,   
I give it especially to you—Do not forget me;   
I feel like one who has done work for the day, to retire awhile;   
I receive now again of my many translations—from my avataras ascending—while others
     doubtless await me;   
An unknown sphere, more real than I dream'd, more direct, darts awakening rays
     about me—So long!Remember my words—I may again return,   
I love you—I depart from materials;   
I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

[Sven2]

Places to Return


There are landscapes one can own,
bright rooms which look out to the sea,
tall houses where beyond the window
day after day the same dark river
turns slowly through the hills, and there
are homesteads perched on mountaintops
whose cool white caps outlast the spring.

And there are other places which,
although we did not stay for long,
stick in the mind and call us back—
a valley visited one spring
where walking through an apple orchard
we breathed its blossoms with the air.
Return seems like a sacrament.

Then there are landscapes one has lost—
the brown hills circling a wide bay
I watched each afternoon one summer
talking to friends who now are dead.
I like to think I could go back again
and stand out on the balcony,
dizzy with a sense of déjà vu.

But coming up these steps to you
at just that moment when the moon,
magnificently full and bright
behind the lattice-work of clouds,
seems almost set upon the rooftops
it illuminates, how shall I
ever summon it again?


--Dana Gioia

[Sven2]

The Man Moves Earth


The man moves earth
to dispel grief.
He digs holes
the size of cars.
In proportion to what is taken
what is given multiplies—
rain-swollen ponds
and dirt mounds
rooted with flame-tipped flowers.
He carries trees like children
struggling to be set down.
Trees that have lived
out their lives,
he cuts and stacks
like loaves of bread
which he will feed the fire.
The green smoke sweetens
his house.

The woman sweeps air
to banish sadness.
She dusts floors,
polishes objects
made of clay and wood.
In proportion to what is taken
what is given multiplies—
the task of something
else to clean.
Gleaming appliances
beg to be smudged,
breathed upon by small children
and large animals
flicking out hope
as she whirls by,
flap of tongue,
scratch of paw,
sweetly reminding her.

The man moves earth,
the woman sweeps air.
Together they pull water
out of the other,
pull with the muscular
ache of the living,
hauling from the deep
well of the body
the rain-swollen,
the flame-tipped,
the milk-fed—
all that cycles
through lives moving,
lives sweeping, water
circulating between them
like breath,
drawn out of leaves by light.


--Cathy Song

[Sven2]

Spring


Something new in the air today, perhaps the struggle of the bud
to become a leaf. Nearly two weeks late it invaded the air but
then what is two weeks to life herself? On a cool night there is
a break from the struggle of becoming. I suppose that's why we
sleep. In a childhood story they spoke of the land of enchant-
ment. We crawl to it, we short-lived mammals, not realizing that
we are already there. To the gods the moon is the entire moon
but to us it changes second by second because we are always fish
in the belly of the whale of earth. We are encased and can't stray
from the house of our bodies. I could say that we are released,
but I don't know, in our private night when our souls explode
into a billion fragments then calmly regather in a black pool in
the forest, far from the cage of flesh, the unremitting "I." This was
a dream and in dreams we are forever alone walking the ghost
road beyond our lives. Of late I see waking as another chance at
spring.

--Jim Harrison

[Sven2]

Primavera


Spring comes quickly: overnight
the plum tree blossoms,
the warm air fills with bird calls.

In the plowed dirt, someone has drawn a picture of the sun
with rays coming out all around
but because the background is dirt, the sun is black.
There is no signature.

Alas, very soon everything will disappear:
the bird calls, the delicate blossoms. In the end,
even the earth itself will follow the artist's name into oblivion.

Nevertheless, the artist intends
a mood of celebration.

How beautiful the blossoms are—emblems of the resilience of life.
The birds approach eagerly.

--Louise Gluck

[Sven2]

Apple Blossoms at Petal-Fall with Li Po

That a cardinal's bright dart alights upon the branch
means Non cogito, ergo sum—
I don't think, therefore I am.

But that's not Mandarin!
Still the tree's petal-fall dusts us angelic,
our arms feathered wings.

A fool's errand, this search for meaning,
metaphor the bed we lie and awaken in.
Hey there, get off our cloud!

In this we grow lonely though not alone,
the way my Cortland shimmers
in a cloud of her own making.

I know what I said. I said her.
You'd like to know what I make
of her secret, also ours.

Try this: forget the fate we'll share,
warm from the oven of our unmaking,
soon these limbs winter bare.

Just don't, let's say,
our arms petaled feathers.
This once: Don't think.

--Kevin Stein

[Sven2]

Home


It seems too soon to be thinking
about the end of the world
when only 150 years ago, this great idealistic nation
was fighting itself with bayonets
too soon to think the weather might be gone
whether or not we act now, too late
too soon for the trees to die,
for the glaciers to melt,
for the polar bear to bow upon his prayer rug
of ice and go under
after such a brief century
of ease and bounty for a few people
too many, too few, too many
such a brief time in Macy's and the Cinema Paradiso,
such a brief ride in the Cadillac around the block,
too late, too soon for the water to be gone,
for the rivers to collapse before the sea,
for the fish to fly from the ocean,
after we only just arrived,
after slavery just ended, too late,
too soon for it to begin again
on the other side of oceans,
after just a few years feeling free
to move about the cabin
at 31,000 feet, a few days
with the lights left on in the kitchen,
after the first Black and White photograph just appeared
after our image emerged, emblazoned
on the wall, in the magazine,
after we saw ourselves from space,
like a tribesman handed a mirror,
like a Christian handed a mirror, too late,
too soon for the stars to vanish
after we just saw ourselves appear
on the outskirts of an endless night,
after the long march, after the frenzy and scramble
up out of the dust and plankton, too late
too soon, too late
to turn back upon ourselves, spinning in space,
in our lit corridors of knowledge,
our intricate matrices of speech,
our global city of ceaseless arrival,
our blue-green wonder, too late, too soon,
to say good-bye.

--Sam Taylor

[Sven2]

Goodbye

Each day I woke as it started to get dark and the pain came. Month
after month of this—who knows when I got well, the way you do,
whether you like it or not. With dawn now, risen from the rampage
of sleep, I am walking in the Lincoln woods. A single bird is
loudly singing. And I walk here as I always have, as though from
tall room to room in a more or less infinite house where the owner's
not home but is watching me somehow, observing my behavior,
from behind the two-way mirror of appearances, I suppose,
and listening, somewhat critically, to what I am thinking. Not too,
however. At certain moments I could swear there is even a sense of
being liked, as sunlight changes swiftly, leaving, leaving and arriving
again. A bird is chirping bitterly, as if these words were meant
for me, as if their intent was within me, and will not speak. Nothing
is left me of you.

--Franz Wright

[Sven2]

Happily Planting the Beans too Early


I waited until the sun was going down
to plant the bean seedlings. I was
beginning on the peas when the phone rang.
It was a long conversation about what
living this way in the woods might
be doing to me. It was dark by the time
I finished. Made tuna fish sandwiches
and read the second half of a novel.
Found myself out in the April moonlight
putting the rest of the pea shoots into
the soft earth. It was after midnight.
There was a bird calling intermittently
and I could hear the stream down below.
She was probably right about me getting
strange. After all, Basho and Tolstoy
at the end were at least going somewhere.

--Jack Gilbert

[Sven2]

Casa Blanca

I dreamed of a house by the sea, so white
it was no dream.

The summer night was so divinely clear
summer had long since gone.

I saw my love stand in the doorway,
saw her I had forsaken.

I dreamed of a house by the sea, so white,
of my love and the summer night

though it was very long ago
and though it was no dream.

--Henrik Nordbrandt

translated by Patrick Phillips