1 July

Ooh, ooh! Big news on the home front. The US has named a new Poet Laureate. W.S. Merwin will follow in the footsteps of the Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Robert Penn Warren and Conrad Aiken. The 82 year old Hawaii resident writes some tough stuff. This is no Billy Collins (who I love), whose poems are made for browsing and reading aloud to your sweetie while snuggling on the couch on a rainy afternoon. Merwin requires some real effort, but it is worth it. Anyway, Congrats to Merwin and to America for continuing a tradition of excellence in poetry.

Good People

BY W. S. MERWIN

From the kindness of my parents

I suppose it was that I held

that belief about suffering

imagining that if only

it could come to the attention

of any person with normal

feelings certainly anyone

literate who might have gone

to college they would comprehend

pain when it went on before them

and would do something about it

whenever they saw it happen

in the time of pain the present

they would try to stop the bleeding

for example with their own hands

but it escapes their attention

or there may be reasons for it

the victims under the blankets

the meat counters the maimed children

the animals the animals

staring from the end of the world

Source: Poetry (December 1999).

For A Coming Extinction

From "Lice", 1967

Grey Whale

Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours

When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices
Join your work to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important

al Muthana

Can you find the kitty in this picture?

al Muthana

The roof of my aid station leaks.
Mangy, limping cats huddle under the hummvees.
Cockroaches and lizards emerge
From the cracks in my walls at dusk.
The air smells of burning trash,
My eyes water and my
Throat burns.

Next door, the Iraqi general breeds beautiful
White long-tailed chickens.
They murmur and cluck to each other as they
Pace along the high concrete walls.
I run in the morning, I listen to the
Call To Prayer and the soft coo of
Morning Doves.
At night, bats twirl and dive under
The sodium light.

Dog tags

You were named after a fish.
Flashing silver in the ocean,
Slipping up rivers to
Sun dappled mountain streams.

Your birthday, just shy of twenty.
A teenager.
A boy.

Your blood type, which we
Pumped into your broken body for an hour.
Praying for a helicopter
That never came.

Your religion.
One tag said "Buddhist",
The other, "Surfer".

I imagine you as you were- white teeth
In a young, tan face. A seashell necklace.
Two good legs.
A dog. A girlfriend. A fire on the beach.

I wonder what your parents thought,
The ones who named you for a fish,
When you came to them,

Sun bleached hair shaved off,
And told them what you'd done.
That you were coming here, to this dry land.
A land without fish or surfboards.

Don't Do That
Stephen Dunn
Published in the New Yorker Jun 8 2009

It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything
hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red
along with some resentment I’d held in
for a few weeks, which was not helped
by the sight of little nameless things
pierced with toothpicks on the tables,
or by talk that promised to be nothing
if not small. But I’d consented to come,
and I knew what part of the house
their animals would be sequestered,
whose company I loved. What else can I say,

except that old retainer of slights and wrongs,
that bad boy I hadn’t quite outgrown—
I’d brought him along, too. I was out
to cultivate a mood. My hosts greeted me,
but did not ask about my soul, which was when
I was invited by Johnnie Walker Red
to find the right kind of glass, and pour.
I toasted the air. I said hello to the wall,
then walked past a group of women
dressed to be seen, undressing them
one by one, and went up the stairs to where

the Rottweilers were, Rosie and Tom,
and got down with them on all fours.
They licked the face I offered them,
and I proceeded to slick back my hair
with their saliva, and before long
I felt like a wild thing, ready to mess up
the party, scarf the hors d’oeuvres.
But the dogs said, No, don’t do that,
calm down, after a while they open the door
and let you out, they pet your head, and everything
you might have held against them is gone,
and you’re good friends again. Stay, they said.




Sherman Alexie
Survivorman
New Yorker June 8 2009

Here’s a fact: Some people want to live more
Than others do. Some can withstand any horror

While others will easily surrender
To thirst, hunger, and extremes of weather.

In Utah, one man carried another
Man on his back like a conjoined brother

And crossed twenty-five miles of desert
To safety. Can you imagine the hurt?

Do you think you could be that good and strong?
Yes, yes, you think, but you’re probably wrong.

Theory of Imcompletion

This is how I feel when I listen to baroque music- like water running upstream.

By Mark Doty

I'm painting the apartment, elaborate project,
edging doorways and bookcases,

two coats at least, and on the radio
—the cable opera station—something
I don't know, Handel's Semele,

and either it's the latex fumes or the music itself
but I seem never to have heard anything so radiant,

gorgeous rising tiers of it
ceasing briefly then cascading again,
as if baroque music were a series of waterfalls

pouring in the wrong direction, perpetually up
and up, twisting toward the empyrean.




When a tenor—playing the role of a god,
perhaps the god of art?—calls for unbridled joy
the golden form of his outburst

matches the solar confidence of its content,
and I involuntarily say, ah,

I am so swept up by the splendor,
on my ladder, edging the trim
along the crown molding, up where

the fumes concentrate. I am stroking
the paint onto every formerly white inch,
and of course I know Semele will end,

but it doesn't seem it ever has to:
this seemingly endless chain of glorious conclusions,

writhing stacked superb filigree
—let it open out endlessly,
let door after door be slid back

to reveal the next cadence,
the new phrasing, onward and on.

I am stilled now, atop my ladder,
leaning back onto the rungs, am the rapture
of denied closure, no need to go anywhere,

entirety forming and reasserting itself, an endless
—self-enfolding, self-devouring—

of which Handel constructs a model
in music's intricate apportionment
of minutes. And then there's barely a beat

of a pause before we move on to Haydn,
and I am nowhere near the end of my work.

Cat's Dream

I love Neruda.



Cat's Dream

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.



I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.




I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.


Translated by Alastair Reid



Pablo Neruda

Dharma

Dharma
Billy collins




The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she
would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

Conscientious Objector

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by hinmself: I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living, that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.

Snow Poem

The snow is melting here in Haines, but they're predicting snow showers for the next couple of days. Where I grew up, April was definitely spring, but in a lot of the country, it's still undeniably winter. Anyway, there's still time to get this poem in.




Snow

David Berman

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.




Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.




When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.




But why were they on his property, he asked.



from Actual Air, 1999
Open City Books, New YorkSnow

2 by William Carlos Williams

This is Just to Say




I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox



and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast



Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
******
The Red Wheelbarrow



so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white chickens

When Death Comes

This one seems like its going to be depressing, but it turns out to be life-affirming and gorgeous.

When Death Comes

Mary Oliver
From New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press, 25 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02108-2892, ISBN 0 870 6819 5).


When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,


and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

cummings

I love e e cummings. This poem is one of his lesser known ones, but I love it for its beautiful imagery.

if a cheerfulest Elephantangelchild

if a cheerfulest Elephantangelchild should sit
(holding a red candle over his head
by a finger of trunk, and singing out of a red

book) on a proud round cloud in a white high night

where his heartlike ears have flown adorable him
self tail and all (and his tail's red christmas bow)
--and if, when we meet again, little he (having flown
even higher) is sunning his penguinsoul in the glow

of a joy which wasn't and isn't and won't be words

while possibly not (at a guess) quite half way down
to the earth are leapandswooping tinily birds
whose magical gaiety makes your beautiful name---

i feel that (false and true are merely to know)
Love only has ever been, is, and will ever be, So

-e.e. cummings

An Ill Wind

A selection from my brother over at Heron House. I think he's got some poems of his own going this month.

"An Ill Wind" by Louis Jenkins, from Sea Smoke © Holy Cow! Press, 2004. Reprinted with permission.

An Ill Wind


Today there's a cold northeast wind blowing, piling up ice all
along the water's edge. The Point is deserted, no one for five
miles down the beach. Just the way I like it. The sand is frozen
mostly, so the walking is easy as I pick my way through the
wrack and drift. Today I don't even leave footprints. Wind,
sand, sun and water. A simplicity that defies comprehension.
The barest essentials for the imagination's work. This shore has
been pretty much the same for ten thousand years. Countless
others have been here before me, musing and pondering, as
they walked down the beach and disappeared forever. So here's
what I'm thinking: wouldn't it be great if one of them dropped
a big roll of hundred dollar bills and I found it?

April

April is National Poetry Month. I love poetry. I remember Mom writing poems on big sheets of butcher paper and hanging them around the house. I'm hoping to post a new poem every day this month.




An orange ruled the world. By Benjamin Rosenbaum

It was an unexpected thing, the temporary abdication of Heavenly Providence, entrusting the whole matter to a simple orange.

The orange, in a grove in Florida, humbly accepted the honor. The other oranges, the birds, and the men in their tractors wept with joy; the tractors' motors rumbled hymns of praise.

Airplane pilots passing over would circle the grove and tell their passengers, "Below us is the grove where the orange who rules the world grows on a simple branch." And the passengers would be silent with awe.

The governor of Florida declared every day a holiday. On summer afternoons the Dalai Lama would come to the grove and sit with the orange, and talk about life.





When the time came for the orange to be picked, none of the migrant workers would do it: they went on strike. The foremen wept. The other oranges swore they would turn sour. But the orange who ruled the world said, "No, my friends; it is time."

Finally a man from Chicago, with a heart as windy and cold as Lake Michigan in wintertime, was brought in. He put down his briefcase, climbed up on a ladder, and picked the orange. The birds were silent and the clouds had gone away. The orange thanked the man from Chicago.

They say that when the orange went through the national produce processing and distribution system, certain machines turned to gold, truck drivers had epiphanies, aging rural store managers called their estranged lesbian daughters on Wall Street and all was forgiven.

I bought the orange who ruled the world for 39 cents at Safeway three days ago, and for three days he sat in my fruit basket and was my teacher. Today, he told me, "it is time," and I ate him.

Now we are on our own again.

One more week in Anchorage. It's bitter cold (-8F) and beautiful with crisp, clear days and just enough snow to make everything bright in the early afternoon sun. I am fortunate to work close enough to where I live that I can walk my commute. It's about 40 minutes each way (longer if there's lots of fresh snow). I walk through a park, around a lake. I see beaver and moose on my way in at times. A long walk twice a day is a great way to center my mind, to relax and focus.

My Nan died yesterday after 5 days in a coma. She, like many others of her generation, was a fighter. She fought to keep her home and family running. When the last of six children were finally out of the house and settled, she battled with Granddad's Alzheimer's disease. After he passed on, she has struggled for the last decade with cancer. Up until the end, she did not know how to let go, how to stop fighting. I hope that she finally knew peace and that, if there is an afterlife, she is with my mom, and her family and loved ones. I will always remember her in the kitchen (how trite), flour up to her elbows, kneading bread; or lying on the couch, covered with dogs and cats, reading a book; her love of the winter and learning to ski at a time in life when most women were settling down. A strong woman and a good one, I hope that I take after her.




Before She Died

by Karen Chase

When I look at the sky now, I look at it for you.
As if with enough attention, I could take it in for you.

With all the leaves gone almost from
the trees, I did not walk briskly through the field.

Late today with my dog Wool, I lay down in the upper field,
he panting and aged, me looking at the blue. Leaning

on him, I wondered how finite these lustered days seem
to you, A stand of hemlock across the lake catches

my eye. It will take a long time to know how it is
for you. Like a dog's lifetime -- long -- multiplied by sevens.

Veteran's Day

In Flander's Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flander's Fields.

I've never liked the last stanza of this poem, so I'm going to leave it off, although it seems to hang akwardly without a conclusion. I don't believe that we owe more war to the dead. I don't believe that the young men and women coming home maimed in body and soul from war today are holding high the torch that burned at Ypres in 1915. That torch should not be tended.

Wage peace with your breath.

Breath in firemen and rubble
Breath out whole buildings and flocks of
redwing blackbirds.



Breath in terror.
Breath out sleeping children and
freshly mown fields.



Breath in confusion and breath out
maple trees.





Breath in the fallen and breath out
lifelong friendships intact.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries.
Imagine grief as
The outbreath of beauty or the gesture of
a fish.



I celebrated veteran's day with a hike in the mountains. The snow was fresh and not deep. The sky was overcast but from the ridgeline you could see for miles over crystal limbs of heavy-hanging branches. I spent three hours with an aquaintance who I've known for years but never really spoken to. I came home to a mug of hot tea and the Brandenburg concertos. A good day.