L14
4/10/10
c11
RELUCTANCE
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question “Whither?”
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
R.Frost
4/6/10
4/4/10
c7
Who Said This?
Something whispered something
that was not even a word.
It was more like a silence
that was understandable.
I was standing
at the edge of the pond.
Nothing living, what we call living,
was in sight.
And yet, the voice entered me,
my body-life,
with so much happiness.
And there was nothing there
but the water, the sky, the grass.
M.Oliver
4/2/10
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
WBerry
3/31/10
3/30/10
What we want is never simple.
We move among the things we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names--now they want us.
But what we want appears in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past, holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.
Linda Pastan
3/29/10
ja23
If You Forget Me
I want you to know one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals,
were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,the wind of banners that passes through my life,
and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots,
remember that on that day, at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off to seek another land.
But if each day, each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
P.Neruda
3/28/10
j44
Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there;
if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,”
even the night shall be light about me;
yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day:
the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
Psalm 139
3/26/10
j21
Kuan Yin
Of the many buddhas
I love best the girl
who will not leave the cycle of pain before anyone else.
It is not the captain declining to be saved on the sinking ship,
who may just want to ride shame out of sight.
She is at the brink of never being hurt again
but pauses to say, All of us. Every blade of grass.
She chooses to live in the tumble of souls through time.
Perhaps she sees spring in every country,
talks quietly with farm women while helping to lay seed.
Our hearts are a storm she trembles at.
I picture her leaning on a tree or humming or
joining a volleyball game on Santa Monica beach.
Her skin shines with sweat.
The others may not know how to notice what she does to them.
She is not a fish or a bee;
it is not pity or thirst;
she could go, but here she is.
---Laura Fargas
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