unask

 

all actors are sad

Yet they all want to play Hamlet because it is sad
like all actors are sad and to stand by an open
grave with a joker’s skull in the hand and then to say
over slow and say over
slow wise, keen, beautiful words
masking a heart that’s breaking, breaking,

This is something that calls and calls to their blood.

They are acting when they talk about it
and they know it is acting to be particular about it
and yet:

They all want to play Hamlet.

Carl Sandburg

 

 

ah, ah, how was it

You never sent (in a dream)
the very form, the very scent,
not heavy, not sensuous,
but perilous—perilous—
of orchids, piled in a great sheath,
and folded underneath on a bright scroll,
some word:

"Flower sent to flower;
for white hands, the lesser white,
less lovely of flower-leaf,"

or

"Lover to lover, no kiss,
no touch, but forever and ever this."

H.D.

 

 

and then my heart
pulled itself apart
and filled to the brim
with a new light
overflowed with fresh life

now even the heavens
are thankful that
because of love
i have become
the giver of light

Rumi, ghazal 1393

 

 

squirrel

Say “death” and the whole room freezes—
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.

Jane Hirshfield

 

 

wild garlic

Shoe of my mind walk me back
Through the wild garlic
To that day without end
Steep with sun rain and wind
Down to the sea
Take me to the stones
That lie in the clear water
Stand me to look at the shadows
Of those big fish who visit the bay
Merge me with their shadows
To glide with them
Over the water-smoothed rocks
Out to the deep reaches
Beyond tide and change.

Ken Lye

 

 

sunlit

I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedias
And slid my fingers among topics and titles
Looking for you.

And the answer comes slow.
There seems to be no answer.

I shall ask the next banana peddler the who and the why of it.

Or—the iceman with his iron tongs gripping a clear cube in summer sunlight—maybe he will know.

Carl Sandburg

 

 

imprisoned in his golden cage

How sweet I roam'd from field to field,
And tasted all the summer's pride,
'Till I the prince of love beheld,
Who in the sunny beams did glide!

He shew'd me lilies for my hair,
And blushing roses for my brow;
He led me through his gardens fair,
Where all his golden pleasures grow.

With sweet May dews my wings were wet,
And Phoebus fir'd my vocal rage;
He caught me in his silken net,
And shut me in his golden cage.

He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty.

William Blake