unask

 

like the water

Like the water
of a deep stream,
love is always too much.
We did not make it.
Though we drink till we burst,
we cannot have it all,
or want it all.
In its abundance
it survives our thirst.

We enter,
willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.

Wendell Berry

 

 

the marvelous

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.
The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,
A crewman shinned and grappled down a rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
`This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'
The abbot said, `Unless we help him.' So
They did, the freed ship sailed and the man climbed back
Out of the marvelous as he had known it.

Seamus Heaney

 

 

maytime, sadness

Maytime, loveliest season,
Loud birdtalk, new growth green,
Ploughs in furrow, oxen yoked,
Emerald sea, landcolour dapples.

When cuckoos call from fair tree-tops
A sudden feeling: grief.
Stinging smoke, sadness rising,
Remembering those who died.

The hills, the valleys, the sea's islands,
Whichever way man goes,
You can't escape from God.

13th century Welsh poem: Tristwch yn y Gwanwyn

 

 

electric

Black love, provide the adequate electric
for what is lapsed and lenient in us now.

Rouse us from blur. Call us.

Call to the shattered sister and repair her
in her difficult hour, narrow her fever.

Black love, define and escort our romantic young,
be means and redemption, discipline.

Nourish our children--proud, strong
little men upright-easy:
quick
flexed
little stern-warm historywomen...

Lovely loving children
with long soft eyes.

On the ledges---in the lattices--against the falling
light of candles that stutter,
and in the chop and challenge of our apprehension--
be
the Alwayswonderful of this world.

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks

 

 

one feather is a bird

One feather is a bird,
I claim; one tree, a wood;
In her low voice I heard
More than a mortal should;
And so I stood apart,
Hidden in my own heart.

Desire exults the ear:
Bird, girl, and ghostly tree,
The earth, the solid air—
Their slow song sang in me;
The long noon pulsed away,
Like any summer day.

Theodore Roethke

 

 

do you know raspberries?

Angel of blizzards and blackouts, do you know raspberries,
those rubies that sat in the green of my grandfather's garden?
You of the snow tires, you of the sugary wings, you freeze
me out. Let me crawl through the patch. Let me be ten.
Let me pick those sweet kisses, thief that I was,
as the sea on my left slapped its applause.

Oh Angel of the blizzard and blackout, Madam white face,
take me back to that red mouth, that July 21st place.

Anne Sexton

 

 

look one way

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be--
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

Robert Frost