unask

 

 

spikes

 

Upon the table in their bowl
in violent disarray
of yellow sprays, green spikes
of leaves, red pointed petals
and curled heads of blue
and white among the litter
of the forks and crumbs and plates
the flowers remain composed.
Coolly their colloquy continues
above the coffee and loud talk
grown frail as vaudeville.

 

William Carlos Williams

 

 

 

 

green

 

My dear one is mine as mirrors are lonely,
As the poor and sad are real to the good king,
And the high green hill sits always by the sea.

He kissed me awake, and no one was sorry;
The sun shone on sails, eyes, pebbles, anything,
And the high green hill sits always by the sea.

So to remember our changing garden, we
Are linked as children in a circle dancing:
My dear one is mine as mirrors are lonely,
And the high, green hill sits always by the sea.

 

W.H. Auden

 

 

 

 

hushed October morning

 

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.

 

Robert Frost

 

 

 

 

now that you are the sun

 

In the end you disappeared, gone beyond sight
Strange, the path you took, leaving this world
Strange how the beat of your wings destroyed the cage
And you flew to the world of the soul.
You were a nightingale, drunk amidst the owl music
Drunk with the music of joy
When the scent of the rose garden reached you
You were gone.

Now that you are the sun, what good is a crown?
And how do you tie your belt
Now that your body is air?

Be silent. Be free
Of all the pain of speech
Don't sleep, since you have moved in
With so wonderful a Lover.

 

Rumi, transl. Tom Davis

 

 

 

 

the autumnal sun

 

Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature -- not his Father but his Mother stirs within him, and he becomes immortal with her immortality. From time to time she claims kindredship with us, and some globule from her veins steals up into our own.

I am the autumnal sun,
With autumn gales my race is run;
I am all sere and yellow,
And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods,
The winter is lurking within my moods,
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief.

 

Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

 

sunset

 

Then new events said to me,
‘Don’t move. A sublime generosity is
coming towards you.’

You are the fountain of the sun’s light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.

The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you.

Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
Changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.

This comes of smiling back
at your smile.

 

Rumi

 

 

 

a break, now: the next post will be up Monday September 22.

 

 

 

 

the eyes of Shiva

However, Bruce Baird, Laguna Beach's chief lifeguard, doubts that sea lions could ever replace, or even really aid, his staff. "If you were someone from Ohio, and you were in the water having trouble, and a sea lion approached you, well, it would require a whole lot more public education," he told Orange County Register.

If I am ever someone from Ohio
in the water having trouble
off a continent's west edge
and am translated to my element
by a sudden warm great animal
with sea-dark fur sleek shining
and the eyes of Shiva,
I hope to sink my troubles like a stone
and all uneducated ride
her inshore shouting with the foam
praises of the freedom to be saved.

 

Ursula le Guin

 

 

 

sunshine

 

Flowers through the window
lavender and yellow

changed by white curtains—
Smell of cleanliness—

Sunshine of late afternoon—
On the glass tray

a glass pitcher, the tumbler
turned down, by which

a key is lying— And the
immaculate white bed.

 

William Carlos Williams

 

 

 

scarf

 

Touching the scarf with a light hand,
There where the whistles shrilly blow.
This is the you that I will know
Where you just like a riddle stand.

 

Marina Ivanova Tsvetaeva

 

 

 

raindrops

 

She looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world

she leans out of the window
and this is what she sees
a wet rose singing to the sun
with a chorus of red bees

she leans out of the window
and laughs for the window is high
she is in it like a bird on a perch
and they scoop the blue sky

she and the window scooping
the morning as if it were air
scooping a green wave of leaves
above a stone stair.

 

Conrad Potter Aitken