unask

 

 

wrought flower

 

I believe the earth
exists, and
in each minim mote
of its dust the holy
glow of thy candle.
Thou
unknown I know,
thou spirit,
giver,
lover of making, of the
wrought letter,
wrought flower,
iron, deed, dream.
Dust of the earth,
help thou my
unbelief.

 

Denise Levertov

 

 

 

 

 

autumn of the mind

 

His death, they said, was slow, grotesque and hard,
Yet in that gross decay, until the end
Untroubled in his joy, he saw the Word
Made spirit and ascend.

Those glorious woods and that triumphant death
Prompted me there to join their mysteries:
This Brother Albert, this great oak of faith,
Those fire-enchanted trees.

Seven years have passed, and still, at times I ask
Whether in man, as in those plants, may be
A splendour, which his human virtues mask,
Not given to us to see?

If to some lives at least comes a stage
When, all active man now left behind,
They enter on the treasure of old age,
This autumn of the mind.

Then, while the heart stands still, beyond desire
The dying animal knows a strange serene:
Emerging in its ecstasy of fire
The burning soul is seen.

Who sees it? Since old age appears to men
Senility, decreptitude, disease,
What Spirit walks among us, past our ken,
As we among these trees,

Whose unknown nature, blessed with keener sense
Catches its breath in wonder at the sight
And feels its being flood with that immense
Epiphany of light?

A. D. Hope

 

 

 

 

 

my sweet, crushed angel

 

You didn't dance so badly, my dear, my love:
Not easy to keep the beat with Beauty itself.

You moved like an angel,
My sweet, crushed angel,
Getting that near to God.

Hard to follow, those moves of His,
Are they not, sweetheart, my heart?
And His musicians, well: how many can hear them at all?

OK, so the music has stopped
For a while;
So, tonight, it costs just too much
to get down with God.

But Hafiz knows the way God works.
Have patience, angel, He will feel your desire,
And there He will be
For you.

You didn't dance so badly, my dear, my heart:
Not easy, you know, to embrace the Unbearable.

You moved like an angel,
O my sweet,
My sweet crushed angel.

Hafiz, transl. Tom Davis

 

 

 

 

 

scamel

there is a new entry in our scamel blog.

 

 

 

 

mirror

 

Don't assume it is passive
or easy, this clarity

with which I give you yourself.
Consider what restraint it

takes: breath withheld, no anger
or joy disturbing the surface

of the ice.
You are suspended in me

beautiful and frozen, I
preserve you, in me you are safe.

It is not a trick either,
it is a craft:

mirrors are crafty.

Margaret Atwood

 

 

 

 

 

colours

 

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.

Wallace Stevens

 

 

 

 

 

butterfly

 

The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung
And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest
Before it stained a single human breast.
The stricken flower bent double and so hung.
And still the bird revisited her young.
A butterfly its fall had dispossessed
A moment sought in air his flower of rest,
Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.

On the bare upland pasture there had spread
O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread
And straining cables wet with silver dew.
A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.
The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,
But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.

Robert Frost

 

 

 

 

 

robin

 

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Sarah Teasdale