unask

 

There is a motionless tree

 

There is a motionless tree
there is another that moves forward
a river of trees
pounds at my chest
The green swell
of good fortune

You are dressed in red
you are
the seal of the burning year
carnal firebrand
star of fruit
I eat the sun in you

The hour rests
on a chasm of clarities

The birds are a handful of shadows
their beaks build the night
their wings sustain the day

Rooted at the light's peak
between stability and vertigo
you are
the diaphanous balance.

 

Octavio Paz

 

 

daffodils

 

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

From e.e.cummings, In time of daffodils

 

 

lucy

 

Lucy the lioness, dashing past galaxies,
guarding the nebulae, the stellar play spaces,
all that sweet spacetime, smelling of God--
remembered the house
remembered the sun shadows
remembered, and is, the love, and the house,
and the sun shadows always.

From Tom Davis, Socrates driving a bus in Brooklyn

 

 

 

scamel

there is a new entry in our scamel blog.

 

 

 

golden, glowing

 

My mother said every persimmon has a sun
inside, something golden, glowing,
warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper
forgotten and not yet ripe.
I took them and set them both on my bedroom windowsill,
where each morning a cardinal
sang. The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding
he was going blind,
my father would stay up all one night
waiting for a song, a ghost.
I gave him the persimmons, swelled, heavy as sadness,
and sweet as love.

 

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,
the strength, the tense
precision in the wrist.
I painted them hundreds of times
eyes closed. These I painted blind.
Some things never leave a person:
scent of the hair of one you love,
the texture of persimmons,
in your palm, the ripe weight.

 

From Li-Young Lee, Persimmons

 

 

yew trees and you

 

I will make you a yew-tree folly
it will be round, it will be
surprising
it will have
magical composure

and we will go
round and round
and not know that we are rising

in the green garden
the air will be bright with meaning
it will make everyone smile
amidst the roundness of yew trees

time will be spread about us like a lake
filled with sky
round and round
I will meet you
in the fullness
of yew-trees

there will be no accidents
an absence of incidents
there will be no numbers

there will be
all of the friends
all of the cats
and various angels

there will be
sunshine at midnight
poems in the undergrowth
it will be
surprising

and the world will go
round and round
round and round
and not know that it is rising

Tom Davis

 

 

circles

 

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

 

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

From Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

 

 

the gaze

 

my gaze goes straight to the heart:
I don't listen to speeches.
the heart is the truth;
words are the truth's disguise.
In all your life, how many sentences?
too many, too many for me.
burn the words; burn them,
make friends with fire.
light the fire of love.
burn the thoughts away.

Rumi, transl. Tom Davis