unask

 

a third tiger

 

Against the tiger of symbols I have set
the real one, the hot-blooded one
that savages a herd of buffalo,
and today, the third of August, ’59,
its patient shadow moves across the plain.

But yet, the act of naming it, of guessing
what is its nature and its circumstance
creates a fiction, not a living creature,
Not the animal that lives wild upon the earth.

Let us look for a third tiger. This one
will be a form in my dream like all the others,
a system, an arrangement of human language,
and not the flesh-and-bone tiger
that, out of reach of all mythologies,
paces the earth.

I know all this; yet something
drives me to this ancient, perverse adventure,
foolish and vague, so that still I keep on looking
throughout the hours for the other tiger,
the other tiger, the one not found in verse.

 

Jorge Luis Borges, transl. Tom Davis and (mostly) Alastair Reid

 

 

 

 

an orchid chorusing

 

Slow-rolling beauty
without end or beginning
assures our immortality.
The way an orchid chorusing
her fragrance in waves
says no goodbye is possible
in this joyous voyage.

 

Al Young

 

 

 

 

 

 

A break, now, for a few days. The next post will be on Friday July 10.

 

 

 

Gee, you're so beautiful that it's starting to rain

 

Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A

Computer Magic
A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
A

Finding out about Fish
A

Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty
A+!

 

Richard Brautigan

 

 

 

the beautiful changes

 

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon's tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things' selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

 

From Richard Wilbur, The beautiful changes

 

 

 

the smile

 

The Moon was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago --
And now she turns Her perfect Face
Upon the World below --

Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde --
Her Cheek -- a Beryl hewn --
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known --

Her Lips of Amber never part --
But what must be the smile
Upon Her Friend she could confer
Were such Her Silver Will.

 

From Emily Dickinson, The Moon was but a Chin of Gold