unask

 

dream tree

 

A dream tree, Polly's tree:
a thicket of sticks,
each speckled twig

ending in a thin-paned
leaf unlike any
other on it

or in a ghost flower
flat as paper and
of a color

vaporish as frost-breath,
more finical than
any silk fan

the Chinese ladies use
to stir robin's egg
air. The silver-

haired seed of the milkweed
comes to roost there, frail
as the halo

rayed round a candle flame,
a will-o'-the-wisp
nimbus, or puff

of cloud-stuff, tipping her
queer candelabrum.
Palely lit by

snuff-ruffed dandelions,
white daisy wheels and
a tiger faced

pansy, it glows. O it's
no family tree,
Polly's tree, nor

a tree of heaven, though
it marry quartz-flake,
feather and rose.

It sprang from her pillow
whole as a cobweb
ribbed like a hand,

a dream tree. Polly's tree
wears a valentine
arc of tear-pearled

bleeding hearts on its sleeve
and, crowning it, one
blue larkspur star.

 

Sylvia Plath, Polly's tree

 

 

what we need is here

 

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Wendell Berry.

 

 

dawn

 

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

 

Rabindranath Tagore, cited in the wonderful The Welcome Visitor: Living Well, Dying Well, by John Humphrys.

 

 

into the throat of the flower

 

Looking into the vase, into the calyx, into the water drop,
Looking into the throat of the flower, at the pollen stain,
I can see the ambush love sprung once in the summery wood.

 

From James Fenton, Yellow tulips

 

 

a crack in everything

 

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

 

From Leonard Cohen, Anthem.