Monday, January 23, 2012
For The Sake Of Strangers, by Dorianne Laux
For The Sake Of Strangers
No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy gives me directions
so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,
waits patiently for my empty body to pass through.
All day it continues, each kindness
reaching toward another – a stranger
singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees
offering their blossoms, a retarded child
who lifts his almond eyes and smiles.
Somehow they always find me, seem even
to be waiting, determined to keep me
from myself, from the thing that calls to me
as it must have once called to them –
this temptation to step off the edge
and fall weightless, away from the world.
by Dorianne Laux, from What We Carry, 1994
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Way It Is, by William Stafford
Hello Poets,
William Stafford’s journey with words began most mornings before sunrise. This simple poem was written 26 days before he passed. The day before he wrote “Haycutters” and four days later on August 6, 1993 he wrote “November” in honor of Hiroshima Day.
One of his students, the poet Naomi Shihab Nye, wrote, “In our time there has been no poet who revived human hearts and spirits more convincingly than William Stafford. There has been no one who gave more courage to a journey with words, and silence, and an awakened life.”
The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
By William Stafford, from The Way It Is, 1998
William Stafford’s journey with words began most mornings before sunrise. This simple poem was written 26 days before he passed. The day before he wrote “Haycutters” and four days later on August 6, 1993 he wrote “November” in honor of Hiroshima Day.
One of his students, the poet Naomi Shihab Nye, wrote, “In our time there has been no poet who revived human hearts and spirits more convincingly than William Stafford. There has been no one who gave more courage to a journey with words, and silence, and an awakened life.”
The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
By William Stafford, from The Way It Is, 1998
Monday, January 9, 2012
Sitting In The Orchard, by Jelaluddin Rumi
Hello Poets,
Rumi imagining more, the taste and scent of reality.
Best,
Sam
Sitting In The Orchard
A man sits in an orchard, fruit trees full
and the vines plump. He has his head
on his knee; his eyes are closed.
His friend says, “Why stay sunk in mystical
meditation when the world is like this?
Such visible grace.”
He replies, “The outer is an elaboration
of the inner. I prefer the origin.”
Natural beauty is a tree limb reflected
in the water of a creek, quivering there, not
there. The growing that moves in the soul
is more real than tree limbs and reflections.
We laugh and feel happy or sad over all this.
Try instead to get a scent
of the true orchard. Taste the vineyard
within the vineyard.
by Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), from Rumi the Book of Love, 2003
translated from the Persian by Coleman Barks
Rumi imagining more, the taste and scent of reality.
Best,
Sam
Sitting In The Orchard
A man sits in an orchard, fruit trees full
and the vines plump. He has his head
on his knee; his eyes are closed.
His friend says, “Why stay sunk in mystical
meditation when the world is like this?
Such visible grace.”
He replies, “The outer is an elaboration
of the inner. I prefer the origin.”
Natural beauty is a tree limb reflected
in the water of a creek, quivering there, not
there. The growing that moves in the soul
is more real than tree limbs and reflections.
We laugh and feel happy or sad over all this.
Try instead to get a scent
of the true orchard. Taste the vineyard
within the vineyard.
by Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), from Rumi the Book of Love, 2003
translated from the Persian by Coleman Barks
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