"The Shortest Night of the Year," by Carol J. Pierman

Like spice, the pollen, ripening grains
thicken the air. Wind has died
to a regular breathing
handed along like a secret
from branch to branch

This house stands in the middle of
thousands of miles of fields.
The lawn itself is wide
and flat as a plain. Only
the trees, planted at the edge,
make this space different,
the center of something

                        First
there is the west sky
where darkness folds down
crimson, vermilion, gently
as a skirt to the floor

Then fireflies, and the light
of moon falling wet
and yellow on the lawn

There is a hollow
where throat meets
shoulder. It holds
the heat of sunlight

                        Earth
falls away slowly here.
To every side    the horizon
when it is day

- Carol J. Pierman

 in The Naturalized Citizen

 ___

Happy summer solstice, friends.

"Cover Note," by W.S. Merwin

Hypocrite reader my
variant my almost
family we are so
few now it seems as though
we knew each other as
the words between us keep
assuming that we do
I hope I make sense to
you in the shimmer of
our days while the world we
cling to in common is

burning for I have not
the ancients' confidence
in the survival of
one track of syllables
nor in some ultimate
moment of insight that
supposedly will dawn
once and for all upon
a bright posterity
making clear only to
them what passes between

us now in a silence
on this side of the flames
so that from a distance
beyond appeal only
they of the future will
behold our true meaning
which eludes us as we
breathe reader beside your
timepiece do you believe
any such thing do the
children read what you do

when they read or can you
think the words will rise from
the page saying the same
things when they speak for us
no longer and then who
in the total city
will go on listening
to these syllables that
are ours and be able
still to hear moving through
them the last rustling of

paws in high grass the one
owl hunting along this
spared valley the tongues of
the free trees our uncaught
voices readers I do
not know that anyone
else is waiting for these
words that I hoped might seem
as though they had occurred
to you and you would take
them with you as your own

- W.S. Merwin

in Travels (1993)

___

(Associations: texting a photo of this poem to Erin in February of 2020. Biking to the library in March of 2020 to return the book it came from, and that being the last thing I did outside before lockdown was announced.)

"Surely You Remember"

After they all leave,
I remain alone with the poems,
some poems of mine, some of others.
I prefer poems that others have written.
I remain quiet, and slowly
the knot in my throat dissolves.
I remain.

Sometimes I wish everyone would go away.
Maybe it's nice, after all, to write poems.
You sit in your room and the walls grow taller.
Colors deepen.
A blue kerchief becomes a deep well.

You wish everyone would go away.
You don't know what's the matter with you.
Perhaps you'll think of something.
Then it all passes, and you are pure crystal.

After that, love.
Narcissus was so much in love with himself.
Only a fool doesn't understand
he loved the river, too.

You sit alone.
Your heart aches, but it won't break.
The faded images wash away one by one.
Then the defects.
A sun sets at midnight. You remember
the dark flowers too.

You wish you were dead or alive or
somebody else.
Isn't there a country you love? A word?
Surely you remember.

Only a fool lets the sun set when it likes.
It always drifts off too early
westward to the islands.

Sun and moon, winter and summer
will come to you,
infinite treasures.

- Dahlia Ravikovitch

translated by Chana Bloch and Ariel Bloch
in The Window

"Stepping Westward"

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish by day,
yet burn there
in blue or above
quilts of cloud.
There is no savor
more sweet, more salt
than to be glad to be
what, woman,
and who, myself,
I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens
they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket
of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me
in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.

- Denise Levertov

"Telling a Traveler by Her Eyes"

 A woman travels alone
 to a place where there are only trees
and the wind. Her footsteps
are scattered by the tall grass
No voice whispers back
Sunlight dapples wherever it falls
chalk on the leaves, butter
on her arms. A bird
on a low branch cocks its head
stares into her. Their hearts
race. She feels the hard
clasp of wing and the bones
pierce at her back. She
fights to breathe
Later, she will go live
at the edge of a clearing
She will not face a hunter
straight on

- Carol J. Pierman

in The Naturalized Citizen (1981)

"While There's Still," by Chrystos

an edge to the parking lot

you can hear the orange gold

songs of autumn birds

bursting into dawn in an uneven

ragged line of untrimmed trees

You could

lean out

over the railing

which keeps you from it

& despite everything

breathe in the beauty

"Stars," by Chrystos

full generous in beauty hold me in tender light
Each one a burning kindness against the icy bite
All comfort comes from mystery we let be
shining without reason
across a thousand years of sky
simple as white primroses who open
all through winter
denying snow in shelter of a drooping fir
Each heart petal centered gold
as strangers exclaim my miracle
gift given as sweet sustenance
for grief more terror stained
than any want to bear
I planted these
rescued from bins of ignorance
They thrive as do I
in spite of chill cruel frosts echoed in her eyes
I've made my mother be
all that lives in rooted harmony
She whose blood carried me here
I've sent beyond the night
so I may laugh with stones & shells
hold shelter with my arms around a tree
whose old bark patterns my face with words
In my footsteps no child sings
my voice calls out alone
in darkness I name rest
This dandelion of my breath a silver promise
alive

 

__

From her book Fire Power (1995), which I read and admired in June.

"Alignment's Wit"

After seven years together, my partner and I finally write the same poem. The odds were quite good, actually, as she approached prose poetry from verse and I from story, that we'd meet in the middle with a short strip of words about our daughter. Statistically it's bound to happen, that two lovers sharing a bed would write the same sentence, that two inventors standing on opposite ends of earth's longest sidewalk would create the same amalgam at the same time. Who gets the patent then, the riches, the byline, the fame? We don't wish to share. We do not collaborate. So we trade our sheets of paper, read them, trade them back. After seven more years, we will tire of this, but I love the way that she says, that I say, she is tumbleweed in the morning.

- Julie Gard

in Home Studies

“One for the storehouse"

The fading evening light;
Your face
deeply engrossed
in a book;
The stillness
and the noise
of the sea;
All this,
will I put
in my storehouse
of good memories.
And hold it
against the coming storms.

- Meiling Jin

"Winter," by Bella Akhmadulina

This same poet wrote one of my favorite autumn poems, which I have posted here twice before. I discovered this poem just a few weeks ago, and it continues to hold me in thrall.

Winter became my season during my years in the Chicago area — the sensory sparseness and the deep cold lent themselves perfectly somehow to the different moods and struggles of each year, and my memories of what was so striking to see, feel, and hear hold the emotional memories tightly. I mostly look forward to it now as a time to turn inward, read closely, turn big ideas over and let my thoughts steep without hurry. This coming winter will also bring the time to celebrate a year spent with my love.

The feeling of these memories has accumulated, though; I feel them lying layered and translucent against each other. And I read and love this poem because of how well it evokes (and invokes) some of my winter selves.


Winter

Winter's gesture to me is
chilly and persistent.
Winter has something
mildly medicinal.

Why else does
my unsuspecting sickness
stretch its hands toward it suddenly
out of darkness and pain?

My love,
practice witchcraft.
Let your icy ringlet's tonic kiss
brush my forehead.

The temptation continually grows
to meet deception with belief,
to look dogs in the eye,
to press myself against trees,

to forgive — playfully —
to run and turn,
and when done,
forgive again.

To equal the winter afternoon's
empty oval,
its nuances,
and always be aware of it.

To reduce my self to nothing,
so from behind the wall I can shout
not to my shadow, but to the light
not blocked by me.

– Bella Akhmadulina
trans. Mary Maddock

"It is better to speak..."

I'm posting this today for courage, for me, for you. Have a lovely weekend, my dear friends. Do something strong with it.

A Litany for Survival

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours:

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak
we are afraid our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

– Audre Lorde

"I Remember," by Anne Sexton

By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was
as tough as hemp and was
no color — no more than
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and
one day I tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that I looked almost like
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine.

When I Banged My Head on the Door

When I banged my head on the door, I screamed,
"My head, my head," and I screamed, "Door, door,"
and I didn't scream "Mama" and I didn't scream "God."
And I didn't prophesy a world at the End of Days
where there will be no more heads and doors.

When you stroked my head, I whispered,
"My head, my head," and I whispered, "Your hand, your hand,"
and I didn't whisper "Mama" or "God."
And I didn't have miraculous visions
of hands stroking heads in the heavens
as they split wide open.

Whatever I scream or say or whisper is only
to console myself: My head, my head.
Door, door. Your hand, your hand.

– Yehuda Amichai

These are the materials

[trigger warning: abuse]

I don't want to hear how he beat her after the earthquake,
tore up her writing, threw the kerosene
lantern into her face waiting
like an unbearable mirror of his own.    I don't
want to hear how she finally ran from the trailer
how he tore the keys from her hands, jumped into the truck
and backed it into her.    I don't want to think
how her guesses betrayed her — that he meant well, that she
was really the stronger and ought not to leave him
to his own apparent devastation.    I don't want to know
wreckage, dreck and waste, but these are the materials
and so are the slow lift of the moon's belly
over wreckage, dreck, and waste, wild treefrogs calling in
another season, light and music still pouring over
our fissured, cracked terrain.

– Adrienne Rich
from "An Atlas of the Difficult World"

From "A Long Conversation"

All kinds of language fly into poetry, like it or not, or even if you’re
only
as we were     trying
          to keep an eye
         on the weapons on the street
     and under the street

Just here, our friend L.: bony, nerve-driven, closeted, working as a nurse when he can’t get teaching jobs. Jew from a dynasty of converts, philosopher trained as an engineer, he can’t fit in where his brilliant and privileged childhood pointed him. He too is losing patience: What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc . . . & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life, if it does not make you more conscientious than any journalist in the use of the dangerous phrases such people use for their own ends?

You see, I know that it’s difficult to think well about “certainty,” “probability,” perception, etc. But it is, if possible, still more difficult to think, or try to think, really honestly about your life and other people’s lives. And thinking about these things is NOT THRILLING, but often downright nasty. And when it’s nasty then it’s MOST important.

His high-pitched voice with its darker, hoarse undertone.

At least he didn’t walk out, he stayed, long fingers drumming.

– Adrienne Rich
in Midnight Salvage

And where there is rain

This is what I love about his poems, that they are like photographs. Or small in-between moments from a beautiful movie. An aching clarity.


Always a Rose: 6

Not for the golden pears, rotten on the ground —
their sweetness their secret — not for the scent
of their dying did I go back to my father's house. Not for the grass
grown wild as his beard in his last few months,
nor for the hard, little apples that littered the yard,
and vines, rampant on the porch, tying the door shut,
did I stand there, late, rain arriving.
The rain came. And where there is rain,
there is time, and memory, and sometimes sweetness.
Where there is a son, there is a father.
And if there is love there is
no forgetting, but regret rending
two shaggy hearts.
I said good-bye to the forsythia, flowerless for years.
I turned from the hive-laden pine.
Then, I saw it — you, actually.
Past the choked rhododendrons,
behind the perishing gladiolas, there
in the far corner of the yard, you, my rose,
lovely for nothing, lonely for no one,
stunning the afternoon
with your single flower ablaze.
I left that place, I let the rain
meditate on the brilliance of one blossom
quivering in the beginning of downpour.

– Li-Young Lee
from  Rose

Anna Akhmatova ate the metaphorical tangerine

"'Who can refuse to live his own life?' Akhmatova once remarked in answer to some expression of sympathy. Her refusal not to live her life made of her one of those few people who have given dignity and meaning to our terrible century, and through whom and for whom it will be remembered.

...

Pushkin was the closest of the friends she did not meet even once in her life. He helped her to survive the 1920s and 30s, the first of Akhmatova's long periods of isolation and persecution. Dante, too, was close. And there were friends whom she could meet, including Mandelstam and Pasternak, whose unbreakable integrity supported her own. But no-one could have helped, through thirty years of persecution, war, and persecution, if she had not herself been one of the rare incorruptible spirits.

Her incorruptibility as a person is closely linked to her most fundamental characteristic as a poet: fidelity to things as they are, to 'the clear, familiar, material world'....In all her life's work, her fusion with ordinary unbetrayable existence is so complete that only the word 'modest' can express it truthfully. When she tells us (In 1940), 'But I warn you,/I am living for the last time', the words unconsciously define her greatness: her total allegiance to the life she was in...Her poetry seems...to be a transparent medium through which life streams."

– D.M. Thomas

Uncertainties

This reminds me of a Japanese poem I can't quite remember, which we read in elementary school with our poetry teacher. A woman missing her lover, a line about her own hair or the night. Two years ago in NaPoWriMo I wrote, "I am so happy today that I dialed your number certain you would answer." That same sense of contagion, that joy makes more joy more possible, and the same with sorrow, I suppose — there's something intuitive about it.

The moon

has been missing
for nearly a week; and
you haven't called.

There may be
no connection,
but darkness

is contagious
and blood brother
to silence.

– Linda Pastan
in Traveling Light

"this is the birth/day of life and love and wings"

Spring is being born and everything is being born. This is how I am feeling lately, from the moment I wake with the sky blowing on my face through the open window—so exultant. I ate lunch in the full sunshine thinking this is the sun's birthday and so I must share this with you, a favorite since freshman year.

i thank You God for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

- e.e. cummings

Guest Post: Cold

By my Chicago girl.

Step out and
lungs gasp but

throat closes tight at the no, no,

no! of the cold,

and for a moment I am breathless.

It slowly slides through all
my layers,
a solid sheet of pin-pricking––

You don't belong here, my
body moans,
and for a moment I understand
that despite my honey-dark hair,
my blue eyes, my fair skin meant to drink in
this thin northern sunlight,
far,
far,
far back,
my family lived in Africa.

And it's quite laughable,
really,
the endeavors of
down and
wool and
leather,


for all never quite make up
for my heritage.