Spring Equinox

Hello Spring! :)

Spring - Linda Pastan

Just as we lose hope
she ambles in,
a late guest
dragging her hem
of wildflowers,
her torn
veil of mist,
of light rain,
blowing
her dandelion
breath
in our ears;
and we forgive her,
turning from
chilly winter
ways,
we throw off
our faithful
sweaters
and open
our arms.

For the Anniversary of my Death

For the Anniversary of my Death - W.S. Merwin

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day   

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveler

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what

RIP W.S. Merwin

W.S. Merwin 1927-2019, RIP

There is always a certain sadness that befalls you when you hear of a poet's death. The world is quieter somehow, sullen, static, if but for a short space in time. Especially in the case of a poet who is dear to you.

Since discovering W.S. Merwin, I have loved his poetry. He has quite an unique style - that lack of punctuation coupled with language as smooth as silk is always a beguiling combination. His poems are like intricate puzzles of thought and emotion; to decode them, you need simply be open to language's multi-shifting, shimmering nature. If ever poetry can boast of slowing time and making you stop and think, Merwin's poems can surely do that. 

But perhaps The New York Times says it better in their obituary today: "...most reviewers praised his relentless deployment of poetry as a talisman against the void; the emotional ferocity beneath the cool, polished surface of his lines; and his use of language so pure and immediate that it could attain translucence." That it did indeed and now the words remain, aglow. 

I will post some of my favourites of Merwin's poems this week. For now, if you would like to read more, just click on his name in the 'Labels' tags below. The following poem is taken from his 2016 collection 'The Moon Before Morning'. 


Variation on a Theme - W.S. Merwin

Thank you my life long afternoon
late in this spring that has no age
my window above the river
for the woman you led me to
when it was time at last the words
coming to me out of mid-air
that carried me through the clear day
and come even now to find me
for old friends and echoes of them
those mistakes only I could make
homesickness that guides the plovers
from somewhere they had loved before
they knew they loved it to somewhere
they had loved before they saw it
thank you good body hand and eye
and the places and moments known
only to me revisiting
once more complete just as they are
and the morning stars I have seen
and the dogs who are guiding me

Hidden

Hidden - Naomi Shihab Nye

If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has
swallowed it.

If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood
sigh
the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.

No one sees
the fuel that feeds you.

Inessential Things

Inessential Things - Brian Patten

What do cats remember of days?
They remember the ways in from the cold,
The warmest spot, the place of food.
They remember the places of pain, their enemies,
the irritation of birds, the warm fumes of the soil,
the usefulness of dust.
They remember the creak of a bed, the sound
of their owner´s footsteps,
the taste of fish, the loveliness of cream.
Cats remember what is essential of days.
Letting all other memories go as of no worth
they sleep sounder than we,
whose hearts break remembering so many
inessential things.

Forest

This new poem from Carol Ann Duffy celebrates trees. Read more about it here

Forest - Carol Ann Duffy

In fact, the trees are murmuring under your feet,
a buried empathy; you tread it.
                                                  High over your head,
the canopy sieves light; a conversation
you lip-read. The forest
                                       keeps different time;
slow hours as long as your life,
so you feel human.

So you feel more human; persuaded what you are
by wordless breath of wood, reason in resin.
You might name them-
                                     oak, ash, holly, beech, elm-
but the giants are silence alive, superior,
and now you are all instinct;
swinging the small lamp of your heart
as you venture their world:

the green, shadowy, garlic air
                                                 your ancestors breathed.
Ah, you thought love human
till you lost yourself in the forest,
but it is more strange.
                                    These grave and patient saints
who pray and pray
and suffer your little embrace.
 

A Reward - Denise Levertov

Tired and hungry, late in the day, impelled

to leave the house and search for what
might lift me back to what I had fallen away from,
I stood by the shore waiting.
I had walked in the silent woods:
the trees withdrew into their secrets.
Dusk was smoothing breadths of silk
over the lake, watery amethyst fading to gray.
Ducks were clustered in sleeping companies
afloat on their element as I was not
on mine. I turned homeward, unsatisfied.
But after a few steps, I paused, impelled again
to linger, to look North before nightfall-the expanse
of calm, of calming water, last wafts
of rose in the few high clouds.
And was rewarded:
the heron, unseen for weeks, came flying
widewinged toward me, settled
just offshore on his post,
took up his vigil.
If you ask
why this cleared a fog from my spirit,
I have no answer.

Darling Coffee

'Remember the brazen world?'

A good Monday poem - remember to look out for those 'small happenings.' 

Darling Coffee - Meena Alexander

The periodic pleasure
of small happenings
is upon us—
behind the stalls
at the farmer’s market
snow glinting in heaps,
a cardinal its chest
puffed out, bloodshod
above the piles of awnings,
passion’s proclivities;
you picking up a sweet potato
turning to me  ‘This too?’—
query of tenderness
under the blown red wing.
Remember the brazen world?
Let’s find a room
with a window onto elms
strung with sunlight,
a cafe with polished cups,
darling coffee they call it,
may our bed be stoked
with fresh cut rosemary
and glinting thyme,
all herbs in due season
tucked under wild sheets:
fit for the conjugation of joy.