Poem for 9/23/22 - A Note by Wislawa Szymborska

 From my friend Rowan:

A Note 

By Wislawa Szymborska

 

Life is the only way

to get covered in leaves,

catch your breath on sand,

rise on wings;

 

to be a dog,

or stroke its warm fur;

 

to tell pain

from everything it’s not;

 

to squeeze inside events,

dawdle in views,

to seek the least of all possible mistakes;

 

An extraordinary chance

to remember for a moment

a conversation held with the lamp switched off;

 

and if only once

to stumble on a stone,

end up soaked in one downpour or another,

 

mislay your keys in the grass;

and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;

 

and to keep on not knowing

something important

Poem for 9/15/22 - Fatherland by Liana Sakelliou

 

Fatherland

Liana Sakelliou

translated by Aliki Barnstone Marathon is an ancient city, almost Elysian, I say, as we climb the hill that holds the dead, saffron bulbs everywhere. Here is the tomb, white as bone, the sea cobalt blue, the day naked. Marathos means root, I say, as we pick the green root that bears Marathon’s name for our food—fennel’s fragrant spell. How quickly things are forgotten, losing shape, losing their names, turning into something else. There are words in your mouth instead of screams: Yes, you passed through the checkpoint. No, you did not have a passport. No, you were not an adult. You were unfit to travel. You stuttered as you spoke. You stumbled as you walked. You misheard instructions. You consigned the secret to your brothers— they kept you alive, after all! You borrowed their boat. The Coast Guard ordered you around like a metronome. Now the light is switched on, punishing as snow. For me it’s a wingspan. For you it collapses into your spring like a heavy construction.     Πατρικό έδαφος    Ο Μαραθώνας είναι αρχαία πόλη, σχεδόν Ηλύσια, λέω,  καθώς σκαρφαλώνουμε τον λόφο  που περιέχει τους νεκρούς, παντού βολβοί σαφράνια. Ο τάφος είναι εδώ, λευκός σαν κόκαλο, η θάλασσα στο μπλε του κοβαλτίου, η μέρα γυμνή. Μάραθος σημαίνει ρίζα, λέω, καθώς μαζεύουμε την πράσινη ρίζα για να τη βάλουμε στο φαγητό–  ξόρκι ευωδιαστό. Πόσο γρήγορα τα πράγματα ξεχνιόνται, χάνουνε σχήμα, χάνουνε όνομα, γίνονται κάτι άλλο. Λέξεις στο στόμα αντί για κραυγές: Ναι, πέρασες το σημείο ελέγχου. Όχι, δεν είχες διαβατήριο. Όχι, δεν ήσουν ενήλικας. Ήσουν ανήμπορος να ταξιδέψεις. Τραύλιζες όταν μιλούσες. Παραπατούσες όταν περπάταγες. Κατάλαβες λάθος τις οδηγίες. Εμπιστεύτηκες το μυστικό στα αδέρφια σου– αυτά σε είχαν άλλωστε κρατήσει ζωντανό! Δανείστηκες τη λέμβο τους. Ο Ακτοφύλακας σε διέταξε  σαν μετρονόμος. Τώρα το φως είναι αναμμένο, τιμωρητικό σαν το χιόνι. Για μένα είναι άνοιγμα φτερών. Για σένα καταρρέει στην άνοιξη σου σαν μια βαριά κατασκευή.

Copyright © 2022 by Liana Sakelliou and Aliki Barnstone. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 15, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Farewell to my dear Rosie

Farewell To Our Dear Rose

With great sadness, I need to report that one of my beloved dogs, Rosie, died on Sunday afternoon, September 11, 2022. (In the picture below, from a year or so ago, she is the blenheim--the brown and white one--gazing up at me).

As everyone who met her knew, she was a singularly joyful dog, full of affection and enthusiasm for every human she met, regardless of size. She brought peace and comfort to so many of our residents over the years she spent with me at CCB, and she will be sorely missed.

Many of you probably did not realize that Rosie had actually been living with a severe form of heart disease for years. My son Moses (whose memory is slightly better than mine) recalls that the vet diagnosed her with Mitral Valve Heart disease in 2019 and told us that Rosie would likely live 6 to 12 months longer. Since the condition had no effect on her behavior, her energy, or her infinite capacity for love, we didn't talk about it much. Instead, we gave her the prescribed pill (raising the dose and adding another medication as the disease progressed) and enjoyed her company as much as we always did.

It was only last week that she began to slow down a bit, to show a bit of unwillingness to eat (which was a sure sign she wasn't feeling well--no one loved food more than Rosie), and to breathe in an increasingly ragged fashion. Still, she enjoyed walking, snuggling with her partner, Puck, and sitting our laps. Through a series of unexpected circumstances, Rosie was able to spend the last day of her life not only with me, but with my two sons, Samson and Moses. They were also able to participate in burying her behind their mothers' house. As terrible as the day was, at least we were able to spend it together.

We will always be grateful for the joy Rosie brought into our lives and so relieved that she didn't suffer any pain or significant discomfort before she died. 

 

On September 14th, Dante’s Death Day

Pierre Joris

gone 700 years today             leaving us here, in the                       middle kingdom                             Purgatory which was Paradise once                       but which we soiled           and are about to turn into hell, or                       at least an Inferno for homo sap sap, the           disappearing species                         — if it comes to that — there’s life           left, there will be life left         and right it will move                      on, even without us it will rejoice in us      gone — I can hear the            birds celebrating                        the trees too                                  the air cooling                                            the sea cooling                        it will be the real paradise            the one sans-sapiens, that arrogant inter- ference!

Copyright © 2022 by Pierre Joris. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 27 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 9/8/22 - my mother used to have that dream by Elana Dykewomon

my mother used to have that dream

by Elana Dykewomon (see her obituary here)

We were standing in her kitchen

the kitchen of the womon who

had been my lover

I was trying to leave

She didn't want me to go

I didn't want to go 

but I could see no other

way to be

She could not move toward me

she was crying

she said it wasn't that she

didn't want to, she didn't know

what stopped her

my need wasn't strange or

unreasonable to her still

she could not respond to me

unless we were having this scene

she said she dreamed she could not

move,     she opened her mouth

and no words came out

I said

my mother used to have that dream

she was standing on a beach

watching her children drowning

swept away on the surf

and she couldn't move to save them

she opened her mouth, like you

but she could not scream

I am my mother's daughter

I am out beyond the breakers

in dangerous water

the womon on the beach

sees me go down

tangled in kelp, exhausted

or a huge wave

catches me in its break

I see her standing there

fixed       unable to swim toward me

unable to make a sound,

neither cry for help nor encouragement

I have been lost at sea

to many womyn in just this way

including my mother

one minute they are thinking

everything is well with us

and the next

I'm a ghost

What they never see is how I

surface on the other side

of the wave

paddling slowly

for another coast

Poem for 9/7/22 - The Nightingale to the Workman by Morris Rosenfeld

 

The Nightingale to the Workman

Morris Rosenfeld

translated by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank Fair summer is here, glad summer is here! O hark! ’tis to you I am singing: The sun is all gold in a heaven of blue, The birds in the forest are trilling for you, The flies ’mid the grasses are winging; The little brook babbles—its secret is sweet. The loveliest flowers would circle your feet,— And you to your work ever clinging! . . . Come forth! Nature loves you. Come forth! Do not fear! Fair summer is here, glad summer is here, Full measure of happiness bringing. All creatures drink deep; and they pour wine anew In the old cup of life, and they wonder at you. Your portion is waiting since summer began; Then take it, oh, take it, you laboring man!  ’Tis summer today; ay, summer today! The butterflies light on the flowers. Delightfully glistens the silvery rain. The mountains are covered with greenness again. And perfumed and cool are the bowers. The sheep frisk about in the flowery vale. The shepherd and shepherdess pause in the dale. And these are the holiest hours! . . . Delay not, delay not, life passes away! ’Tis summer today, sweet summer today! Come, throttle your wheel’s grinding power! . . . Your worktime is bitter and endless in length; And have you not foolishly lavished your strength? O think not the world is with bitterness rife, But drink of the wine from the goblet of life. O, summer is here, sweet summer is here! I cannot forever be trilling; I flee on the morrow. Then, you, have a care! The crow, from the perch I am leaving, the air With ominous cries will be filling. O, while I am singing to you from my tree Of love, and of life, and of joy yet to be. Arouse you!—O why so unwilling! . . . The heavens remain not so blue and so clear;— Now summer is here! Come, summer is here! Reach out for the joys that are thrilling! For like you who fade at your wheel, day by day, Soon all things will fade and be carried away. Our lives are but moments; and sometimes the cost Of a moment overlooked is eternity lost.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 4, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 9/6/22 - Entrance by Rainer Maria Rilke

Entrance, by Rainer Maria Rilke

Whoever you are: in the evening step out
of your room, where you know everything;
yours is the last house before the far-off:
whoever you are.
With your eyes, which in their weariness
barely free themselves from the worn-out threshold,
you lift very slowly one black tree
and place it against the sky: slender, alone.
And you have made the world. And it is huge
and like a word which grows ripe in silence.
And as your will seizes on its meaning,
tenderly your eyes let it go. . .

Translated From The German By Edward Snow

Entrance

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

translated by Dana Gioia

Poem for 9/1/22 - ELEGY by Edna St. Vincent Millay

ELEGY

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

LET them bury your big eyes

In the secret earth securely,

Your thin fingers, and your fair,

Soft, indefinite-colored hair,–

All of these in some way, surely,

From the secret earth shall rise;

Not for these I sit and stare,

Broken and bereft completely;

Your young flesh that sat so neatly

On your little bones will sweetly

Blossom in the air.

But your voice,–never the rushing

Of a river underground,

Not the rising of the wind

In the trees before the rain,

Not the woodcock's watery call,

Not the note the white-throat utters,

Not the feet of children pushing

Yellow leaves along the gutters

In the blue and bitter fall,

Shall content my musing mind

For the beauty of that sound

That in no new way at all

Ever will be heard again.

Sweetly through the sappy stalk

Of the vigorous weed,

Holding all it held before,

Cherished by the faithful sun,

On and on eternally

Shall your altered fluid run,

Bud and bloom and go to seed;

But your singing days are done;

But the music of your talk

Never shall the chemistry

Of the secret earth restore.

All your lovely words are spoken.

Once the ivory box is broken,

Beats the golden bird no more.