Sowing
It was a perfect day
For sowing; just
As sweet and dry was the ground
As tobacco-dust.
I tasted deep the hour
Between the far
Owl’s chuckling first soft cry
And the first star.
A long stretched hour it was;
Nothing undone
Remained; the early seeds
All safely sown.
And now, hark at the rain,
Windless and light,
Half a kiss, half a tear.
Saying good-night.
~ Edward Thomas
Under Stars
The sleep of this night deepens
because I have walked coatless from the house
carrying the white envelope.
All night it will say one name
in its little tin house by the roadside.
I have raised the metal flag
so its shadow under the roadlamp
leaves an imprint on the rain-heavy bushes.
Now I will walk back
thinking of the few lights still on
in the town a mile away.
In the yellowed light of a kitchen
the millworker has finished his coffee,
his wife has laid out the white slices of bread
on the counter. Now while the bed they have left
is still warm, I will think of you, you
who are so far away
you have caused me to look up at the stars.
Tonight they have not moved
from childhood, those games played after dark.
Again I walk into the wet grass
toward the starry voices. Again, I
am the found one, intimate, returned
by all I touch on the way.
~ Tess Gallagher
Tree
It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.
Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.
The great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books —
Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
~ Jane Hirshfield
How the Light Comes
I cannot tell you
how the light comes.
What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.
That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.
That it loves
searching out
what is hidden,
what is lost,
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.
That it has a fondness
for the body,
for finding its way
toward flesh,
for tracing the edges
of form,
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.
I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.
And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still
to the blessed light
that comes.
~ Jan Richardson
For the Bird Singing before Dawn
Some people presume to be hopeful
when there is no evidence for hope,
to be happy when there is no cause.
Let me say now, I’m with them.
In deep darkness on a cold twig
in a dangerous world, one first
little fluff lets out a peep, a warble,
a song – and in a little while, behold:
the first glimmer comes, then a glow
filters through the misty trees,
then the bold sun rises, then
everyone starts bustling about.
And that first crazy optimist, can we
forgive her for thinking, dawn by dawn,
“Hey, I made that happen!
And oh, life is so fine.”
~ Kim Stafford
Wait
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. The desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
~ Galway Kinnell
It’s This Way
I stand in the advancing light,
my hands hungry, the world beautiful.
My eyes can’t get enough of the trees —
they’re so hopeful, so green.
A sunny road runs through the mulberries,
I’m at the window of the prison infirmary.
I can’t smell the medicines —
carnations must be blooming nearby.
It’s this way:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.
~ Nazim Hikmet
(translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk)
Afternoon
The ocean is in me now,
blue distance and white depth,
and their eternal flame.
The tides arc in me now,
rocked by the sphere
of the round song.
And that child on the sand
with his pail of toys,
looking out,
it is me he contemplates;
and in the white shell
of his ear,
it is me he hears.
From the beginning this was so,
and is so again.
~ Sandy Lyne
What Did?
What did the carrot say to the wheat?
” ‘Lettuce’ rest, I’m feeling ‘beet.’ ”
What did the paper say to the pen?
“I feel quite all ‘write,’ my friend.”
What did the teapot say to the chalk?
Nothing, you silly . . . teapots can’t talk!
~ Shel Silverstein
