We present this work in honor of the poet’s 75th birthday.
The name
never left his lips: he talked himself
into another body: he found his room again
in Babel.
It was written.
A flower
falls from his eye
and blooms in a stranger’s mouth.
A swallow
rhymes with hunger
and cannot leave its egg.
He invents
the orphan in tatters,
he will hold
a small black flag
riddled with winter.
It is spring,
and below his window
he hears
a hundred white stones
turn to raging phlox.
what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where every instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above its ballast dust
what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsive space
among the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness
Amber. Marble. Sapphire. The jingling babble
of magic treasure. May my bold desires
make the most of such enchantment. Let me
stir them around with my hand.
Alabaster and azure. Day’s blood.
Stones in a heap. Roses made of milk.
Great laughter of light. My longing grasps
and tumbles the precious jewels.
Sea. Sky. Sun in my arms!
Fire
of bright diamonds playing!
Malachite, topaz. Serpentine ribbons
sparkling in my hands! Caught
in my fingers, wreaths of turquoise,
lapis lazuli, jade, aquamarine!
The trees are drunk, from nocturnal lights,
and they drag their shadows, nervous and stiff.
Their shadows, strangling the night’s winds,
shelter and rattle me, as if I were a bird.
And my steps echo in their black boughs,
and the weakest hooks fill me with vertigo;
yet when I cast my eye on them from another, simpler pair,
they respond, swaying, that they remained intact;
The leaves, dilating the communal shadows,
return like ruined boats to their tree.
They cannot, oh, attain the solid banks
that the tips of heavenly bodies announce from above,
yet thick with silence they plow, quivering
through deep and frozen ponds of miracle.
And in the nocturnal trees embracing the earth,
I find oblivion and mercy, when in despair,
while the light runs down their boughs,
thin, diaphanous, like water between my hands.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.
They asked that man if they could
take his time and join it to history.
They asked for his hands,
because in difficult times
there is nothing better than a good pair of hands.
They asked for his eyes
that once had tears
so he could ponder the bright side
(especially the bright side of life)
because for horror one terrified eye is enough.
They asked for his lips,
dry and cracked, to affirm,
to erect, with each affirmation, a dream
(the high dream);
they asked for his legs,
hard and gnarled,
(his old high-stepping legs)
because in difficult times
is there anything better than a pair of legs
for building or trench-digging?
They asked him for the forest that nourished him as a child
with its obedient tree.
They asked for his chest, his heart, his shoulders.
They told him
that it was strictly necessary.
Later they explained
that all this giving would be pointless
unless he gave up his tongue,
because in difficult times
there is nothing so useful for stopping hatred or lies.
And finally they begged him
please, to begin to walk
because in difficult times
that is without a doubt the decisive test.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.
I think flowers can see
and clouds play a game,
that when the wind whispers,
the leaves understand.
They sway and they dance
in the mad-cap breeze.
Sometimes in the morning
to the meadow I go,
where the daisies are playing
in the wind.
First the wind whispers,
then runs, jumps, and tickles their feet.
And the daisies, their heads sweetly nodding,
laugh, sway, and shiver in glee.
In honor of Tu B’Shavat, we present this whimsical Jewish pastoral.
1
I take my feet under my arm,
I go, I walk, stride on,
to east and west and north and south,
I look for Birobidjan.
people give this advice – it’s a habit,
take a pack on your back,
and go forth like a rabbit!
To Madagascar, the land of grass and rabbits
and when the wind will blow,
to Madagascar. No meat there,
I know that from Genesis.
that’s where Adam the first man
started to mix in,
where Mother Eve can,
be curious too,
Ay Madagascar, may as well be there
that’s the thing to do.
2
The sun there bakes on pagodas
Winter hot snow falls
come in to all’s ready
don’t need to make a living
for people eat each other
So poof and you’re not there.
To Madagascar, the land of grass and rabbits
and when the wind will blow,
to Madagascar. No meat there,
I know that from Genesis.
that’s where Adam the first man
started to mix in,
where Mother Eve can,
be curious too,
Ay Madagascar, may as well be there
that’s the thing to do.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught-they say-God, when he walked on earth.
We present this work in honor of the 15th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Touch my heart
here where the beat pounds
is it faint
is it louder
Touch my face
here on the cheeks
is the tear drying on its own
is it flowing salted warmly
Touch my hands
here where a stone is enfolded in one
is it a hard rock
is it hot with waiting
Touch my brow
here where it meets its own madness
are the folds hardening
are they sweating out the anger
There’s nowhere you can touch me
without the realization that
I am not the person of yesterday
The fangs are bared for action
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.
Flying low over the warm roof of an old barn,
Down in a flask to the water, up and way with a cry,
And a wild swoop and a swift turn
And a fever of life under a thundery sky,
So they go, so they go by.
And high and high and high in the diamond light,
They soar and they shriek in the sunlight when heaven is bare,
With the pride of life in their strong flight
And a rapture of love to lift them, to hurtle them there,
High and high in the diamond air.
And away with the summer, away like the spirit of glee
Flashing and calling, and strong on the wing, and wild in their play,
With a high cry to the high sea,
And a heart for the south, a heart for the diamond Day,
So they go over, so go away.
Poets Corner 