In the Light

We present this work in honor of the 90th anniversary of the poet’s death.

We are indeed children of Light. What an endless mart goes on in the Light. In the Light is our sleeping and waking, the play of our life and death.

Beneath one great canopy, in the ray of one great sun, slowly, very slowly, burn the unnumbered lamps of life.

In the midst of this unending Light I lose myself; amidst this intolerable radiance I wander like one blind.

We are indeed children of Light. Why then do we fear when we see the Light? Come, let us look all around and see, here no man hath cause for any fear.

In this boundless ocean of Light, if a tiny lamp goes out, let it go; who can say that it will not burn again?

Hame

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 160th birthday.

God bless our land, our Scotland,
Grey glen an’ misty brae,
The blue heights o’ the Coolins,
The green haughs yont the Spey,
The weary wastes on Solway,
Snell winds blaw owre them a’ —
But aye it’s Hame, lad,
Yours an’ mine, lad,
Shielin’ or ha’.

It’s Hame, it’s Hame for ever,
Let good or ill betide!
The croon o’ some dear river,
The blink o’ ae braeside.

God bless our land; it’s yonder –
Far in the cold North Sea:
But ‘neath the old Saint’s glamour
It’s calling you an’ me:
Your feet tread Libyan deserts,
Mine press the wattle’s bloom,
But to-night we stand together
Among the broom.

It’s Hame, it’s Hame for ever,
Let shore or sea divide!
The croon o’ some dear river,
The blink o’ ae braeside.

God bless our land. We dream o’t —
The days aye brakin’ fine
On the lang, lane glints o’ heather
In the glens we kent langsyne.

Ay, we are Reubens, rovers,
‘Neath mony an alien star,
But flaunt the blue flag o’er us,
Pipe up the ” Braes o’ Mar,”
And steppe and nullah vanish,
And pomp and pelf and fame —
It’s gloamin’ — on a lown hillside,
An’ lads, . . . We’re . . . Hame.

Threshold

We present this work in honor of the South African holiday, Heritage Day.

I stepped out of the rain
into an Etruscan tomb.

It was a long walk
and a long way yet,

but the map said
they were here,

the old graves
on some farmer’s land.

Between tilled fields,
a shaded space

and now the rain
in grey-fall from the leaves.

I stopped alone, ducked in,
one small step down,

a coomb of earth and stone.
You stood outside

and waited while
I breathed the history bodily.

Soil, leaf, moist
must, membrane memory

and somewhere here, the bones.
My own limbs aching

from the marching day
and now this dusky interval,

an indentation, swerving
off the rutted track.

You call. I turn, step back,
re-join you to press on

between the leaning trees,
ancient coordinates,

each dip and hollow on the path
still slowly filling up with rain.

The Goldfish

We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Audrey Alexandra Brown
Canadian
1904 – 1998

Lazily through the clear
Shallow and deep,
He oars his chartless way,
Half-asleep
The little paradox – so bright – so cold
Although his flesh seem formed of fire and gold

High emperor of his dim
Bubble-empearled
Jet-shadowed greenish-shallowed
Water-world
Like a live torch, a brand of burning gold,
He sets the wave afire and still is cold.

This is a Photo of My House

It has pink bricks and a big tree. This is the driveway, you can lie on it in the summer, it keeps you warm if you are wet. This is the screen door, swallow. Front green door, hold your chest. The carpet is dark grey and hurts your knees, it doesn’t show any blood. Here are the walls, be careful of the small girl in the corner. Here is the door into the hall, be careful of that too. Here is the line where the carpet stops and the kitchen starts, that is a different country-if you are in the kitchen you are safe, if you are in the lounge on your knees you are not. Watch out for the corners. She isn’t going anywhere. There is the piano. There is the ghost. Here is the hall, it is very dark. Here is the bedroom. Here is the other bedroom, babies come from there. Here is the last bedroom, it is very cold, there is a trapdoor in the wardrobe, it goes down under the floor and you can hide if there is a flood or a tornado. There is the bath. The aunty punched the uncle in the face till he bled, they lived in the small room, the cold one, that was before I was born. Here is the lounge again, here is the phone: ringthepoliceringthepolice. Here is the couch, it is brown, watch out for the man, he is dangerous. Here is the beginning of the lino in the kitchen again, here is the woman. Watch out for the girl in the corner, she is always here. There is the woman, she just watches and then she forgets.

I am cutting a big hole in the roof. Look down through the roof, there is the top of the man, you can’t see his face, but see his arm, see it moving fast.

I am removing the outside wall of the bedroom. Look inside, there are the Spirits, that’s where they live.

Stand outside in the dark and watch the rays come out through the holes-those are the people’s feelings.

Autumn Moon

Autumn Moon
Fearing my past is exposed
to the moon,
I keep looking down
this evening.

Translation by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Joan Halifax Roshi

Litany

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.

Sun, lovelier
Even than my desire,
I turn with your slow disk
And burn in your fierce fire.

In my Egyptian head
Brain suddenly grown wise
Observes lost ritual
Through Western eyes.

I truly call you Sun!
I call your name aloud,
My voice rolls on the sea
My voice is the yellow cloud

On the horizon;
That vapour through which Sun
Blazes a path on the water.
I am alone. I am one.

How long is time enough
To be unsure?
This is the first sunrise
Symmetrical and pure.

No heat can be too great
To burn a mind aware
To obscured rhythms of
First morning’s prayer,

And all the golden banners
So long close furled
Blaze a terrible glory over
Re-created world.

The Ant

We present this work in honor of the 240th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Turn on the prudent Ant, thy heedful eyes,
Observe her labours, Sluggard, and be wise.
No stern command, no monitory voice
Prescribes her duties, or directs her choice,
Yet timely provident, she hastes away
To snatch the blessings of the plenteous day;
When fruitful summer loads the teeming plain,
She gleans the harvest, and she stores the grain.

How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours,
Dissolve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers?
While artful shades thy downy couch enclose,
And soft solicitation courts repose,
Amidst the drousy charms of dull delight,
Year chases year, with unremitted flight,
Till want, now following fraudulent and slow,
Shall spring to seize thee like an ambush’d foe.

Post Mortem

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 175th birthday.

Shall mine eyes behold thy glory, oh, my country?
Shall mine eyes behold thy glory?
Or shall the darkness close around them ere the sun-blaze
Break at last upon thy story?

When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle,
As sweet new sister hail thee,
Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence,
That have known but to bewail thee?

Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises,
When all men their tribute bring thee?
Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor,
When all poets’ mouths shall sing thee?

Ah! the harpings and the salvos and the shoutings
Of thy exiled sons returning,
I should hear, tho’ dead and mouldered, and the grave-damps
Should not chill my bosom’s burning.

Ah! the tramp of feet victorious! I should hear them
’Mid the shamrocks and the mosses,
And my heart should toss within the shroud and quiver
As a captive dreamer tosses.

I should turn and rend the cere-cloths round me—
Giant sinews I should borrow—
Crying, “Oh, my brothers, I have also loved her
In her loneliness and sorrow!

“Let me join with you the jubilant procession,
Let me chant with you her story;
Then, contented, I shall go back to the shamrocks,
Now mine eyes have seen her glory!”