In the brittle twig forest with diamonds for eyes I’m as moonstruck as a paper dog howling at a paper moon. The night is kept ajar for all the rampant fairy tales that will trick me out of the land of the living. But it is neither goblins nor wicked spells that liberate the mazed woods. I wake in the black undergrowth locked by fright that the stage is set. My frozen limbs are struck by the achromatic sight. Whom do I call for? Who lies beside me in bed? If I think of the moods of the sea, affluent and amok I am no longer high and dry stranded by injury but as firm as a rock in the watery night. Three birthday candles drip bright wax upon my fingers. one for the ocean one for the mountain and one for me.
We present this work in honor of the South African holiday, Human Rights Day.
Jeni Couzyn South African b. 1942
You are too naked for touching. If I stroke your brown skin as you sleep you may break. I irritate your long dreams. I depress your awakening. I am no good for you in your alien habitation.
Waiting for you to wake I wait for a return from a long voyage, not knowing what scurvy violence you bring back to embarrass my clean house. Wherever I sow perfection it grows into weeds. O my beautiful
How time changes the clean seed, how the corruption of absence on my body, my damp hands. Awake I am in sleep also, treacherous and lonely. I don’t know where to go, where to find rest. Come back.
We present this work in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
Ellen Mary Patrick Downing Irish 1828 – 1869
My own dear native river, how fondly dost thou flow, By many a fair and sunny scene where I can never go, Thy waves are free to wander, and quickly on they wind, Till thou hast left the crowded streets and city far behind; Beyond I may not follow; thy haunts are not for me; Yet I love to think on the pleasant track of my own sweet river Lee
The spring-tide now is breathing—when they waters glance along, Full many a bird salutes thee with bright and cheering song; Full many a sunbeam falleth upon thy bosom fair, And every nook thou sleekest hath welcome smiling there. Glide on, thou blessed river! nor pause to think of me, Who only in my longing heart can tread that track with thee!
Yet when thy waters wander, where, haughty in decay, Some grand old Irish castle looks frowning on thy way; Oh! speak aloud, bold river! how I have wept with pride To read of those past ages, ere all our glory died, And wish for one short moment I had been there to see Such relic of the by-gone day upon thy banks, fair Lee!
And if, in roving onward, thy gladsome waters bound Where cottage homes are smiling, and children’s voices sound; Oh! think how sweet and tranquil, beneath the loving sky, Rejoicing in some country home, my life had glided by, And grieve one little minute that I can never be A happy, happy cottager upon thy banks, fair Lee!
Now, fare thee well, glad river! peace smile upon thy way, And still may sunbeams brighten, where thy wild rimples play! Oft in that weary city these blue waves leave behind I’ll think upon the pleasant paths where thy smooth waters wind; Oh! but for one long summer day, to wander on with thee, And rove where’er thou rovest, my own sweet river Lee!
Why are we Scholars plagu’d to write, On Days devoted to Delight? In Honour of the King, I’d play Upon his Coronation Day: But as for Loyalty in Rhyme, Defer that to another Time.
Now to excuse this to my Master– (This Want of Rhyme’s a sad Disaster) Sir, we confess you take great Pains, And break your own, to mend our Brains. You strive to make us learn’d, and wise; But to what End? — We shall not rise: In vain should at Preferment aim, Whilst Strangers make their happier Claim. Why should we labour to excel, Doom’d in Obscurity to dwell? Then, since our Welfare gives you Pain, (And yet your Toil may prove in vain) I wish, for your, and for our Ease, That all were Coronation Days.
It’s time to prolong the rhythm where silence rests create vertigo maybe the horror sharpen the irony die laughing at myself caress the edges of silence with pure words. The sun hides its light every dawn In time my space increases or decreases and my love goes crazy Palm trees wave high behind their green background the ants in a row are arranged low long tasks in short life but my wait is neither high nor long. When tilling the land, certain fruits have a bittersweet flavor. Yes. Thus the pale hours of fear soften me until I spread my desires on the avenues where sadness lies. There everything is mine and I have nothing the orange tree blooms when the dust sweeps the afternoon.
We present this work in honor of the Nigerian holiday, Mothering Sunday.
Molara Ogundipe Nigerian 1940 – 2019
When they smile and they smile and then begin to say with pain o their brows and songs in their voice: ‘the nose is a cruel organ and the heart without bone for were the nose not cruel, it would smell my love for you and the heart if not boneless, would feel my pain for you and the throat, O, has no roots or it would root to flower my love’; run for shelter, friend, run for shelter.
Nights of jasmine & thunder, torn petals wind in the tangled kadamba trees. Nothing has changed- Spring has come again and we’ve simply grown older.
In the cane groves of the Narmada he deflowered my girlhood, long before we were married. And I grieve for those far-away nights when we played at love By the water.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 200th birthday.
Lucy Larcom American 1824 – 1893
All day she stands before her loom; The flying shuttles come and go: By grassy fields, and trees in bloom, She sees the winding river flow: And fancy’s shuttle flieth wide, And faster than the waters glide.
Is she entangled in her dreams, Like that fair-weaver of Shalott, Who left her mystic mirror’s gleams, To gaze on light Sir Lancelot? Her heart, a mirror sadly true, Brings gloomier visions into view.
“I weave, and weave, the livelong day: The woof is strong, the warp is good: I weave, to be my mother’s stay; I weave, to win my daily food: But ever as I weave,” saith she, “The world of women haunteth me.
“The river glides along, one thread In nature’s mesh, so beautiful! The stars are woven in; the red Of sunrise; and the rain-cloud dull. Each seems a separate wonder wrought; Each blends with some more wondrous thought.
“So, at the loom of life, we weave Our separate shreds, that varying fall, Some strained, some fair: and, passing, leave To God the gathering up of all, In that full pattern wherein man Works blindly out the eternal plan.
“In his vast work, for good or ill, The undone and the done he blends: With whatsoever woof we fill, To our weak hands His might He lends, And gives the threads beneath His eye The texture of eternity.
“Wind on, by willow and by pine, Thou blue, untroubled Merrimack! Afar, by sunnier streams than thine, My sisters toil, with foreheads black; And water with their blood this root, Whereof we gather bounteous fruit.
“There be sad women, sick and poor: And those who walk in garments soiled: Their shame, their sorrow, I endure; By their defect my hope is foiled: The blot they bear is on my name; Who sins, and I am not to blame?
“And how much of your wrong is mine, Dark women slaving at the South? Of your stolen grapes I quaff the wine; The bread you starve for fills my mouth: The beam unwinds, but every thread With blood of strangled souls is red.
“If this be so, we win and wear A Nessus-robe of poisoned cloth; Or weave them shrouds they may not wear,— Fathers and brothers falling both On ghastly, death-sown fields, that lie Beneath the tearless Southern sky.
“Alas! the weft has lost its white. It grows a hideous tapestry, That pictures war’s abhorrent sight:— Unroll not, web of destiny! Be the dark volume left unread,— The tale untold,—the curse unsaid!”
So up and down before her loom She paces on, and to and fro, Till sunset fills the dusty room, And makes the water redly glow, As if the Merrimack’s calm flood Were changed into a stream of blood.
Too soon fulfilled, and all too true The words she murmured as she wrought: But, weary weaver, not to you Alone was war’s stern message brought: “Woman!” it knelled from heart to heart, “Thy sister’s keeper know thou art!”
Poets Corner 