From Out the Cave

When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed
papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.

- Joyce Sutphen
from Straight Out of View

P.S.

Photograph by James Tolich

I close my eyes and see
a seagull in the desert,
high, against unbearably blue sky.
There is hope in the past.
I am writing to you
all the time, I am writing
with both hands,
day and night.

- Franz Wright

If you were still around

If you were still around
I’d hold you
Shake you by the knees
Blow hot air in both ears

You, who could write like a Panther Cat
Whatever got into your veins
What kind of green blood
Swam you to your doom

If you were still around
I’d tear into your fear
Leave it hanging off you
In long streamers
Shreds of dread

I’d turn you
Facing the wind
Bend your spine on my knee
Chew the back of your head
Til you opened your mouth to this life

- Sam Shepard
From Motel Chronicles

I Can’t Swim

I can’t swim because I can’t fit
into the water

                         I am

two million feet tall

but thank you for inviting me

I am standing in line
inside my giant shirt

If someone wanted to weaponize me
they would tell me to lie down on New York

and the city I destroyed
would hurt me back

I eat stars
                        It’s a riot

I know
                        my big mouth
full of  their light

- Heather Christle 

Lying and error are the same word for the Greeks, which is interesting.
That is, “to be wrong” could have various causes:
you wanted to lie,
or you just didn’t know the truth,
or you forgot,
and those are all one concept. 

That interests me, the bundling together and looking at the situation from a point of view of consequences and not motivation.

- Anne Carson
(from Gifts And Questions)

Straight on my mouth
another man’s kiss.
He put his tongue
between my lips.
I was numb
and said to him
“Little man, go home
you’re drunk
your wife waits at the door.”

But when I recall
your kiss
I shake, and all
that lies
between my hips
liquifies to milk.

- Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

On Arranging a Bowl of Violets

I dip my hands in April among your faces tender,
O woven of blue air and ecstasies of light! 
Breathed words of the Earth-Mother, although it is November, 
You wing my soul with memories adorable and white. 

                               I hear you call each other: 
"Ah, Sweet, do you remember 
The garden that we haunted—its spaces of delight?
The sound of running water—the day's long lapse of splendor, 
The winds that begged our fragrance and loved us in the night?"

- Grace Hazard Conkling 

I Know a Man

As I sd to my   
friend, because I am   
always talking,—John, I

sd, which was not his   
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for   
christ’s sake, look   
out where yr going

- Robert Creeley
(from Selected Poems of Robert Creeley)

Taking Care

I sit with my grief.
I mother it.
I hold its small, hot hand.
I don’t say, shhh. I don’t say, it is okay.
I wait until it is done having feelings.
Then we stand and we go wash the dishes.
We crack open bedroom doors, step over the creaks, and kiss the children.
We are sore from this grief, like we’ve returned from a run, like we are training for a marathon. 
I’m with you all the way, says my grief, whispering,
and then we splash our face with water and stretch,
one big shadow and one small.

- Calista Buchen

The orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

- Wendy Cope 

V.

There is the staircase,
there is the sun.
There is the kitchen,
the plate with toast and strawberry jam,
your subterfuge,
your ordinary mirage.

You stand red-handed.
You want to wash yourself in earth, in rocks and grass

What are you supposed to do
with all this loss?

- Margaret Atwood
(From Morning in the Burned House)

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful. 
- Maggie Smith

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in   
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

- Mark Strand

Let's face it.

[…]
Let's face it. 
We're undone by each other. 
And if we're not, we're missing something. 
If this seems so clearly the case with grief, 
it is only because it was already the case with desire. 
One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, 
or does, 
but it may also be that despite one's best efforts, 
one is undone, 
in the face of the other, 
by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, 
by the prospect of the touch, 
by the memory of the feel.

- Judith Butler

Photograph by Andrew Querner

The archaeology of grief is not ordered.
It is more like earth under a spade, turning up things you had forgotten.
Surprising things come to light: not simply memories, but states of mind, emotions, older ways of seeing the world.
- Helen Macdonald

In Time

The night the world was going to end
when we heard those explosions not far away
and the loudspeakers telling us
about the vast fires on the backwater
consuming undisclosed remnants
and warning us over and over
to stay indoors and make no signals
you stood at the open window
the light of one candle back in the room
we put on high boots to be ready
for wherever we might have to go
and we got out the oysters and sat
at the small table feeding them
to each other first with the fork
then from our mouths to each other
until there were none and we stood up
and started to dance without music
slowly we danced around and around
in circles and after a while we hummed
when the world was about to end
all those years all those nights ago
- W.S. Merlin
(From The Pupil)

Oranges

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted –
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickel in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn’t say anything.
I took the nickel from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady’s eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.
Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl’s hand
in mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

- Gary Soto

Narcissus

The Alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.
The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.
But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.
He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.
"Why do you weep?" the goddesses asked.
"I weep for Narcissus." the lake replied.
"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand."
"But . . . was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.
"Who better than you to know that?" the goddesses said in wonder. "After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!"
The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:
"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful.
I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

"What a lovely story," the alchemist thought.

- Paulo Coelho
From The Alchemist

Life is Short

Life is short
and we have never too much time
for gladdening the hearts of those
who are travelling the dark journey with us.
Oh be swift to love,
make haste to be kind.

- Henri- Frédéric Ariel

Mullah Nasrudin was standing on the bank of a river, and watched as a dog came to drink.
The dog saw its reflection in the water and immediately began barking at it.
It barked until it was foaming at the mouth, and exhausted, fell into the river -
whereupon it quenched its thirst, climbed out, and happily walked away.
Nasrudin said,
"Thus I realized all my life I have been barking at my own reflection."

 - Sufi teaching story