Category Archives: Poems

And to my other friend Steve, who as far as I know does not do yoga, happy birthday!

Here is a Rilke poem that I’ve always liked, translated by Robert Bly. The last line reminds me of something I read recently — “As death is inevitable for the living, so birth is inevitable for the dead.”

I find you in all these things of the world

that I love calmly, like a brother;

in things no one cares for you brood like a seed;

and to powerful things you give an immense power.

Strength plays such a marvelous game –

it moves through the things of the world like a servant,

groping out in roots, tapering in trunks,

and in the treetops like a rising from the dead.

It’s getting so chilly here. e. e. cummings was the first poet I really “got” way back in high school when they were trying to teach me how to write a sentence (in 10th grade, for heaven’s sake! Public education is really a snake pit.). He wrote this in 1923.

O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

fingers of

prurient philosophers pinched

and

poked

thee

, has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

beauty . how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

(but

true

to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

The “comment” link is busted, but Top. People. Are. Working on it.

(Thank you for your patience and cooperation.)

In the meantime, here is the most cheerful John Berryman poem I know.

Dream Song 27

The greens of the Ganges delta foliate.

Of heartless youth made late aware he pled:

Brownies, please come.

To Henry in his sparest times sometimes

the little people spread, & did friendly things;

then he was glad.

Pleased, at the worst, except with man, he shook

the brightest winter sun.

All the green lives

of the great delta, hours, hurt his migrant heart

in a safety of the steady ‘plane. Please, please

come.

My friends,–he has been known to mourn,–I’ll die;

live you, in the most wild, kindly, green

partly forgiving wood,

sort of forever and all those human sings

close not your better ears to, while good Spring

returns with a dance and a sigh.

In my town there’s a public garden named for Alice Keck Park, who I guess was some sort of philanthropist. The problem is that people think the name of the garden is Alice Keck Park — what with her last name also being the name of the thing that’s being named. So to be perfectly correct we should call it Alice Keck Park Park.

There’s a similar problem up at the rose garden in front of the mission, there’s a whole bed of roses named in honor of another garden philanthropist named Helen Thorne. What are the odds? Will I, too, end up with a little patch of grass named after me?

Coincidentally, here’s a poem on something close to the subject by W. D. Snodgrass.

These Trees Stand . . .

These trees stand very tall under the heavens.

While they stand, if I walk, all stars traverse

This steep celestial gulf their branches chart.

Though lovers stand at sixes and sevens

While civilizations come down with the curse,

Snodgrass is walking through the universe.

I can’t make any world go around your house.

But note this moon. Recall how the night nurse

Goes ward-rounds, by the mild, reflective art

Of focusing her flashlight on her blouse.

Your name’s safe conduct into love or verse;

Snodgrass is walking through the universe.

Your name’s absurd, miraculous as sperm

And as decisive. If you can’t coerce

One thing outside yourself, why you’re the poet!

What irrefrangible atoms whirl, affirm

Their destiny and form Lucinda’s skirts!

She can’t make up your mind. Soon as you know it,

Your firmament grows touchable and firm.

If all this world runs battlefield or worse,

Come, let us wipe our glasses on our shirts:

Snodgrass is walking through the universe.

I was in Restoration Hardware the other day looking for knobs to put on the cabinet underneath the bathroom sink. Restoration Hardware has the best knobs. They have knobs in the shape of garden tools, leaves, letters of the alphabet, you name it. Brass, copper, glass, enamel. My husband was looking for a knob to use as a pull for the glove compartment on his ’57 Ford flatbed truck. The glove doesn’t lock or anything, it just has a spring action to keep it open or shut. He found a little hammer-shaped knob. It’s perfect for a work truck.

All this reminds me of a poem by Wallace Stevens.

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.

Let be be the finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,

Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

On which she embroidered fantails once,

and spread it so as to cover her face.

If her horny feet protrude, they come

To show how cold she is, and dumb.

Let the lamp affix its beam.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

People are getting laid off left and right all over the country. The magazine I work for was just sold to a businessman from Baltimore, so by this time next week some of the people I work with will no longer be there. I work at home, so that I can take care of my four-month-old son, so I don’t see much of the old gang anyway. Growth can be painful.

Here’s a poem by Philip Levine.

What Work Is

We stand in the rain in a long line

waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.

You know what work is — if you’re

old enough to read this you know what

work is, although you may not do it.

Forget you. This is about waiting,

shifting from one foot to another.

Feeling the light rain falling like mist

into your hair, blurring your vision

until you think you see your own brother

ahead of you, maybe ten places.

You rub your glasses with your fingers,

and of course it’s someone else’s brother,

narrower across the shoulders than

yours but with the same sad clouch, the grin

that does not hide the stubbornness,

the sad refusal to give in to

rain, to the hours wasted waiting,

to the knowledge that somewhere ahead

a man is waiting who will say, “No,

we’re not hiring today,” for any

reason he wants. You love your brother,

now suddenly you can hardly stand

the love flooding you for your brother,

who’s not beside you or behind or

ahead because he’s home trying to

sleep off a miserable night shift

at Cadillac so he can get up

before noon to study his German.

Works eight hours a night so he can sing

Wagner, the opera you hate most,

the worst music ever invented.

How long as it been since you told him

you loved him, held his wide shoulders,

opened your eyes wide and said those words,

and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never

done something so simple, so obvious,

not because you’re too young or too dumb,

not because you’re jealous or even mean

or incapable of crying in

the presence of another man, no,

just because you don’t know what work is.

New Moon

Is it bad luck to start a new creative endeavor when the moon is just blank in the sky? (That sounds like a poem, but it’s not.)

Here is a poem by James Tate.

Five Years Old

Stars fell all night.

The iceman had been very generous that day

with his chips and slivers.

And I had buried my pouch of jewels

inside a stone casket under the porch,

their beauty saved for another world.

And then my sister came home

and I threw a dart through her cheek

and cried all night,

so much did I worship her.