Mary Oliver: What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon

What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon

Loving the earth, seeing what has been close to it,

I grow sharp, I grow cold.

Where will the trilliums go to continue living

their simple penniless lives, lifting

their faces of gold?

Impossible to believe we need so much

as the world wants to buy.

I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips

than I could possibly use before I die.

Oh, I would like to live in an empty house,

with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass.

No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.

And I suppose sometime I will.

Old and cold I will lie apart

from all this buying and selling, with only

the beautiful earth in my heart.

Oliver, Mary. “What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon.” Why I Wake Early. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2004. p.36.

Jane Kenyon: Insomnia

Insomnia

The almost disturbing scent

of peonies presses through the screens,

and I know without looking how

those heavy white heads lean down

under the moon’s light. A cricket chafes

and pauses, chafes and pauses,

as if distracted or preoccupied.

When I open my eyes to document

my sleeplessness by the clock, a point

of greenish light pulses near the ceiling.

A firefly… In childhood I ran out

at dusk, a jar in one hand, lid

pierced with airholes in the other,

getting soaked to the knees

in the long wet grass.

The light moves unsteadily, like someone

whose balance is uncertain after traveling

many hours, coming a long way.

Get up. Get up and let it out.

But I leave it hovering overhead, in case

it’s my father, come back from the dead

to ask, “Why are you still awake? You can

put grass in their jar in the morning,”

                                          Jane Kenyon

Kenyon, Jane. “Insomnia.” Otherwise: New and Selected Poems. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Greywolf Press, 1996. p.138.

Gary Snyder: Surrounded By Wild Turkeys

Surrounded By Wild Turkeys

Little calls as they pass

through dry forbs and grasses

Under blue oak and gray digger pine

In the warm afternoon of the forest/fire haze;

Twenty or more, long/legged birds

all alike.

So are we, in our soft calling,

passing on through.

Our young, which trail after,

Look just like us.

                                   Gary Snyder

Hass, Robert., ed., “Surrounded By Wild Turkeys”. Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life. Hopewell, New Jersey, Ecco Press: 1998. p.39.

Haiku: Basho and Issa

A bee

staggers out

of the peony.

               Basho

Mosquito at my ear---

does it think

I’m deaf?
                       Issa

Even with insects

Some can sing,

some can’t.

                 Issa

Hass, Robert., ed. Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life. Hopewell, New Jersey, Ecco Press: 1998. p.59.

Wendell Berry - Woods

                 Woods

I part the out thrusting branches

and come in beneath

the blessed and the blessing trees.

Though I am silent

there is singing around me.

Though I am dark

there is vision around me.

Though I am heavy

there is flight around me.

         

                          Wendell Berry

Berry, Wendell. "Woods.". Collected Poems 1957 - 1982. New York: North Point Press, 1964. p. 205.

Wendell Berry - The Lilies

                                                             Jane Meyler

                   The Lilies

Hunting them, a man must sweat, bear

the whine of a mosquito in his ear,

grow thirsty, tired, despair perhaps

of ever finding them, walk a long way.

He must give himself over to chance,

for they live beyond prediction.

He must give himself over to patience,

for they live beyond will. He must be led

along the hill as by a prayer.

If he finds them anywhere, he will find

a few, paired on their stalks,

at ease in the air as souls in bliss.

I found them here at first without hunting,

by grace, as all beauties are first found.

I have hunted and not found them here.

Found, unfound, they breathe their light

into the mind, year after year.

                                             Wendell Berry

Berry, Wendell. "The Lilies.". Collected Poems 1957 - 1982. New York: North Point Press, 1964. p. 205.

William Dickey - On the White Road

On The White Road

On the white road

in dust of summer

someone’s arriving

apricots bend

from the wall-garden

welcoming summer

someone’s arriving

clothed only in light

his hands empty

his eyes full of islands

stroked by blue ocean

in the summer air

violent and singing

on the empty road

someone’s arriving

the white light

cherishing his step

and his naked stare.

             
               William Dickey

Hass, Robert., ed., “On The White Road”. Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life. Hopewell, New Jersey, Ecco Press: 1998. pp.144-145.