onehouse

Sometimes I hear them...

Still here. Reading, thinking, centering, getting rid of things. Surprisingly this is the only poem that really stuck with me from all the poems emailed during American National Poetry Month.

sorrows
by Lucille Clifton

 

who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be

beautiful   who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals

that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin

sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls   clicking

their bony fingers
they have heard me beseeching

as i whispered into my own
cupped hands   enough   not me again

but who can distinguish
one human voice

amid such choruses
of desire

Pocket sized.

Instructions

Give up the world; give up self; finally, give up God.
Find god in rhododendrons and rocks,
passers-by, your cat.
Pare your beliefs, your absolutes.
Make it simple; make it clean.
No carry-on luggage allowed.
Examine all you have
with a loving and critical eye, then
throw away some more.
Repeat. Repeat.
Keep this and only this:
what your heart beats loudly for
what feels heavy and full in your gut.
There will only be one or two
things you will keep,
and they will fit lightly
in your pocket.

-Sheri Hostetler, A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry

(Thanks to A.)

Let it go.

Someone posted a poem that reminded me of this and so I re-post:

let it go-the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise-let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go-the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers-you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go-the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things-let all go
dear
so comes love

ee cummings

Christmas Lights: Day 9

Old frogs and cosmic dances for solstice:

Winter solitude--
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.

- Basho

When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash--at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness", the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

--Thomas Merton

In motion.

If you skate or used to skate, this is pretty.

Taking stock: the wide field

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

Rumi

Taking stock: Poetry

"You cannot read poetry in a state of constant flux."

- Karen Armstrong

Sleeping

Someone sent this poem to me this morning. I'm trying to be more careful about the logistics of reprinting someone's entire work. I did find the whole thing here so I'll point to it...and here's the beginning...Daniel Sisco is the poet...

Whether you think it's trampy or not,
when we are not awake,
we really are ALL sleeping together.
Sawing logs, snoozing,
getting a little shuteye,
some sacktime,
heading to slumberland,
doing the blanket drill,
the bunk habit,
having a siesta fiesta,
a pajama party
or just getting forty winks
and a good night's rest

Continued.

The world we have now.

From Birds Through a Ceiling of Alabaster which I found in a second-hand bookstore. Written over 1000 years ago by Arab (Abbasid) poet Abu Al-Ala Al--Ma'Aari

God help us, we have sold our souls, all that was best,
To an enterprise in the hands of the Receiver.
We've no dividends, or rights, for the price we paid.
Yet should our wills choose between this corrupt business
And a paradise to come, rest assured they'd want

The world we have now.

Matinee

I can't remember where I found this:

Matinee
by Ted Kooser

After the biopsy,
after the bone scan,
after the consult and the crying,

for a few hours no one could find them,
not even my sister,
because it turns out

they'd gone to the movies.
Something tragic was playing,
something epic,

and so they went to the comedy
with their popcorn
and their cokes,

the old wife whispering everything twice,
the old husband
cupping a palm to his ear,

as the late sun lit up an orchard
behind the strip mall,
and they sat in the dark holding hands.