"True or False," John Ciardi

                                    Real emeralds are worth more than synthetics
                                     but the only way to tell one from the other
                                     is to heat them to a stated temperature,
                                     then tap. When it’s done properly
                                     the real one shatters.

                                     I have no emeralds.
                                     I was told this about them by a woman
                                     who said someone had told her. True or false,
                                      I have held my own palmful of bright breakage
                                      from a truth too late. I know the principle.

"Deus ex Machina," A. E. Stallings

Because we were good at entanglements, but not
Resolution, and made a mess of plot,
Because there was no other way to fulfill
The ancient prophesy, because the will
Of the gods demanded punishment, because
Neither recognized who the other was,
Because there was no difference between
A tragic ending and a comic scene,
Because the play was running out of time,
Because the mechanism of the sublime
Was in good working order, but needed using,
Because it was a script not of our choosing,
Because we were actors, because we knew for a fact
We were only actors, because we could not act.

Sonnet XIX, Edna St. Vincent Millay

And you as well must die, belovéd dust,

And all your beauty stand you in no stead;

This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,

This body of flame and steel, before the gust

Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,

Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead

Than the first leaf that fell, - this wonder fled.

Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.

Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.

In spite of all my love, you will arise

Upon that day and wander down the air

Obscurely as the unattended flower,

It mattering not how beautiful you were,

                                Or how belovéd above all else that dies.

"The Art of Disappearing," Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don’t I know you? say no.

When they invite you to the party

remember what parties are like

before answering.

Someone telling you in a loud voice

they once wrote a poem.

Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.

Then reply.

If they say we should get together.

say why? It’s not that you don’t love them any more.

You’re trying to remember something

too important to forget.

Trees.

The monastery bell at twilight.

Tell them you have a new project.

It will never be finished. When someone recognizes you in a grocery store

nod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven’t seen in ten years

appears at the door,

don’t start singing him all your new songs.

You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

From "Letters to a Young Poet," Rainer Maria Rilke

"Child Holding a Dove," Picasso

        Have patience with everything unresolved          in your heart and try to love the questions      themselves ... Don't search for the answers,         which could not be given to you now, because       you would not be able to live them. And the       point is, to live everything. Live the questions       now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future,      you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

"Free and Easy," Lama Gendun Rinpoche

                                   Happiness cannot be found through great effort and willpower,

                                   but is already there, in relaxation and letting go.

                                  Don't strain yourself, there is nothing to do.

                                  Whatever arises in the mind has no importance at all,

                                  because it has no reality whatsoever.

                                  Don't become attached to it.

                                  Don't pass judgement.

                                  Let the game happen on its own, springing up and falling back

                                  without changing anything --

                                  and all will vanish and reappear, without end.

                                 Only our searching for happiness prevents us from seeing it.

                                 It is like a rainbow which you run after without ever catching it.

                                 Although it does not exist,

                                 it has always been there and accompanies you every instant.

                                Don't believe in the reality of good and bad experiences;

                                they are like rainbows.

                               Wanting to grasp the ungraspable, you exhaust yourself in vain.

                               As soon as you relax this grasping, space is there

                               -  open, inviting, and comfortable.

                               So, make use of it.  All is yours already.

                               Don't search any further.

                               Don't go into the inextricable jungle looking for the elephant

                               who is already quietly at home.

                               Nothing to do,

                               nothing to force,

                               nothing to want,

                               -  and everything happens by itself.

"The Guest House," Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

"Salmon Berries," Kelsea Habecker

It comes down to this:  what we do

with what we’ve got:

the sky, the sea beyond,

enough space,  and tundra

just now berrying in this falling off

of the year.

The women hunch low to the ground,

plinking their buckets

with orange salmon berries.

Their bright floral parkas enliven

the gray morning.

They work quickly without

lifting their heads.

A day’s worth of picking will yield

only half a bucket of the tiny berries

which they will hoard

into jam and dole out

through  the long winter

that crouches low over the next hill.

"There Is No Going Back," Wendell Berry

"Raven Tree," Caspar David Friedrich

                   
No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

containing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now, and always.

And so you have become a sort of tree

standing over the grave.

Now more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes, young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind.

Every day you have less reason

                                                             not to give yourself away.

"She Who Reconciles," Rainer Maria Rilke

"Woven Face," Linda Johns

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads

of her life, and weaves them gratefully

into a single cloth --

it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall

and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.

In the softness of evening

it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,

the unspeaking center of her monologues.

With each disclosure you encompass more

and she stretches beyond what limits her,

to hold you.

"Let It Go," e.e.cummings

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

"The Word," Cintio Vitier, translated by Electa Arenal

                                                 Then, words flowed

                                                 from the bewitchment of things, or spouted

                                                 in a dark bubbling, blood-like,

                                                 or their avid bonfires bit

                                                 the hands trying to trap them

                                                 or they crossed like birds or deer

                                                 in the sun's radiance, through the woods.

                                                 Now, when a word comes

                                                - alone, immense, unique, lost,

                                                a messenger successful in traversing

                                                the most vast and naked of spaces -

                                                we must welcome it regally,

                                                open doors, light lamps,

                                                and remain silent until,

                                                incapable of lying to us, it falls asleep

                                                and once again converges with the rocks.

"Lost," David Waggoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

"I Saw a Woman Sleeping," Olive Schreiner

                                                                             Paul Kuznetsov

                                       I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life
                                       stood before her, and held in each hand a gift -- in the
                                       one Love, in the other Freedom. And Life said to
                                       the woman, "Choose."

                                      And the woman waited long: and she said, "Freedom!"

                                     And Life said, "Thou hast well chosen. If thou hadst
                                     said, 'Love,' I would have given thee that thou didst
                                     ask for; and I would have gone from thee, and returned
                                     to thee no more. Now, the day will come when I shall
                                     return. In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand."

                                     I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.

"Everyone Was in Love," Galway Kinnell

                                                     "Snake Love," Dana Peters

One day, when they were little, Maud and Fergus

appeared in the doorway naked and mirthful,

with a dozen long garter snakes draped over

each of them like brand-new clothes.

Snake tails dangled down their backs,

and snake foreparts in various lengths

fell over their fronts with heads raised and swaying,

alert as cobras. They were writhing their dry skins

upon each other, as snakes like doing

in lovemaking, with the added novelty

of caressing soft, smooth, moist human skin.

Maud and Fergus were deliciously pleased with themselves.

The snakes seemed to be tickled, too.

We were enchanted. Everyone was in love.

Then Maud drew down off Fergus’s shoulder,

as off a tie rack, a peculiarly

lumpy snake and told me to look inside.

Inside the double-hinged jaw, a frog’s green

webbed hind feet were being drawn,

like a diver’s, very slowly as if into deepest waters.

Perhaps thinking I might be considering rescue,

Maud said, “Don’t. Frog is already elsewhere.”

"Siege," Edna St. Vincent Millay

                                                            
                                                          This I do, being mad:
                                                          Gather baubles about me,
                                                          Sit in a circle of toys, and all this time
                                                          Death beating the door in.

                                                          White jade and an orange pitcher,
                                                                   Hindu idol, Chinese god, —
                                                           Maybe next year, when I’m richer—
                                                                   Carved beads and a lotus pod. . . .

                                                           And all this time
                                                           Death beating the door in.

"Oblique Prayers," Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit's deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

I perfectly recall the moment at dinner when Karen Joy recited this, and will never be entirely certain if it is the poem itself, the moment, or Karen's own sublimity which brings such joy.

Last verse of "Ash Wednesday," T. S. Eliot

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of

      the garden,

Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still

Even among these rocks,

Our peace in His will

And even among these rocks

Sister, mother

And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,

Suffer me not to be separated

                             And let my cry come unto Thee.




This verse has never failed to console me, even though I chafe a bit at the upper case possessive.  The photo is of a Japanese woodblock from 1916, titled "Spirit of the Sea." 

James Baldwin

Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden,

I don't know;

But they have scarcely seen their garden

before they see the flaming sword.

    Then perhaps, life only offers the choice

    of remembering the garden or forgetting it.

Either or, it takes strength to remember,

it takes another kind of strength to forget, it

takes a hero to do both.

People who remember court madness through pain,

the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence.

People who forget court another kind of madness,

the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence.

And the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember,

and madmen who forget.

Heroes are rare.

The Hindoo Skeptic

THE HINDOO SKEPTIC

I think till I'm weary of thinking,

   Said the sad-eyed Hindoo king,

And I see but shadows around me,

   Illusion in everything.

How knowest thou aught of God,

   Of His favor, or His wrath?

Can the little fish tell what the lion thinks,

   Or map out the eagle's path?

Can the finite the infinite search?

   Did the blind discover the stars?

Is the thought that I think a thought,

   Or the throb of the brain in its bars?

For aught that my eye can discern,

   Your God is what you think good,

Yourself flashed back from the glass

   When the light pours on it in flood.

You preach to me to be just,

   And this is His realm, you say;

Yet the good are dying of hunger,

   And the bad gorge everyday.

You say that He loveth mercy,

   And the famine is not yet gone;

That He hateth the shedder of blood,

   Yet He slayeth us, every one.

You say that my soul shall live,

   That the spirit can never die --

If he were content when I was not,

   Why not when I have passed by?

You say I must have a meaning,

   So must dung, and its meaning is flowers;

What if our lives are but nurture

   For lives that are greater than ours?

When the fish swims out of the water,

   When the birds soar out of the blue,

Man's thoughts may transcend man's knowledge,

   And your God be no reflex of you.

This poem, which I discovered in my teens, was revolutionary for me and remains so.  It was decisive in my rejection of organized religion.  I recall that once Nat, when he was about nine, said that he thought "God" (we didn't promulgate any particular conceptions) was a figure with so many sides that no one could fully see the figure.  Out of the mouths of babes.


The above photograph, by the way, is an authentic  NASA photo depicting the Helix Nebula, described by astronomers as "a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases," at the center of which is a dying star.  The caption noted, "Our own sun may look like this in several billion years."  Practice dying (one of my favorite injunctions) on the cosmic scale.  I suspect death is every bit as beautiful.