Category: poetry

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In the dusk
of a beautiful day
I amble across Queen Anne
on the way to the car.

The night is falling in the most pleasant way
and I know that winter is over.

There will be wine when I get back,
and the excellence of good friends
welcoming us into their orbit
for a couple days.

I have my camera ready
but the light is fading
and I am in a hurry.
What can a picture convey anyway
of this half light
or my uncollected thoughts
and the longings they contain?

I could sail the ocean
or climb to mountain tops
and not see the world
in all its finer lights
as I will when I return
from my errand.

>wire slipping gently
in the grooves of his crook’d fingers
the dynamite slides slowly
down the well shaft

under the oaks among the tansy
number three has been drying out
now it’s only a trickle
and brackish

we stand beside the half-ton
and feel the silent shattering
through our feet

the dappled tangle of forest
draws us to the moment
and in the stillness
we have felt the earth move
just a little

>Poet Derek Walcott, 1992 Nobel Prize winner in literature, reads his poem Tiepolo’s Hound. I have to say, this is stunning.

I post this because this is National Poetry Month.

>Here is a wonderful video of the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney reading and discussing poetry.

http://mitworld.mit.edu/flash/player/Main.swf?host=cp58255.edgefcs.net&flv=mitw-00079-poetry-heaney-17oct02&preview=http://mitworld.mit.edu//uploads/mitwstill-00079-poetry-heaney-17oct02.jpg

Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. I was introduced to his works by a good friend a few years ago. He is certainly in my top three favorite poets. The other two? 1) Czesław Miłosz, and 2) space available (could be Yeats or Wordsworth or a number of other poets). If you are not familiar with Heaney, buy a copy of his collected poems (there are several collections) and start reading.

I post this because this is National Poetry Month.

What life is this?
What hope and what death
and what desire?

What of any of it can I know?

It is human nature
to take the unspeakable
and speak of it,
to take the unnameable
and name it.
Reduction is a game we play,
a line drawn,
a list made,
a story told.

We are reductionists.

And what is love?
Is love a reduction
or something other?
And what lives within love,
what event shimmers there?

I have heard many things.

I have heard chaos
is a butterfly,
and war is a success of death.
But you don’t need war
for death to succeed.

What do I know anyway?
I do not know butterflies,
not really,
but I do know death,
I do know that.

I also know love.

And I know this too: When we have love
we have more than knowledge can ever reveal.

So I live by the grace of God
in the place between,
where the earth and heavens meet,
where I can say the words
“I love you”
but I cannot name the event
that is love
for it remains, as always
unnameable

>If you do not know the poetry of Czesław Miłosz then I encourage you to dive in. Buy a copy of his collected works and start reading.

Here is a beautiful video interpretation of Czesław Miłosz’s The End of the World.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4676751397680252335&hl=en&fs=true

And here is a tribute/meditation of sorts to Miłosz:

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5996866309505948219&hl=en&fs=true

I love that second video.

I post this because this is National Poetry Month.

tell me of the fear
for I know it too
I know the darkness intimately
and the open doors
and the thresholds
and the infinite expanse
though I know only so much

remind me of the trembling
but I know that too
the shaking in my boots
the falling on my face
hoping against hope
wanting, wanting, wanting
I so know that call
for it embraces me

this is where I do theology
I begin with both weeping
and self satisfaction
I end with inheritances
and more weeping

that is how I know
the heart is a place
(could be at dusk or dawn)
where I saw
the branches bending
in the wind
but I could not see the wind

tell me, friend,
of the darkness
at midday
(for I believe that too)
when the graves opened
and the dead walked in Jerusalem
when the earth shook
and the holy of holies opened
to the world

tell me all that again
for here I am
walking in streams
standing on shoulders
crawling in corners
wavering in doorways
wandering back roads
and all I have left
is knowing that maybe I too
saw the sky go dark
and felt the earth move

ranging left and right
there and here
backyard and front
she whoops and hollers
eyes bright
and curls bright in the sun
she runs like a native of the earth
potting soil liberally smeared
head to toe

and here I am
home from work
entering another work
a greater work
and everyday I am home
dropping my bags
shoes off
coat hung
in from the wilderness

then like a pilgrim
tired from fasting
at the threshold of the shrine
I am quietly overcome
with the unalloyed joy
of her running around

>http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=9091439651255281857&hl=en&fs=true

I post this because this is National Poetry Month.