Mary Oliver's "The Poet Dreams of the Mountain"

The Poet Dreams of the Mountain

Sometimes I grow weary of the days with all their fits and starts.
I want to climb some old grey mountain, slowly, taking
the rest of my life to do it, resting often, sleeping
under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
that we have smothered for years now, forgiving it all,
and peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.
All that urgency!  Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

G.M. Hopkins' "Hope Holds to Christ the Mind’s Own Mirror Out"

HOPE holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out
To take His lovely likeness more and more.
It will not well, so she would bring about
An ever brighter burnish than before
And turns to wash it from her welling eyes	5
And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs.
Her glass is blest but she as good as blind
Holds till hand aches and wonders what is there;
Her glass drinks light, she darkles down behind,
All of her glorious gainings unaware.	10
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   . I told you that she turned her mirror dim
Betweenwhiles, but she sees herself not Him.

Caroline Bird's "Trouble Came to the Turnip"

Trouble Came to the Turnip

When trouble came to the village,
I put my love in the cabbage-cart
and we rode, wrapped in cabbage,
to the capital.
When trouble came to the capital,
I put my love in the sewage pipe,
and we swam, wrapped in sewage,
to the sea.
When trouble came to the sea,
I put my love inside a fish
and we flitted, wrapped in fish,
to the island.
When trouble came to the island,
I put my love on a pirate ship
and we squirmed, wrapped in pirate,
to the nunnery.
When trouble came to the nunnery,
I put my love inside a prayer book
and we repented, wrapped in prayer,
to the prison.
When trouble came to the prison,
I put my love on a spoon
and we balanced, wrapped in mirror,
to the soup.
When trouble came to the soup,
I put my love inside a stranger
and we gritted, wrapped in a mouth
to the madhouse.
When trouble came to the madhouse,
I put my love on a feather
and we flapped, wrapped in a feather,
to the fair.
When trouble came to the fair,
I put my love inside a rat,
and we plagued, wrapped in rat,
to the village.
When trouble came to the village,
I put my love in the turnip-lorry
and we sneaked, wrapped in turnip,
a hurried kiss.

Mahmoud Darwish's "The Prison Cell"

The Prison Cell
 
It is possible…
It is possible at least sometimes…
It is possible especially now
To ride a horse
Inside a prison cell
And run away…
It is possible for prison walls
To disappear.
For the cell to become a distant land
Without frontiers:

What did you do with the walls?
I gave them back to the rocks.
And what did you do with the ceiling?
I turned it into a saddle.
And your chains?
I turned it into a pencil.

The prison guard got angry.
He put an end to the dialogue.
He said he didn’t care for poetry.
And bolted the door of my cell.
He came back to see me.
In the morning.
He shouted at me:

Where did all this water come from?
I brought it from the Nile.
And the trees?
From the orchards of Damascus.
And the music?
From my heartbeat.

The prison guard got mad.
He put an end to my dialogue.
He said he didn’t like my poetry.
And bolted the door of my cell.
But he returned in the evening:

Where did this moon come from?
From the nights of Baghdad.
And the wine?
From the vineyards of Algiers.
And this freedom?
From the chain you tied me with last night.

The prison guard grew so sad…
He begged me to give him back
His freedom.

Jacques Prévert's "IL"

IL

Il pleut Il pleut
Il fait beau
Il fait du soleil
Il est tôt
Il se fait tard
Il
Il
Il
toujours Il
Toujours Il qui pleut et qui neige
Toujours Il qui fait du soleil
Toujours Il
Pourquoi pas Elle
Jamais Elle
Pourtant Elle aussi
souvent se fait belle!


(My own shoddy translation)

HIM

It's raining It's raining

 It's beautiful out

It's sunny

It's early

It is getting late

Him

Him

Him

Always Him

It's always Him that rains and snows

Always Him that is sunny

Always Him

Why not Her

Never Her 

However, She also

Makes herself beautiful!

Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73"

SONNET 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
   This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Mahmoud Darwish's "Your Night is of Lilac"

Your Night is of Lilac

The night sits wherever you are. Your night

is of lilac. Every now and then a gesture escapes

from the beam of your dimples, breaks the wineglass

and lights up the starlight. And your night is your shadow—

a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams

equal. I am not a traveler or a dweller

in your lilac night, I am he who was one day

me. Whenever night grew in you I guessed

the heart’s rank between two grades: neither

the self accepts, nor the soul accepts. But in our bodies

a heaven and an earth embrace. And all of you

is your night ... radiant night like planet ink. Night

is the covenant of night, crawling in my body

anesthetized like a fox’s sleepiness. Night diffusing a mystery

that illuminates my language, whenever it is clearer

I become more fearful of a tomorrow in the fist. Night

staring at itself safe and assured in its

endlessness, nothing celebrates it except its mirror

and the ancient shepherd songs in a summer of emperors

who get sick on love. Night that flourished in its Jahili poetry

on the whims of Imru’ el-Qyss and others,

and widened for the dreamers the milk path to a hungry

moon in the remoteness of speech ...

G.M. Hopkins' "Heaven-Haven" & Philip Larkin's "Ugly Sister"

Heaven-Haven

A nun takes the veil

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

Ugly Sister 

I will climb thirty steps to my room,
Lie on my bed;
Let the music, the violin, cornet and drum
Drowse from my head.
Since I was not bewitched in adolescence
And brought to love,
I will attend to the trees and their gracious silence,
To winds that move.

John Donne's "The Good-Morrow"

 The Good-Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Philip Larkin's "Water"

Water

If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.

Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;

My litany would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

Richard Wilbur's "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World"

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,

And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul   

Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple   

As false dawn.

                     Outside the open window   

The morning air is all awash with angels.

    Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,   

Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.   

Now they are rising together in calm swells   

Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear   

With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

    Now they are flying in place, conveying

The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving   

And staying like white water; and now of a sudden   

They swoon down into so rapt a quiet

That nobody seems to be there.

                                             The soul shrinks

    From all that it is about to remember,

From the punctual rape of every blessèd day,

And cries,

               “Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,   

Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam

And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”

    Yet, as the sun acknowledges

With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,   

The soul descends once more in bitter love   

To accept the waking body, saying now

In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,   

    “Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;

Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;   

Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,   

And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating   

Of dark habits,

                      keeping their difficult balance.”

Emily Dickinson's "Life -- is what we make of it --"

Life — is what we make of it –
Death — we do not know –
Christ’s acquaintance with Him
Justify Him — though –
He — would trust no stranger –
Other — could betray –
Just His own endorsement –
That — sufficeth Me –
All the other Distance
He hath traversed first –
No New Mile remaineth –
Far as Paradise –
His sure foot preceding –
Tender Pioneer –
Base must be the Coward
Dare not venture — now –

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī's "Ghazal 636" (3 translations)

Ghazal 636

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone
suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

 Ghazal 636

Go and die, go and die,
in this love, go and die.
Once you've died in this love,
you shall become a holy spirit.

Go and die, go and die,
don't  fear death, go and die.
Go and leave this dusty earth,
go fly high towards the sky.

Go and die, go and die,
go cut loose from your ego.
Your selfish ego is the shackles
holding you captive forever.

Go pick up a hammer,
go dig a huge hole into the prison of your own being.
Once you've torn down your prison,
you shall become a prince or king.

Go and die, go and die,
go die in front of your Beautiful King.
Once you've died for your Beautiful King,
you shall become  a royalty or celebrity.

Go and die, go and die,
go rise up high above your own darkest clouds.
Once you've risen above those clouds,
you shall become a brightly shining  moon.

Be silent, be silent,
Because silence is the very breath of death.
But silence is also the breath of life,
so don't moan or complain about silence.

Ghazal 636

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself in this love.
When you lose yourself in this love,
you will find everything.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Do not fear this loss,
For you will rise from the earth
and embrace the endless heavens.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from this earthly form,
For this body is a chain
and you are its prisoner.
Smash through the prison wall
and walk outside with the kings and princes.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself at the foot of the glorious King.
When you lose yourself
before the King
you will become the King.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from the black cloud
that surrounds you.
Then you will see your own light
as radiant as the full moon.

Now enter that silence.
This is the surest way
to lose yourself....

What is your life about, anyway? -
Nothing but a struggle to be someone,
Nothing but a running from your own silence.

Robert Frost's "After Apple Picking"

After Apple Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and reappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin
That rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

Hail, Autumnal Equinox!

October is Poetry Appreciation Month, Says I

Beginning October 1st, I will imbibe one poem a day, and post it here. I shall read it, memorize it, lectio it, talk about, let it steep into my soul. It's the only proper way to hail the Autumnal Equinox. After all, Christmas is coming, and my 1st annual Advent fast will not be very meaningful if I don't slow down and steady myself before it begins.

Here is some Hopkins, as appropriate, to begin.

Hurrahing in Harvest

SUMMER ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,	5
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!—	10
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

 Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets, invigorate me on the pilgrim way.

Autumn's Waif

Update.

My life is the same. As you may have already noticed, this is a post for the post's sake. The last month has been full of back to school things, 7 new roommates, a new house, grad school plans, a new job, and of course the loveliest weather change of the year. Today I am wearing a sundress, cardigan, and tights. Because the sky is that tranquil grey-blue---the kind that makes me want to listen to jazz and drink chai green tea and cuddle and eat squash and bake pies. I love fall. What am I thinking about just now? I wish I knew. I've been feeling so overwhelmed lately, life is really full this year, and I don't like fullness. I do college by living like a desert hermit, and so having things like a house and roommates who are kindred spirits transforms all of my academic fervor into more of a feverish hallucination. Right now, I'm mostly just tired of having to study things I don't care about. I don't want to read Cicero, and think about rhetoric. I want to write a play, and bake a pie, and wear cute sweaters and crazy tights and tramp about in wellingtons and mind my own business and step on crimson leaves and be glad. Just that deep, simple merriment that comes from the comforts of the material world in the year's grey-beard time. I want to take communion from a golden chalice at an Anglican church, I want to turn into the spirit of autumn, and participate in a glorious Bacchic frenzy.

Oh, to be the spirit of an autumn wind!

I want to read poetry, and write poetry, and hear poetry, and snap my fingers. I want to waltz across my wooden floor. I want to paint with gold and red and blue! Fall is full of surprises and secrets. Perhaps because Christmas is at the end of it. Autumn, the season of promise--what a fullness of life is fall! Fall is not the decay and corruption of old age, it is the maturity, the fullness of a life well lived. It is a red rose fully bloomed, just before the petals start to wilt. And if death is what comes after, then death itself is a beautiful gift, because it's all wrapped up in a smoky, cloudy haze of awful mystery, and I love it.

Everything is richer now; truer, bolder. Not happy, but joyful. Not pretty, but beautiful. Not well brought up, but well preserved. Regal. Mature. Real.

How full is fall!