Sonnet 29

 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

       For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

--William Shakespeare

[Photo with the love of my life, my husband David, in Norway.]

ode to coffee, oda al café

[A poem on National Coffee Day]

                                        (after Juan Luis Guerra)

from Africa to a Caribbean hill

            de África a las lomas del Caribe

to the smiling ruin of our cities

            a la feliz ruina de ciudades

anoint the neural vessels we refill

            al matorral neural en donde vive

until your acid muse drowns our pities

            tu agria musa que ahoga soledades

return us to our tribe that grew dark beans

            devuélvenos al semillero isleño

cut through the grease of our late-night omelets

            metaboliza la grasa nocturna

and warm this empty diner by the club

            trae tu calor a nuestro desvelo

where luckless lovers stare at tiny screens

            haz que el amante no muera de sueño

and poets brew old socks into psalmlets

            tu borra es poema que embadurna

while dreaming it rains coffee from above.

            y sombría tu alegría de cielo.

--Urayoán Noel 

Hope

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.
Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of
“Everything is gonna’ be all right.”
But a different, sometimes lonely place,
The place of truth-telling,
About your own soul first of all and its condition.
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
As it will be;
The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,
But the joy of the struggle.
And we stand there, all of us, beckoning and calling,
Telling people what we are seeing
Asking people what they see.

--  Victoria Stafford 

[Sunrise photo of Indian Rocks Beach, FL]

How Joy Works

 

You could not stop it

if you tried—

how this blessing

begins to sing

every time it sees

your face,

how it turns itself

in wonder

merely at the mention

of your name.

It is simply

how joy works,

going out to you

when you least expect,

running up to meet you

when you had not thought

to ask.

—Jan Richardson

A Morning Offering (excerpt)

 I place on the altar of dawn:

The quiet loyalty of breath,

The tent of thought where I shelter,

Waves of desire I am shore to

And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today

To the invisible geography

That invites me to new frontiers,

To break the dead shell of yesterdays,

To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today

To live the life that I would love,

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more.

--John O'Donohue

And Now It's September,

 

and the garden diminishes: cucumber leaves rumpled

and rusty, zucchini felled by borers, tomatoes sparse

on the vines. But out in the perennial beds, there’s one last

blast of color: ignitions of goldenrod, flamboyant

asters, spiraling mums, all those flashy spikes waving

in the wind, conducting summer’s final notes.

The ornamental grasses have gone to seed, haloed

in the last light. Nights grow chilly, but the days

are still warm; I wear the sun like a shawl on my neck

and arms. Hundreds of blackbirds ribbon in, settle

in the trees, so many black leaves, then, just as suddenly,

they’re gone. This is autumn’s great Departure Gate,

and everyone, boarding passes in hand, waits

patiently in a long, long line.

--Barbara Crooker

The Orchard

I have dreamed

Of accomplishment.
I have fed

Ambition.
I have traded
Nights of sleep

For a length of work.
Lo, and I have discovered
How soft bloom

Turns to green fruit
Which turns to sweet fruit
Lo, and I have discovered

All winds blow cold
At last,
And the leaves,

So pretty, so many,
Vanish,
In the great, black

Packet of time,
In the great, black
Packet of ambition,

And the ripeness
Of the apple
Is its downfall.

--Mary Oliver