Before

The butterfly was there

before any human art was made.

Before cathedrals rose in prayer,

the butterfly was there.

Before pyramids pierced the air

or Great Wall stones were laid,

the butterfly was there.

Before any human, art was made.

--Avis Harley

[Monarch Butterfly in my garden today]

The Names

 

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name —
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner —
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O’Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening — weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds —
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

—Billy Collins (c) 2002

Note: Billy Collins was Poet Laureate of the United States on September 11, 2001.

Lessons from Darkness

 

"I'm afraid of the darkness, and the hole in it;

and I see it sometime of every day!"

                                --Martin Luther, in Luther

Everything you love will perish.  Try saying this to yourself

at breakfast, matching the amber-colored tea

twirl in the teapot.  Try it on the tree, the clouds, the dog

asleep under the table, the sparrow taking a bath

in the neighbor's gutter.  A magician's act: Presto!

On a morning you feel open enough to embrace it

imagine it gone.  Then pack the child's lunch: smooth the thick

peanut butter, the jeweled raspberry preserves,

over the bread.  Tell yourself the world

must go on forever.  This is why

you feed her, imagining the day--orderly--

unfolding, imagining what you teach her

is true.  Is something she will use.  This is why, later, you will go out

into the garden, among the calendula, rosemary, hibiscus,

run your finger along the trunk of hawthorn

as though it were the body

of a lover, thinking of the child

on the steps of the schoolyard, eating her sandwich.  Think nothing.

transparent air, where her hands are.

--Anita Barrows

Afterwards

 

Mostly you look back and say, "Well, OK.  Things might have

been different, sure, and it's too bad, but look--

things happen like that, and you did what you could."

You go back and pick up the pieces.  There's tomorrow.

There's that long bend in the river on the way

home.  Fluffy bursts of milkweed are floating

through shafts of sunlight or disappearing where

trees reach out of their deep dark roots.

Maybe people have to go in and out of shadows

till they learn that floating, that immensity

waiting to receive whatever arrives with trust.

Maybe somebody has to explore what happens

when one of us wanders over near the edge

and falls for awhile.  Maybe it was your turn.

--William Stafford

[Photo from Polihale State Beach Park, Kauai]

Blessing for Carrying a Long Sorrow

When long sorrow.

When the endless

bearing of grief.

When sadness

has been waking

with you

for what seems like

forever

and going to bed with you

for what approximates

an eternity.

When your heart

has become

an ancient timepiece,

its beat measuring ages

and eons,

ticking the turning

of centuries,

and the stars

have nothing on you

for long enduring.

May there come

a moment

when time

falls away.

May there come

a space

between the beats

of your heart

when you know

your burden

carried.

May there come

a gap between

your painful breaths

when you sense

your own self

borne,

unalone in your

endless sorrowing,

no longer solitary—

as if you could

ever have been

left in your grief,

as if you could

ever have been

for one moment

abandoned to this weight,

unencompassed by the love

more ancient still

than the sorrow

you bear.

—Jan Richardson

[Photo of Ensley and Thea--two beautiful babies who will be forever loved/missed.]

Companion for Life

 

Our union is like this:  If you feel cold I would
reach for a blanket to cover our shivering feet.

If a hunger comes into your body I would run

to my garden and start digging potatoes.

If you asked for a few words of comfort and

guidance I would quickly kneel by your side

and offer you a whole book...as a gift.

If you ever ache with loneliness so much

you weep, I would say,

Here is a rope, tie it around me, Hafiz will be

your companion for life.

--Hafiz (trans. by Daniel Ladinsky)

[Photos of my companion for life to celebrate our anniversary.]

Deaths

 

First I forgot you in your voice.
If you were talking to me now,
here by my side,
I would ask, “Who’s there?”

Then your step became unfamiliar.
If a shadow—even one of flesh
and blood—escapes in the wind,
I can’t tell if it’s you.

You shed your leaves slowly
in the face of one winter: your smile,
your eyes, the color of your clothing, the size
of your shoes.

More leaves:
your flesh, your body fell away,
until all that was left was your name: seven letters.
And you went on living,
dying, hanging on
to those letters with body and soul.
Your skeleton, the remains of it,
your voice, your laughter, those seven letters.
And then your body alone uttered them.
Your name slipped away from me.
Now those seven letters drift unattached,
unknown to each other.
Advertisements go by on streetcars; your letters
light up the night with their colors,
they travel on envelopes spelling out
other names.

You will wander there,
dissolved, undone, irretrievable,
in the name that was you,
risen up
to some crazy heaven,
some abstract glory in the alphabet. 

Pedro Salinas y Serrano

[Photo of my dad and uncle with their best friends].