cruel, cruel summer

--D. A. Powell

either the postagestamp-bright inflorescence of wild mustard

or the drab tassel of prairie smoke, waving its dirty garments

either the low breeze through the cracked window

or houseflies and drawn blinds to spare us the calid sun

one day commands the next to lie down, to scatter:      we're done

with allegiance, devotion, the malicious idea of what's eternal

picture the terrain sunk, return of the inland sea, your spectacle

your metaphor, the scope of this twiggy dominion pulled under

crest and crest, wave and cloud, the thunder blast and burst of swells

this is the sum of us:      brief sneezeweed, brief yellow blaze put out

so little, your departure, one plunk upon the earth's surface,

one drop to bind the dust, a little mud, a field of mud

the swale gradually submerged, gradually forgotten

and that is all that is to be borne of your empirical trope:

first, a congregated light, the brilliance of a meadowland in bloom

and then the image must fail, as we must fail, as we

graceless creatures that we are, unmake and befoul our beds

don't tell me deluge.      don't tell me heat, too damned much heat

 

from Chronic

--D. A. Powell

were lifted over the valley, its steepling dustdevils

the redwinged blackbirds convened

vibrant arc their swift, their dive against the filmy, the finite air

 

the profession of absence, of being absented, a lifting skyward

then gone

the moment of flight: another resignation from the sweep of earth

 

jackrabbit, swallowtail, harlequin duck: believe in this refuge

vivid tips of oleander

white and red perimeters where no perimeter should be

 

 

 

               here is another in my long list of asides:

why have I never had a clock that actually gained time?

that apparatus, which measures out the minutes, is our own image

                         forever losing

 

and so the delicate, unfixed condition of love, the treacherous body

the unsettling state of creation and how we have damaged—

isn’t one a suitable lens through which to see another:

               filter the body, filter the mind, filter the resilient land

 

 

 

and by resilient I mean which holds

              which tolerates the inconstant lover, the pitiful treatment

the experiment, the untried & untrue, the last stab at wellness

 

choose your own adventure: drug failure or organ failure

cataclysmic climate change

or something akin to what’s killing bees—colony collapse

 

more like us than we’d allow, this wondrous swatch of rough

 

 

 

[ Ice Grape ; Beatriz Milhazes (2008) ]

 

The Look

--Carol Ann Duffy

The heron’s the look of the river.

The moon’s the look of the night.

The sky’s the look of forever.

Snow is the look of white.

The bees are the look of the honey.

The wasp is the look of pain.

The clown is the look of funny.

Puddles are the look of rain.

The whale is the look of the ocean.

The grave is the look of the dead.

The wheel is the look of motion.

Blood is the look of red.

The rose is the look of the garden.

The girl is the look of the school.

The snake is the look of the Gorgon.

Ice is the look of cool.

The clouds are the look of the weather.

The hand is the look of the glove.

The bird is the look of the feather.

You are the look of love.

 

You like safe sounds:

the dogs lapping at their bowls;

the pop of a cork on a bottle of plonk

as your mother cooks;

the Match of the Day theme tune

and Doctor Who-oo-oo.

Safe sounds:

your name called, two happy syllables

from the bottom to the top of the house;

your daft ring tone; the low gargle

of hot water in bubbles. Half asleep

in the drifting boat of your bed,

you like to hear the big trees

sound like the sea instead.

--Carol Ann Duffy, from New and Collected Poems for Children

 

 

If you think of the dark

as a black park

and the moon as a bounced ball,

then there’s nothing to be frightened of

at all.

(Except for aliens…)

--from 'Tales of the Expected'; Carol Ann Duffy

 

[ A Horse Frightened by Lightning ; Théodore Géricault ]

 

Summer Silence

--E. E. Cummings

Eruptive lightnings flutter to and fro

Above the heights of immemorial hills;

Thirst-stricken air, dumb-throated, in its woe

Limply down-sagging, its limp body spills

Upon the earth. A panting silence fills

The empty vault of Night with shimmering bars

Of sullen silver, where the lake distils

Its misered bounty.—Hark! No whisper mars

The utter silence of the untranslated stars.

 

what if a much of a which of a wind

gives the truth to summer's lie;

bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun

and yanks immortal stars awry?

Blow king to beggar and queen to seem

(blow friend to fiend: blow space to time)

-when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,

the single secret will still be man

what if a keen of a lean wind flays

screaming hills with sleet and snow:

strangles valleys by ropes of thing

and stifles forests in white ago?

Blow hope to terror; blow seeing to blind

(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)

-whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees,

it's they shall cry hello to the spring

what if a dawn of a doom of a dream

bites this universe in two,

peels forever out of his grave

and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?

Blow soon to never and never to twice

(blow life to isn't:blow death to was)

-all nothing's only our hugest home;

the most who die, the more we live

--E. E Cummings

 

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

--E. E. Cummings

 

[ The Face of the Sun ; Alan Tellez ]

 

 

A Route of Evanescence,

With a revolving Wheel –

A Resonance of Emerald

A Rush of Cochineal –

And every Blossom on the Bush

Adjusts it’s tumbled Head –

The Mail from Tunis – probably,

An easy Morning’s Ride –

--Emily Dickinson

 

 

341

A Bird came down the Walk--

He did not know I saw--

He bit an Angle-worm in halves

And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a Dew

From a convenient Grass--

And then hopped sidewise to the Wall

To let a Beetle pass.--

He glanced with rapid eyes

That hurried all around—

They looked like frightened Beads, I thought--

He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger; Cautious,

I offered him a Crumb

And he unrolled his feathers

And rowed him softer home--

Than oars divide the ocean,

Too silver for a seam,

Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,

Leap, plashless, as they swim.

--Emily Dickinson

 

 

386 

Answer July -

Where is the Bee -

Where is the Blush -

Where is the Hay?

Ah, said July -

Where is the Seed -

Where is the Bud -

Where is the May -

Answer Thee - me -

Nay - said the May -

Show me the Snow -

Show me the Bells -

Show me the Jay!

Quibbled the Jay -

Where be the Maise -

Where be the Haze -

Where be the Bur?

Here - said the Year -

--Emily Dickinson 

 

[ Gardens of Aranjuez (1) ; Santiago Rusinol ]

 

 

The Way of One's Desires

--A. R. Ammons

One not lost finds no way:

terror brightens what it sees:

home's a destination one

departs with to part with:

okay never looks to be okay,

and not-okay, looking, sees

the only not-okay: you who

know, even if not knowing,

tell me, how does one err

to find one's erring: where

in the wild are the wiles

that school the way back home?

 

Reading by Ways

--A. R. Ammons

The epicurean (and stoic) philosophers,

monists and 

dualists,

are interesting (they show

that time over time

unwinds nearly the same story) but

how can I resist the creek,

slowing over depth

or breaking into shiny ramshackles

on a rise of pebbles or blurring

storm history in weed-slants

along high banks: I get

caught up in clouds illustrating

the sky or muddying out: I can't 

get enough of nodding

adjustments when a

squirrel leaps on or off a branch,

the trail quaking: still, I

like when the old philosopher says

live unknown, whole

histories like unread creeks.

 

A Little Thing Like That

--A. R. Ammons

life comes under no other

propositions than mountain decrees,

it seems at times;

seldom if a meander is allowed

can one see it far: it bends

away with its willows

behind a boulder-head or sheer face-off:

winding is the way of life

I would chose, would you, if

I could choose, for I would

like always to be on the other side

of wherever there's trouble

or pointing responsibility

or too much nailing down: just the

flexibility of brooks, dribbling over

stones or swelling up to dribble

over stones: I have always felt,

as one should, I think, shy

of mountains: they don't seem like

breasts to me--

                  but they rise

up august into air-starving presences

and they command views: I like

to swerve away from commands

because I'm unconvinced that I could

do all the things I might

be commanded to do or that I would

want to do them, and I would rather

feint a dissolve into a curvature,

a curvature of disappearance, as

around a hill or down from a rise:

may I not feel the speech of mountains

when they "speak" and may I wander

with meanders, not seeing far (ahead

or behind) and picking up willows

wherever possible, or alders and

stopping to have lunch in the shade

and drink from boulder-drained melts.

 

[ Riverman ; Georges Seurat ]

 

 

“What have I learned about the river, the companion rivers?” I’ve learned rivers are organisms that resemble us humans, that resemble animals; rivers are thinking organisms, and their waters carry a poem if you only look, dip your hand or foot in, wash your face; I became familiar with the names of companion rivers, names that in their own right resonate, that make up a verse: Nida, Koprzywianka, Opatówka, Chodelka, Radomka, Bzura, Skrwa, Wda . . . I found that rivers can rock you to sleep, and in the morning they cooperate with linnets, goldfinches, cormorants to wake the sleepers, inviting them to the day; but at night the river changes its character, becoming thick black lava dusted with the silver of the moon, and if you stare into its surface, you’ll be lost to yourself, the river hypnotizing you, making you lose track of what’s real and what’s not. I also learned the river knows how to get its way, take back land that belongs to it, occupy an old channel, use its own memory, spill over once again into terrain we appropriated as we elbowed our way into the world.

--Małgorzata Lebda (trans. Mira Rosenthal)

 

A Test of What’s Luminous

--Małgorzata Lebda (trans. Mira Rosenthal)

At night in the village, something opens the dogs’ snouts. It begins

at the ravine. A fire of growls leaps to the house from a Labrador

down the street. The first one conveys something to the next.

Let’s call it: distress, panic—the sound it makes.

I turn on the light, the animals close their snouts. Turn it off. Open.

On. Closed. Off. Is it possible the same thing calms them as us?

Fine—I say—today we’re sleeping through a test of what’s luminous.

I look down the valley, scattered houses, flashes inside,

as if each person is conducting the same experiment tonight.

 

Seasonal Plots (III)

--Małgorzata Lebda (trans. by Mira Rosenthal)

The coming of what’s luminous right up to the

sideboard; summer; the work of what’s luminous on

the skin in the region of the clavicle; redness;

separated bones of ice in deep glasses, above all the

cold from them; mint; red currant; gooseberries; the

falling into sleep in the middle of the day—like a

child; the waking like an adult; work; work’s duty;

work’s results; work’s fulfilled obligation; work’s

smothering debt; smothered vegetables; greengage

plums; the closing of the eyelids; the occupying of

the mouth—with the body, with a verse; the reading,

reading, reading of some poems, out loud; the

leaving of a swarm from the hive; bunches of bees;

long days; storm forthcoming (bumble-rumble); the

belly of the boom; the bellies of the dogs; fear and

relief of a touch; the watching of stars at night; fear

from the watching of stars at night; oh, what

tremendous, vast fear; the impossibility of what is

seen; oh yes—above all stars: Deneb, Vega, Altair;

cherries picked at midnight from a tree—their

abundance, their sharp pits.

[ Hillside ; Piroska Szanto (1944) ]

 

 

Haiku- Spring 2026

still more spring rain,

my childhood's untied shoelace

in the flooded swale

a tulip blossom

filled with all the excitement

of a yesterday

 

a goldfinch flying 

from the flowering dogwood 

in time with the sun

 

 

Necessity of Daybreak 

Table and cupboards, glassware quotients, 

the map of the wall calendar maintained 

by an alarm, the usual scene dashed   

with categorical values continuing 

a measured program of right angles 

while lay of the land shares memory  

as old as rain that praises the sun, 

rambled upon by the value of eons. 

That can be the partial for all but what  

I know is a check on my head while voice 

affairs its call for an unregistered heart, 

japes a coo across the fertile ground, 

glistens on dew from mute of the yin, 

thwacks the brink of nagging persistence. 

An astounding break, that, when the latch 

slips the lag screw of tenuous physics. 

A bout of news to be kept in the dark 

is perhaps some ridiculous thunder, or just 

outside is just marbled clouds unplugged 

by violet synergies of a succulent wind 

which is innocence threading elsewhere 

lost to a categorized self. Inevitability, it must, 

equally though, must not, behavioral adjust, 

then I’ve enough. Buds break through all 

with a power that’s so much more a far less. 

 

[ True to Life ; Valerie Jaudon (2005) ]

 

 

Between the Night & Its Music

--A.B. Spellman

between the night & its shadow is the music

between the music & the night is the song

between the song & the music is the voice

between the voice & the music is the self

between the self & its song is the mind

between the mind & the song is the melody

between the song & its melody is the rhythm

between the rhythm & the melody is the mind

between the mind & its song is the word

between the word & the mind is the voice

between the voice & the word is the thought

between the thought & the voice is the self

between the word & the self is the shadow

between the shadow & the self is the light

between the light & the word is the music

(the song is the melody in the word in the rhythm

the self holds the mind to the word & the thought of the song

the voice in the song sings the self to the mind

the light lights the shadow of the voice & its melody

the rhythm moves the self through the dimming night’s song

the thought in the song is of night’s shadows without music)

 

Beneath you

the amethyst caves vibrate and groan,

the earth’s emptiness.

Mushrooms of pleasure

molt into dark cupolas.

Now a shade falls over you,

a chittering, the talk of infinitesimal spirits

too slight for understanding.

You open yourself

your mouth your eyes your forehead

with a sharp stone carried from childhood.

--Stephanie Adams-Santos

 

Raining, Outlined

--Margarita Pintado Burgos (trans. Alejandra Quintana Aroch)

The forest. To say the forest. To suggest some music.

To carve the breeze.

To see a landscape. See it raining. Without rain but with raining.

With that raining that I always conjure when slowly, softly,

filled to the brim with tiny traces of an air that’s weightless,

I say to myself I’ll see it rain. I say it again, beside the window,

that it’s going to rain. That I’m going to see it rain.

To put forth the idea of rain before. The downpour plants

all its doubts.

To pour oneself on the raining. Allow oneself to rain.

To see raining. To say I see it’s raining.

Until the raining.

Until the rain.

Until then.

Until.

 

[ Purple Flower ; Piroska Szanto (1974) ]