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) ]

 

 

Hear a Door

--Ernest Jésùyẹmí

Tuck inside a myth your rent violin:

To touch the light, you must believe first

In the lucid ghost of grief. Elegance

Of marvels. Tale away the vibrant fever.

The angel of bleeding abides not the clear unseen

Day. Abel hymns only dewlight there. The

Quiet trees divine their fused shadows

Over the earth; beneath the shadows, roots—

A gorgeous network of thirst. Spring

                                   Like a ball.

A wild butterfly communes

With the flourishing secrets inside a flaming

Violet flower. Arrive peacecountry.

Voice be clipped awake. Harvest

The violin in Summer. The mouth, small

Humbling god, tightens to a lute.

 

The Face in the Toyota

--Robert Bly

Suppose you see a face in a Toyota

One day, and you fall in love with that face,

And it is Her, and the world rushes by

Like dust blown down a Montana street.

And you fall upward into some deep hole,

And you can't tell God from a grain of sand.

And your life is changed, except that now you

Overlook even more than you did before;

And these ignored things come to bury you,

And you are crushed, and your parents

Can't help you anymore, and the woman in the Toyota

Becomes a part of the world that you don't see.

And now the grain of sand becomes sand again,

And you stand on some mountain road weeping.

 

 

"It Is Spring Again"

--Halina Poświatowska (trans. by Karolina Zapal & Ryan Mihaly)

It is spring again, spring so astonishingly familiar: so why is poetry choking on itself? The tree outside my window is committing plagiarism for the twentieth year in a row, adding green leaves to green leaves. The flowers of the cherry tree are no different from the first cherry tree; the same smell as yesterday permeates the air. And—though old people say this is tedious—my sister is kissing someone under the same tree where I used to kiss, 
endlessly plagiarizing the first kiss. I could still tell you about the grasses, all the grasses that sprouted from seeds faithfully and persistently, the same, the exact same grass as months ago. The world is not afraid to 
plagiarize when making new life, and always equally astonishing and monotonous in its stubbornness is death. Why then condemn poems of love, why blame them for their lack of shame and their primitive, chaotic groans of pleasure, faithfully replicated for centuries, indifferent to who reads them?

 

[ Constructivo ; Joaquin Torres Garcia (1933) ]

 

If I Could Tell You

--W. H. Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so,

Time only knows the price we have to pay;

If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,

If we should stumble when musicians play,

Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,

Because I love you more than I can say,

If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,

There must be reasons why the leaves decay;

Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,

The vision seriously intends to stay;

If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,

And all the brooks and soldiers run away;

Will Time say nothing but I told you so?

If I could tell you I would let you know.

 

A Walk After Dark

-W. H. Auden

A cloudless night like this

Can set the spirit soaring:

After a tiring day

The clockwork spectacle is

Impressive in a slightly boring

Eighteenth-century way.

It soothed adolescence a lot

To meet so shameless a stare;

The things I did could not

Be so shocking as they said

If that would still be there

After the shocked were dead

Now, unready to die

Bur already at the stage

When one starts to resent the young,

I am glad those points in the sky

May also be counted among

The creatures of middle-age.

It's cosier thinking of night

As more an Old People's Home

Than a shed for a faultless machine,

That the red pre-Cambrian light

Is gone like Imperial Rome

Or myself at seventeen.

Yet however much we may like

The stoic manner in which

The classical authors wrote,

Only the young and rich

Have the nerve or the figure to strike

The lacrimae rerum note.

For the present stalks abroad

Like the past and its wronged again

Whimper and are ignored,

And the truth cannot be hid;

Somebody chose their pain,

What needn't have happened did.

Occurring this very night

By no established rule,

Some event may already have hurled

Its first little No at the right

Of the laws we accept to school

Our post-diluvian world:

But the stars burn on overhead,

Unconscious of final ends,

As I walk home to bed,

Asking what judgment waits

My person, all my friends,

And these United States.

 

Prime

--W.H.Auden

Simultaneously, as soundlessly,

Spontaneously, suddenly

As, at the vaunt of the dawn, the kind

Gates of the body fly open

To its world beyond, the gates of the mind,

The horn gate and the ivory gate

Swing to, swing shut, instantaneously

Quell the nocturnal rummage

Of its rebellious fronde, ill-favoured,

Ill-natured and second-rate,

Disenfranchised, widowed and orphaned

By an historical mistake:

Recalled from the shades to be a seeing being,

From absence to be on display,

Without a name or history I wake

Between my body and the day.

Holy this moment, wholly in the right,

As, in complete obedience

To the light’s laconic outcry, next

As a sheet, near as a wall,

Out there as a mountain’s poise of stone,

The world is present, about,

And I know that I am, here, not alone

But with a world, and rejoice

Unvexed, for the will has still to claim

This adjacent arm as my own,

The memory to name me, resume

Its routine of praise and blame,

And smiling to me is this instant while

Still the day is intact, and I

The Adam sinless in our beginning,

Adam still previous to any act.

I draw breath; that is of course to wish,

No matter what, to be wise.

To be different, to die and the cost,

No matter how, is Paradise

Lost of course and myself owing a death:

The eager ridge, the steady sea,

The flat roofs of the fishing village

Still asleep in its bunny,

Though as fresh and sunny still, are not friends

But things to hand, this ready flesh

No honest equal, but my accomplice now,

My assassin to be, and my name

Stands for my historical share of care

For a lying self-made city,

Afraid of our living task, the dying

Which the coming day will ask.

 

[ Prayer ; George Stefanescu ]

 

 

I Commit

--Mathew Zapruder

I commit to vote because

I'm pretty sure I grab

whatever I need from the world

and place it in my mind

which is getting incrementally

like the commons

undeniably more toxic and sad

yes I too walk around

considering my intractable problems

complaining it's too late

for more sonatas

everything is already too beautiful

music and anger won't save us

yet I commit to talking

earnestly with Sarah

about the school board

it will be night and we will be sitting

shoulder to shoulder 

at the old table we love

each holding a pencil

like grade school children left alone at last

then in the morning

before our son wakes

I commit to holding

this tiny bit of quicksilver

(quick in the sense of living

in its very molecular nature

it wants to usefully combine with yours)

in my palm and to walking

up to the blue mailbox

I pass most mornings

in that familiar silence

under those nameless little trees

when all things that surround me wait

 

Invocation

--Han VanderHart

I do not know whether it is morning         or mourning,

the name of the doves calling         in the hems of day

sometimes, I do not know         the spelling of a single word

or why the couple gesture in their car         making a left turn

tonight the clouds settle on the mountains:         pale pink

and then mist, and then         no mountain

almost every day I say to someone:         “it is not important”

but the wing of it         the beak         the onyx eye

is that I do not know this         either

 

Daybreak

--Bert Meyers

Birds drip from the trees.

The moon's a little goat

over there on the hill;

dawn, as blue as her milk,

fills the sky's tin pail.

The air's so cold a gas station

glitters in an ice-cube.

The freeway hums like a pipe

when the water's on.

Streetlights turn off their dew.

The sun climbs down from a roof,

stops by a house and strikes

its long match on a wall,

takes out a ring of brass keys

and opens every door.