Keeping Things Whole

A lovely poem for this day:

Keeping Things Whole

by Mark Strand

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in   

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

Thinking about Venice

 I have Venice on my mind. The Biennale is upcoming with what looks to be a spectacular exhibit of Willem de Kooning's works. 

I have yet to visit, but do plan to go to this curious city of over 400 bridges, 100+ islands, and a slightly larger number of canals. I know it from photographs, glasswork, literature, and poetry. 

Below is a favorite poem by Arthur Symons:

Venice

Water and marble and that silentness
Which is not broken by a wheel or hoof;
A city like a water-lily, less
Seen than reflected, palace wall and roof,
In the unfruitful waters motionless,
Without one living grass's green reproof;
A city without joy or weariness,
Itself beholding, from itself aloof.

At the Cafe Door

Cavafy was Greek, raised in Alexandria, Egypt. Here, his poem titled At the Cafe Door:

Something they said beside me made me look toward the café door,and I saw that lovely body which seemedas though Eros in his mastery had fashioned it,joyfully shaping its well-formed limbs,molding its tall build,shaping its face tenderly,and leaving, with a touch of the fingers,a particular nuance on the brow, the eyes, the lips.
 

The Hands Bring Out the Hands

Eyes

It seems nothing can provoke
Our inner silence
No sound no word nothing
The eyes bring out the eyes!
Nothing else but this unites us
A leaf touching another leaf
So close and so docile
The hands bring out the hands!
In our age love is an opposition
Let us unite to cast two single shadows...

by Edip Cansever
Translated by Talat Sait Halman

At the Twilight

A poem by Rumi:

At the twilight, a moon appeared in the sky;
Then it landed on earth to look at me. 

Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey;
That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky.

I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore;
For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul.

The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;
The ship of my existence drowned in that sea. 

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                  i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

 

Hold Fast to Dreams

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.      

by Langston Hughes

Bottle and Friend

A Bottle and A Friend
by Robert Byrnes

There's nane that's blest of human kind,
But the cheerful and the gay, man,
Fal, la, la, &c.

Here's a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.      

I Love Your Feet

More Neruda:

But I love your feet

only because they walked

upon the earth and upon

the wind and upon the waters,

until they found me.

When I Fall Asleep Your Eyes Close

From Pablo Neruda:

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. 

I love you simply, without problems or pride: 

I love you in this way 

because I do not know any other way of loving but this, 

in which there is no I or you, 

so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, 

so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.

But It's Raining

I Want to Go Out, but It's Raining

by Lu You
Southern Sung Dynasty
About 1200 A.D.

The east wind blows rain,
Vexing the rambler.
The road turns to mud
From fine dust.

Flowers sleep, willows drowse,
Spring itself is lazy.
And it turns out that I
Am even lazier than spring.

Hostile to e-books

From the back cover of Poetry, November 2012:

The unadmitted reason why traditional readers are hostile to e-books 

is that we still hold the superstitious idea 

that a book is like a soul, 

and that every soul should have its own body.

More Li Po

Ballad of the Voyager

Sea voyager, on Heaven's winds,
in his ship, far wandering.
Like a bird, among the clouds,
gone, he'll leave no trace.

by Li Po

Summit Temple

Summit Temple
by Li Po

This night, in Summit Temple,
I raise my hand and touch the stars.
I wouldn't dare to raise my voice,
for fear I'd wake them, up in Heaven.

Ancient Air

Ancient Air

by Li Po

I climb up high and look on the four seas,
Heaven and earth spreading out so far.
Frost blankets all the stuff of autumn,
The wind blows with the great desert's cold.
The eastward-flowing water is immense,
All the ten thousand things billow.
The white sun's passing brightness fades,
Floating clouds seem to have no end.
Swallows and sparrows nest in the wutong tree,
Yuan and luan birds perch among jujube thorns.
Now it's time to head on back again,
I flick my sword and sing Taking the Hard Road. 

Dreams

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Fire

Fire

by Judy Brown

What makes a fire burn

is space between the logs,

a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

too many logs

packed in too tight

can douse the flames

almost as surely

as a pail of water would.

So building fires

requires attention

to the spaces in between,

as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build

open spaces 

in the same way

we have learned

to pile on the logs,

then we can come to see how

it is fuel, and absence of the fuel

together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log

lightly from time to time.

A fire 

grows

simply because the space is there,

with openings 

in which the flame

that knows just how it wants to burn 

can find its way.

(Leading from Within, ed. by Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner)

The Road Not Taken

Sometimes it's good to reread this.

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

An Hour

An Hour
by Czeslaw Milosz

Leaves glowing in the sun, zealous hum of bumblebees,
From afar, from somewhere beyond the river, echoes of lingering voices
And the unhurried sounds of a hammer gave joy not only to me.
Before the five senses were opened, and earlier than any beginning
They waited, ready, for all those who would call themselves mortals,
So that they might praise, as I do, life, that is, happiness. 

Ceremony

From Sea Level, a book of poetry by Suzanne Matson:

Ceremony

To hear this music I have dressed with care,
have pulled the ritual pieces from their drawers--
fine stockings, old brooch, a band for my hair.
I am clean like mint. For these hours
when early night and scouring cold conspire
we will gather in a lit place, restless
until the conductor lifts the thin wire
of our attention. Another man directs us.
I love the maestro's fine hands, all the rapt
taut beauty he shapes in air, cutting loose
our small private lives so they may rise, rise, locked
together in an abstract joy like prayer.
I need a Father, need a God, and fear
the need. No matter. Though close, He is not here.