The Past
by Jason Shinder

All the waves want to come in at once.

Stars rush toward earth.

Every desire has a degree in which angels
lend an ear.

After all, I'm not in the world yet.

The presence of someone has come upon me.
What is the past if I can change?

Alfie's Lullaby
by Glyn Maxwell

On a day
          When I lay
Where I used to forever

And the voices
          I was watering
Were in flower as I rose

Then I
          In the fields
With the clouds in my fingers

Could sing
          Till the sun
Was a road to the sea

Song for the Old Ones
by Maya Angelou

My Fathers sit on benches
   their flesh counts every plank
   the slats leave dents of darkness
deep in their withered flanks.

They nod like broken candles
   all waxed and burnt profound
   they say "It's understanding
that makes the world go round."

There in those pleated faces
   I see the auction block
   the chains and slavery's coffles
the whip and lash and stock.

My Fathers speak in voices
   that shred my fact and sound
   they say "It's our submission
that makes the world go round."

They used the finest cunning
   their naked wits and wiles
   the lowly Uncle Tomming
and Aunt Jemima's smiles.

They've laughed to shield their crying
   then shuffled through their dreams
   and stepped 'n' fetched a country
to write the blues with screams.

I understand their meaning
   it could and did derive
   from living on the edge of death
They kept my race alive.

Of Three or Four in a Room

Of three or four in a room
there is always one who stands beside the window.
He must see the evil among thorns
and the fires on a hill.
And how people who went out of their houses whole
are given back in the evening like small change.
Of three or four in a room
there is always one who stands beside the window,
his dark hair above his thoughts.
Behind him, words.
And in front of him, voices wandering without a knapsack,
hearts without provisions, prophecies without water,
large stones that have been returned 
and stay sealed, like letters that have no
address and no one to receive them.

Yehuda Amichai

Marriage
William Carlos Williams

So different, this man
And this woman:
A stream flowing
In a field.

What it is
by Andrea Hollander Budy

It is
whatever it is
that stirs the house

Of your heart,
that shares
your hunger,

your thirst,
your urge all day
to hear more

than your own voice
voicing its foolishness.

It is
whatever it is
in your hands

that slithers away,
whatever can only be
glimpsed, sudden

or sharp, but tuneless,
bass notes, not
melody.

You were born
knowing
you'd have to learn

whatever it would take
and even to learn
what to make of it.

It is not
the words
in your throat.

not even
your honest intention.

When you open
your mouth
it is

whatever it is
that no longer speaks
that longs to speak,

whatever it is
that trembles.

From "Mountain Time"
by Kathryn Stripling Byer

Up here in the mountains

we know what extinct means. We've seen

how our breath on a bitter night

fades like a ghost from the window glass.

We know the wolf's gone.

The panther. We've heard the old stories

run down, stutter out

into silence. Who knows where we're heading?

All roads seem to lead

to Millennium, dark roads with drop-offs

we can't plumb. It's time to be brought up short

now with the tale-tellers' Listen: There once lived

a woman named Delphia

who walked through these hills teaching children

to read. She was known as a quilter

whose hand never wearied, a mother

who raised up two daughters to pass on

her words like a strong chain of stitches.

Imagine her sitting among us,

her quick thimble moving along these lines

as if to hear every word striking true

as the stab of her needle through calico.

While prophets discourse about endings,

don't you think she'd tell us the world as we know it

keeps calling us back to beginnings?

This labor to make our words matter

is what any good quilter teaches.

A stitch in time, let's say.

A blind stitch

that clings to the edges

of what's left, the ripped

scraps and remnants, whatever

won't stop taking shape even though the whole

crazy quilt's falling to pieces.

Arbolé, Arbolé . . .
by Federico García Lorca
Translated by William Logan

Tree, tree

dry and green.


The girl with the pretty face

is out picking olives.

The wind, playboy of towers,

grabs her around the waist.

Four riders passed by

on Andalusian ponies,

with blue and green jackets

and big, dark capes.

"Come to Cordoba, muchacha."

The girl won't listen to them.

Three young bullfighters passed,

slender in the waist,

with jackets the color of oranges

and swords of ancient silver.

"Come to Sevilla, muchacha."

The girl won't listen to them.

When the afternoon had turned

dark brown, with scattered light,

a young man passed by, wearing

roses and myrtle of the moon.

"Come to Granada, muchacha."

And the girl won't listen to him.

The girl with the pretty face

keeps on picking olives

with the grey arm of the wind

wrapped around her waist.

Tree, tree

dry and green.

A Blessing
by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

Continuity
by A. R. Ammons

I've pressed so
far away from
my desire that

if you asked
me what I
want I would,

accepting the harmonious
completion of the
drift, say annihilation,

probably.

My Heart Leaps Up
by William Wordsworth

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

Example and Admonition
by Dick Barnes

My father’s admonition: when given
a choice, choose the path that
leads uphill, always,

so up we went, but all led down soon after:
our destination Deep Creek, where water had gathered
by taking every downhill opportunity.

We thought of that when the higher path turned down,
but no one mentioned it then, nor ever, in fact, til now.
Two lessons: and though sometimes I feel clever,

and have read the Chou I book all about that water,
I’ve not forsaken either one. If there be something in a man
that flows uphill, he has to go with it

whatever sweat or humiliation may attend his going.
Done patiently, this is called "matching heaven with heaven."
Otherwise, just strife.