If you read these, you might enjoy them.
Conversely ...
Poem to Han-shan
Living in the mountains, mind ill at ease
All I do is grieve at the passing years.
Five years I've looked into this orchard
Hoping to measure my life, only to find it empty
Of me.
If I could weave into my heart all the nights,
The gold oriole in shadows, the moon
Inside each apple, the delicate jade-flower
garden,
The song in the shape of fruit,
or stone,
Or rain. Dream.
All dream. I weave nothing
These long days watching the leaves fall and
the trees
Holding on. And holding on.
Outside my window
Lilacs are closing, there are new blossoms
In the strawberry field, the splintery water-tower
Is full and heavy in the sun. And now a
hummingbird streams
From stem to stem of the fuschia.
I don't move. Han-shan,
finally I see
What has been given to me.
(Joe Stroud)
A Blessing
Just off the highway to
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.
(James Wright)
Beginning
The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she
is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.
(James Wright)
THE BEST LINE YET - 1972
by Edward Allen (b.
1948)
In
An iron eagle sternly clasps the crag with crooked hands.
His pedestal is twenty feet, full thirty feet is he.
His head alone weighs many times as much as you or me.
All day, all night he keeps his watch and never stirs a feather.
His frowning brow glares straight ahead into the foulest weather.
They say this noble bird will spread his iron wings and fly
The day a virgin graduates from Stamford Senior High.
0, evil day when he shall rise above the peaceful town,
Endanger airplanes, frighten children, drop foul tonnage down!
So let not this accipiter1 desert his silent vigil,
But yield to me my darling,
1. bird of prey
More Poems by James Wright http://www.sonic.net/~dbieling/poems-2.html
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