Poet Speaks

I am not a person I am a succession of persons Held together by memory. When the string breaks, The beads are scattered. "Waka" - Lindley Williams Hubbel en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waka_(poetry)

My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: ............................. ~ Robert Frost

In the morning as the storm begins to blow away the clear sky appears for a moment and it seems to me that there has been something simpler than I could ever believe simpler than I could have begun to find words for not patient not even waiting no more hidden than the air itself that became part of me for a while with every breath and remained with me unnoticed something that was here unnamed unknown in the days and the nights not separate from them not separate from them as they came and were gone it must have been here neither early nor late then by what name can I address it now holding out my thanks ~ W.S. Merwin

I am the wind which breathes upon the sea, I am the wave of the ocean, I am the murmur of the billows I am the ox of the seven combats, I am the vulture upon the rocks, I am a beam of the sun, I am the fairest of the plants, I am the wild boar in valor, I am the salmon in the water, I am the lake in the plain, I am a word of science, I am the point of the lance of battle. I am the God who created in the head of fire, What is it who throws the light into the meeting on the mountains? Who announces the ages of the moon? Who teaches the place where couches the sun? If not I "This anonymous Irish poem from the bardic tradition that sounds like Walt Whitman and little like an old Vedic hymn, it’s been given title, “The Mystery” . The translation is by Yeats's friend Douglas Hyde" ~ Robert Hass

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; So many things seem filled with the intent To be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster Of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster; Places, and names, and where it was you meant To travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother’s watch. And look! My last, or Next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And , vaster, Some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident The art of losing’s not too hard to master Though it may look like (write it!) like disaster. “One art” ~ Elizabeth Bishop

Autumn moonlight-- a worm digs silently into the chestnut. ~ Matsuo Basho

It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen. Or sunshine, love, salvation. It could, you know. That's why we wake and look out -- no guarantees in this life. But some bonuses, like morning, like right now, like noon, like evening. "Yes" - William Stafford

The storm wind covers the sky Whirling the fleecy snow drifts, Now it howls like a wolf, Now it is crying, like a lost child, Now rustling the decayed thatch On our tumbledown roof, Now, like a delayed traveller, Knocking on our window pane. Excerpt ~ "Winter Evening" ~ Pushkin

My fiftieth year had come and gone. I sat, a solitary man, In a crowded London shop, An open book and empty cup On the marble table top. While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed; And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness, That I was blessed and could bless. ~ Yeats

A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit: Dumb As old medallions to the thumb; Silent as a sleeve-work stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown - A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds. A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs; Leaving, as the moon releases Twig by twig the night-entangled trees - Leaving as the moon behind the winter leaves, Memory by memory the mind. A poem should be equal to Not true. For all the history of grief As empty doorway and a maple leaf; For love The learning grasses and two lights above the sea - A poem should not mean, But be. "Ars Poetica" ~ Archibald Mac Leish

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. "Peace of Wild things" ~ Wendell Berry

All crying, 'We will go with you, O Wind!' The foliage follow him, leaf and stem; But a sleep oppresses them as they go, And they end by bidding them as they go, And they end by bidding him stay with them. Since ever they flung abroad in spring The leaves had promised themselves this flight, Who now would fain seek sheltering wall, Or thicket, or hollow place for the night. And now they answer his summoning blast With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir, Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl That drops them no further than where they were. I only hope that when I am free As they are free to go in quest Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life It may not seem better to me to rest "Misgivings" ~ Robert Frost

I love the dark hours of my being. My mind deepens into them. There I can find, as in old letters, the days of my life, already lived, and held like a legend, and understood. Then the knowing comes: I can open to another life that's wide and timeless. So I am sometimes like a tree rustling over a gravesite and making real the dream of the one its living roots embrace: a dream once lost among sorrows and songs. "I love the dark hours" ~ Ranier Maria Rilke

I found a weed that had a mirror in it and that mirror looked in at a mirror in me that had a weed in it ~ A.R.Ammons en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._R._Ammons

So early it’s still almost dark out. I’m near the window with coffee, And the usual early morning stuff That passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend Walking up the road To deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, And one boy has a bag over his shoulder. They are so happy They aren’t saying anything, these boys. I think if they could, they would take Each other’s arm. It’s early in the morning, And they are doing this thing together. They come on, slowly, The sky is taking on light, Though the moon still hangs pale over the water. Such beauty that for a minute Death and ambition, even love Dosen’t enter into this Happiness. It comes on Unexpectedly, and goes beyond, really, And early morning talk about it. “Happiness” ~ Raymond Carver