
“before I die I want to see
The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes”
Charlotte Mew
“before I die I want to see
The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes”
Charlotte Mew
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
Henri Matisse
by Robert Burns
O were my love yon Lilac fair,
Wi’ purple blossoms to the Spring,
And I, a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing!
How I wad mourn when it was torn
By Autumn wild, and Winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,
When youthfu’ May its bloom renew’d.
O gin my love were yonred rose,
That grows upon the castle wa’;
And I myself a drapo’ dew,
Into her bonie breast to fa’!
O there, beyond expression blest,
I’d feast on beauty a’ the night;
Seal’d on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fley’d awaby Phoebus’ light
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods, they have not forgotten this….
Terry Prachett
by Vikram Seth
The orange cat on the porch
Regards the tiny bird
Out on the pine-tree limb
And yawns without a word.
The mourning air is mild,
The tawny hillsides seem
Halfway from sleep to waking:
The cat appears to dream,
Which is of course illusion;
A harsh jay on the hill
Is answered by three quail
Clucks, and a warbler’s trill.
The cat who is not hungry
Can listen in repose
To birdcalls, with that pleasant
Touch of desire’s throes
We feel before a painting
Of nude or odalisque,
The lost without the pain,
Arousal without risk
Of failure, sweet frisson –
Like drink, and no hangover,,
Sex without friction, love
Minus the awkward lover.
The sense of the world is short,—
Long and various the report,—
To love and be beloved;
Men and gods have not outlearned it;
And, how oft soe’er they’ve turned it,
’Tis not to be improved
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Eros
by Alice Oswald
From time to time our love is like a sail
and when the sail begins to alternate
from tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail
and when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;
and if the coat is yours, it has a tear
like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins
to draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter
and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions …
and this, my love, when millions come and go
beyond the need of us, is like a trick;
and when the trick begins, it’s like a toe
tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;
and when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,
which is like love, which is like everything.
by Hafiz
Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.
VII
The heart beats alone, keeping its own pace
Fear, rage, sorrow—storms beyond our range
The river bows and bends, birthing new space
To die and live again–this constant change
Veins of water across the delta wrist, opening
Cupped hands…fish, reeds, frogs mating in puddles
Home… where cranes stop for a drink, then rising
Back to their birthplace. The spirit shuttles
Between heaven and earth—how you follow
This primordial path? The brain, a wrinkled mass
Keeps us at bay, eyes on the black swallow
From distant sea…messenger through tall grass
Memory split from the Fountain of Youth
You hold us to the place– this beat, this truth
If you would like to read Wanda Ping’s entire crown of sonnets, click on the link below:
Wang Ping
Wang Ping
“Oh no, not with your syntax,” said H.V. to her daughter-in-law, a Chinese writing poetry in English
She walk to table
She walks to a table
She walk to table now
She is walking to a table now
What difference it make
What difference does it make
In Nature, no completeness
No sentence really complete thought
Language, our birthright & curse
Pay no mind to immigrant syntax
Poetry, born as beast
Move best when free, undressed
In spite of the cost of living, its still popular.
Kathleen Norris
by Kathleen Norris
Why do you stand looking up at the skies?
. . Acts 1:11
It wasn’t just wind, chasing
thin gunmetal clouds
across the loud sky;
it wasn’t the feeling that one might ascend
on that excited air,
rising like a trumpet note.
And it wasn’t just my sister’s water breaking,
her crying out,
the downward draw of blood and bone…
It was all of that,
the mud and new grass
pushing up through melting snow,
the lilac in bud
by my front door, bent low
by last week’s ice storm.
Now the new mother, that leaky vessel,
begins to nurse her child,
beginning the long good-bye.
I have lately come to the conclusion that I am Eve,
alias Mrs. Adam. You know, there is no account
of her death in the Bible, and why am I not Eve?
Emily Dickinson in a letter,
12 January, 1846
So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.
Mary Oliver
Mary Howitt (1799 – 1888)
I am coming, I am coming!
Hark! the honey bee is humming;
See, the lark is soaring high
In the blue and sunny sky,
And the gnats are on the wing
Wheeling round in airy ring.
Listen! New-born lambs are bleating,
And the cawing rooks are meeting
In the elms-a noisy crowd.
All the birds are singing loud,
And the first white butterfly
In the sunshine dances by.
Look around you, look around!
Flowers in all the fields abound,
Every running stream is bright,
All the orchard trees are white,
And each small and waving shoot
Promises sweet autumn fruit.
by Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019)
May, and among the miles of leafing,
blossoms storm out of the darkness—
windflowers and moccasin flowers. The bees
dive into them and I too, to gather
their spiritual honey. Mute and meek, yet theirs
is the deepest certainty that this existence too—
this sense of well-being, the flourishing
of the physical body—rides
near the hub of the miracle that everything
is a part of, is as good
as a poem or a prayer, can also make
luminous any dark place on earth.