06.30.07
Happiness by Raymond Carver
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,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
06.24.07
Expect Nothing by Alice Walker
Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny a human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
~ Alice Walker ~
www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html
06.21.07
Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun’s brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can’t hear
anything, I can’t see anything –
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,
nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,
the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker –
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.
And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing –
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,
the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet –
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.
And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt
swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?
One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn’s beautiful body
is sure to be there.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(West Wind)
Web version at www.Panhala.net/Archive/Little_Summer_Poem.html
06.19.07
Shifting the Sun by Diana Der-Hovanessian
When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians
When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.
When you father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn’t.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light.
~ Diana Der-Hovanessian ~
(Selected Poems)
Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html
06.13.07
Tao Te Ching, excerpt
If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren’t afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can’t achieve.
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place.
When you handle the master carpenter’s tools,
chances are that you’ll cut yourself.
(Tao Te Ching, trans. by Stephen Mitchell)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/74_Tao_Te_Ching.html
maryt
06.07.07
i carry your heart by e.e. cummings
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 the 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)
- e. e. cummings ~
(Complete Poems, 1904-1962)
06.03.07
My Own Stuff
PRAYER OF A WOMAN TURNED 50
Please God
don’t let me get cancer or a stroke
or a heart attack or some fatal disease,
or hit by a car or a rickshaw
or get Alzheimer’s and go crazy,
just when I’m beginning to find life
so damn interesting.
Amen.
HAIKU
Woman sits
With swaddled, battered knee,
Reading and healing
Late summer rain —
Fringe of feathery marigolds
Soaked and bowed
We returned from lunch
He kissed my lips lightly —
He has my heart
Winter night —
chickadee all puffed up
on my window sill
Bare brown branches
in a water-filled vase —
yellow forsythia!
Hanging flower baskets
swinging gently and dripping—
late Summer rain
Walking sticks
tap, tap, tapping —
blind children crossing a bridge
WILLIAM BLAKE KNEW IT
(for Carl)
Grownups are boring.
Somewhere they dropped their sense of humor,
and don’t even know it’s fallen out of their pockets.
When (I ask you) does it get so sluggish, dull
and plastic?
At what point in Monopoly do you realize
that it’s going to be forever Baltic?
At what point do you realize it’ll always be Trivial Pursuit?
When do you buy that pocket protector,
climb into it, and pull it over your head
so that nothing gets to you,
nothing stings, gooses, or pinches?
When do you make a deal with the angels
that you’ll never consort with devils?
copyright 2007 maryt
06.01.07
Why then do we not despair?
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death’s great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.
And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses –
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.
~ Anna Akhmatova ~













