W.S. Merwin… happy birthday (b. 1927)

ANY TIME  (by W.S.Merwin)

How long ago the day is
when at last I look at it
with the time it has taken
to be there still in it
now in the transparent light
with the flight in the voices
the beginning in the leaves
everything I remember
and before it before me
present at the speed of light
in the distance that I am
who keep reaching out to it
seeing all the time faster
where it has never stirred from
before there is anything
the darkness thinking the light

Theodore Roethke

“I have come to a still, but not a deep center, 
A point outside the glittering current; 
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river, 
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains, 
My mind moves in more than one place, 
In a country half-land, half-water. 
I am renewed by death, thought of my death, 
The dry scent of a dying garden in September, 
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire. 
What I love is near at hand, 
Always, in earth and air.”

–  by Theodore Roethke (The Far Field)

 

Happy Birthday Mr. Eliot…

Morning at the Window by T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965)
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates. The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts An aimless smile that hovers in the air And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

One of my favorite poets: James Wright

Depressed By A Book Of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward An Unused Pasture And Invite The Insects To Join Me

by James Wright

Relieved, I let the book fall behind a stone.

I climb a slight rise of grass.

I do not want to disturb the ants

Who are walking single file up the fence post,

Carrying small white petals,

Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them.

I close my eyes for a moment and listen.

The old grasshoppers are tired, they leap heavily now,

Their thighs are burdened.

I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to make.

Then lovely, far off, a dark cricket begins

In the maple trees.

Autumn grasses in lowland meadows

A Lifelong Commitment…

 

 

“When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.”

Quotation by Yo-Yo-Ma

Autumn arrives

“Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.”

 

– Quotation by Emily Bronte

Happy Birthday…

It’s the birthday of William Carlos Williams (born 1883)

From Mahatma Gandhi…

Wild Horse at Mesa Verde

 

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. 

Quotation by Gandhi

Jim Carroll, rocker/poet dead at age 60

Just learned that Jim Carroll died last Friday.  

Listen to Patti Smith talk about his life here:  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/09/conversation-patti-smith-reflects-on-the-life-of-her-friend-jim-carroll.html