Under the Stars

by Dorianne Laux

When my mother died
I was as far away
as I could be, on an arm of land
floating in the Atlantic
where boys walk shirtless
down the avenue
holding hands, and gulls sleep
on the battered pilings,
their bright beaks hidden
beneath one white wing. 

 

Maricopa, Arizona. Mea Culpa.
I did not fly to see your body
and instead stepped out
on a balcony in my slip
to watch the stars turn
on their grinding wheel. 
Early August, the ocean,
a salt-tinged breeze.

 

Botanists use the word
serotinous to describe
late-blossoming, serotinal
for the season of late-summer.
I did not write your obituary
as my sister requested, could
not compose such final lines: I closed the piano
to keep the music in. Instead

 

I stood with you
on what now seems 
like the ancient deck
of a great ship, our nightgowns
flaring, the smell of dying lilacs
drifting up from someone’s
untended yard, and we
listened to the stars hiss
into the bent horizon, blossoms
the sea gathered tenderly, each
shattered and singular one
long dead, but even so, incandescent,
making a singed sound, singing
as they went.

 

 Afternoon on a Hill

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

 I will be the gladdest thing
    Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
    And not pick one.

 

I will look at cliffs and clouds
    With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
    And the grass rise.

 

And when lights begin to show
    Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
    And then start down!

(I have stood on this hill in Camden, Maine, 

looked down, and thought of this poem.  Lovely.)

Poem now in the public domain.

Reminder

I am rich I am poor. Time is all I own. I spend or hoard it for experience. By the bitten wound the biting tooth is known. Thrift is a venomous error, then, a stone named bread or cash to support the pretense that I’m rich. I am poor; time is all I own... though I hold to memory: how spent time shone as you approached, and the light loomed immense. By the bitten wound the biting tooth is known, though scars fade. I have memory on loan while it evaporates; though it be dense & I am rich, I am poor. Time is all I own to sustain me—the moonlit skeleton that holds my whole life in moving suspense. By the bitten wound the biting tooth is known. Ownership’s brief, random, a suite of events. If the past is long the future ’s short. Since I am rich I am poor. Time is all I own. By the bitten wound the biting tooth is known. Marie Ponsot, Collected Poems, Knopf

Home
by William Stafford

Our father owned a star,
and by its light
we lived in father’s house
and slept at night.

The tragedy of life,
like death and war,
were faces looking in
at our front door.

But finally all came in,
from near and far:
you can’t believe in locks
and own a star.

"Home" by William Stafford 
from Another World Instead. 
© Graywolf Press, 2008.

Protest
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticize oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and childbearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.

 

Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.

"Protest" was published in Poems of Problems by Conkey Company, 1914.

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe

 

by Elizabeth Alexander

 

Poetry, I tell my students,

is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we are ourselves

(though Sterling Brown said

“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”),

digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,

emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find

in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God

in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.

Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,

and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)

is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

Ice Would Suffice

How swift, how far the sea carries a body from shore.   Empires fail, species are lost, spotted frogs and tufted puffins forsaken.   After eons of fauna and flora, hominids have stood for mere years baffled brains atop battered shoulders.   In a murky blanket of heavens an icy planet made of diamond spins.   Our sun winks like the star it was billions of years ago, without ambition.   We bury bodies in shallow dirt, heedless of lacking space or how long our makeshift planet will host us. by Risa Denenberg

The Print the Whales Make

You and I on the boat notice
the print the whales leave,
the  huge ring their diving draws
for a time on the surface.
Is it like that when we
lose one another? Don't
know, can't. But
I want to believe
when we can no longer
walk across a room
for a hug, can no longer
step into the arms of the other,
there will be this:
some trace that stays
while the great body
remains below out of sight,
dark mammoth shadow
flick of flipper
body of delight
diving deep. 

by Marjorie Saiser from her book
I Have Nothing to Say About Fire
from Backwaters Press

Descending Theology:  Christ Human
by Mary Karr

Such a short voyage for a god,
and you arrived in animal form so as not
to scorch us with your glory.
Your mask was an infant’s head on a limp stalk,
sticky eyes smeared blind,
limbs rendered useless in swaddle.
You came among beasts
as one, came into our care or its lack, came crying
as we all do, because the human frame
is a crucifix, each skeletos borne a lifetime.
Any wanting soul lain
prostrate on a floor to receive a pouring of sunlight
might–if still enough,
feel your cross buried in the flesh.
One has only to surrender,
you preached, open both arms to the inner,
the ever-present hold,
out-reaching every want. It’s in the form
embedded, love adamant as bone.
In a breath, we can bloom and almost be you. 

Poetry Magazine, December 2001, by Mary Karr

 Advent Calendar, by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Bethlehem in Germany,

Glitter on the sloping roofs,

Breadcrumbs on the windowsills,

Candles in the Christmas trees,

Hearths with pairs of empty shoes:

Panels of Nativity

Open paper scenes where doors

Open into other scenes,

Some recounted, some foretold.

Blizzard-sprinkled flakes of gold

Gleam from small interiors,

Picture-boxes in the stars

Open up like cupboard doors

In a cabinet Jesus built.

Southern German villagers,

Peasants in the mica frost,

See the comet streaming down,

Heavenly faces, each alone,

Faces lifted, startled, lost,

As if lightning lit the town.

Sitting in an upstairs window

Patiently the village scholar

Raises his nearsighted face,

Interrupted by the star.

Left and right his hands lie stricken

Useless on his heavy book.

When I lift the paper door

In the ceiling of his study

One canary-angel glimmers,

Flitting in the candelabra,

Peers and quizzes him: Rabbi,

What are the spheres surmounted by?

But his lips are motionless.

Child, what are you asking for?

Look, he gazes past the roofs,

Gazes where the bitter North,

Stretched across the empty place,

Opens door by door by door.

This is childhood's shrunken door.

When I touch the glittering crumbs,

When I cry to be admitted,

No one answers, no one comes.

And the tailor's needle flashes

In midair with thread pulled tight,

Stitching a baptismal gown.

But the gown, the seventh door,

Turns up an interior

Hidden from the tailor's eyes:

Baby presents like the boxes

Angels hold on streets and stairways,

Wooden soldier, wooden sword,

Chocolate coins in crinkled gold,

Hints of something bought and sold,

Hints of murder in the stars.

Baby's gown is sown with glitter

Spread across the tailor's lap.

Up above his painted ceiling

Baby mouse's skeleton

Crumbles in the mouse's trap.

Leaning from the cliff of heaven,

Indicating whom he weeps for,

Joseph lifts his lamp above

The infant like a candle-crown.

Let my fingers touch the silence

Where the infant's father cries.

Give me entrance to the village

From my childhood where the doorways

Open pictures in the skies.

But when all the doors are open,

No one sees that I've returned.

When I cry to be admitted,

No one answers, no one comes.

Clinging to my fingers only

Pain, like glitter bits adhering,

When I touch the shining crumbs.

Gjertrud Schnackenberg, "Advent Calendar" from Supernatural Love: Poems 1976-1992. 

Copyright © 2000 by Gjertrud Schnackenberg.

A Small Story    
When Mrs. McCausland comes to mind
she slips through a small gap in oblivion
and walks down her front steps, in her hand
a small red velvet pillow she tucks
under the head of Old Jim Schreiber,
who is lying dead-drunk against the curb
of busy Market Street. Then she turns,
labors up the steps and is gone . . .
A small story. Or rather, the memory
of a story I heard as a boy. The witnesses
are not to be found, the steps lead nowhere,
the pillow has collapsed into a thread of dust . . .
Do the dead come back only to remind us
they, too, were once among the living,
and that the story we make of our lives
is a mystery of luminous, but uncertain moments,
a shuffle of images we carry toward sleep—
Mrs. McCausland with her velvet pillow,
Old Jim at peace—a story, like a small
clearing in the woods at night, seen
from the windows of a passing train. 

by Peter Everwine
 

Leave Me Hidden

I was having trouble deciding which to watch: Night of the Living Bloggers, or Attack of the Neck-Brace People. In the end I just went for a walk.  In the woods I stopped wondering why of all trees this one: my hand pressed to fissures and ridges of  bark’s hugely magnified fingerprint, forehead resting against it finally, feeling distinctly  a heartbeat, vast, silently booming there deep in my hidden leaves, blessed motherworld, personal underworld, thank you  thank you.  by Franz Wright.  Excerpted from F.  Copyright © 2013 by Franz Wright.   Alfred A. Knopf, a division of  Penguin Random House.

CANDLES            by Constantine Cavafy, translated by David Coomler at
https://hokku.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/the-days-dwindle-down-cavafys-candles/

The days to come stand before us
Like a row of lighted candles --
Golden, warm, and lively.

The days gone by remain behind,
A sad line of extinguished candles,
The nearest still smoking;
Cold candles, melted and bent.

I don't want to look at them; their form saddens me,
And it saddens me to remember their first light.
I look ahead to my lit candles.

I don't want to turn back, to see and tremble:
How fast the dark line grows --
How fast the extinguished candles multiply.

The Mystery, from Lyrics of Lowly Life, by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, 1896

I was not; now I am—a few days hence I shall not be; I fain would look before And after, but can neither do; some Power Or lack of power says “no” to all I would. I stand upon a wide and sunless plain, Nor chart nor steel to guide my steps aright. Whene’er, o’ercoming fear, I dare to move, I grope without direction and by chance. Some feign to hear a voice and feel a hand That draws them ever upward thro’ the gloom. But I—I hear no voice and touch no hand, Tho’ oft thro’ silence infinite I list, And strain my hearing to supernal sounds; Tho’ oft thro’ fateful darkness do I reach, And stretch my hand to find that other hand. I question of th’ eternal bending skies That seem to neighbor with the novice earth; But they roll on, and daily shut their eyes On me, as I one day shall do on them, And tell me not the secret that I ask.

Praising Manners
 

We should ask God
To help us toward manners. Inner gifts
Do not find their way
To creatures without just respect.
If a man or woman flails about, he not only
Smashes his house,
He burns the whole world down.
Your depression is connected to your insolence
And your refusal to praise. If a man or woman is
On the path, and refuses to praise — that man or woman
Steals from others every day — in fact is a shoplifter!
The sun became full of light when it got hold of itself.
Angels began shining when they achieved discipline.
The sun goes out whenever the cloud of not-praising comes near.
The moment that foolish angel felt insolent, he heard the door close.

"Praising Manners" by Robert Bly from The Winged Energy of Delight. 
© Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

A Reward             by Denise Levertov

Tired and hungry, late in the day, impelled
to leave the house and search for what
might lift me back to what I had fallen away from,
I stood by the shore waiting.
I had walked in the silent woods:
the trees withdrew into their secrets.
Dusk was smoothing breadths of silk
over the lake, watery amethyst fading to gray.
Ducks were clustered in sleeping companies
afloat on their element as I was not
on mine. I turned homeward, unsatisfied.
But after a few steps, I paused, impelled again
to linger, to look North before nightfall-the expanse
of calm, of calming water, last wafts
of rose in the few high clouds.
And was rewarded:
the heron, unseen for weeks, came flying
widewinged toward me, settled
just offshore on his post,
took up his vigil.
                               If you ask
why this cleared a fog from my spirit,
I have no answer.

"A Reward" by Denise Levertov from Evening Train. © New Directions, 1992.

Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear
one more friend
waking with a tumor, one more maniac

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness
has come
and changed nothing in the world

except the way I stumbled through it,
for a while lost
in the ignorance of loving

someone or something, the world shrunk
to mouth-size,
hand-size, and never seeming small.

I acknowledge there is no sweetness
that doesn’t leave a stain,
no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet.

Tonight a friend called to say his lover
was killed in a car
he was driving. His voice was low

and guttural, he repeated what he needed
to repeat, and I repeated
the one or two words we have for such grief

until we were speaking only in tones.
Often a sweetness comes
as if on loan, stays just long enough

to make sense of what it means to be alive,
then returns to its dark
source. As for me, I don’t care

where it’s been, or what bitter road
it’s traveled
to come so far, to taste so good.

"Sweetness" by Stephen Dunn from New and Selected Poems. © Norton, 1994.

It’s said they planted trees by graves
to soak up spirits of the dead
through roots into the growing wood.
The favorite in the burial yards
I knew was common juniper.
One could do worse than pass into
such a species. I like to think
that when I’m gone the chemicals
and yes the spirit that was me
might be searched out by subtle roots
and raised with sap through capillaries
into an upright, fragrant trunk,
and aromatic twigs and bark,
through needles bright as hoarfrost to
the sunlight for a century
or more, in wood repelling rot
and standing tall with monuments
and statues there on the far hill,
erect as truth, a testimony,
in ground that’s dignified by loss,
around a melancholy tree
that’s pointing toward infinity.

"Living Tree" by Robert Morgan from Dark Energy. © Penguin, 2014.

Fingerless Mitts pattern

 

Fingerless Mitts On Bond USM      

Gauge = 4 - 4.5 sts         KP - 2.5 or 3   Worsted-weight yarn                     

For light worsteds use the larger sizes.  Regular worsteds work with the four sizes given

for child (teen/small adult, medium adult, large adult).

If you want a longer cuff, remember to adjust row count.


1) E-wrap cast on 29 (32,  35,  38) sts, leaving a 12" tail for sewing.         RC = 0

2) K 16 (20,  20,  24) rows.              RC = 16 (20,  20,  24) rows

3) Release every third stitch and relatch to form ribbing.

4) K 4 rows, inc 1 st  each end of 4th row.   #sts = 31 (34, 37, 40)    RC  =  20  (24,  24,  28)

5) Repeat step 4.                                 #sts =  33 (36, 39, 42)               RC  =  24 (28, 28, 32)

6) Repeat step 4 again.                     #sts  =  35 (38, 41, 44)              RC  =  28 (32, 32, 36)

7) K 5 rows.                                                                  RC  =  33 (37, 37, 41)

8) K 2 rows, binding off 6 sts beg of each row.    #sts = 23 (26, 29, 32)   RC = 35 (39, 39, 43)

    
9) K to  RC 47 (49, 49, 51) for fingerless mitts.   

10) Optional:  Release every third stitch and relatch 4 (or 5) rows to form ribbing.

11) Bind off all stitches leaving a tail for sewing.                 

12) Using the yarn tails, sew the side seam, leaving thumb hole open.


With thanks to Kangamoo Knits for the original pattern.


revised 3-4-15

Wonder and Joy         by Robinson Jeffers

The things that one grows tired of—O, be sure
They are only foolish artificial things!
Can a bird ever tire of having wings?
And I, so long as life and sense endure,
(Or brief be they!) shall nevermore inure
My heart to the recurrence of the springs,
Of gray dawns, the gracious evenings,
The infinite wheeling stars. A wonder pure
Must ever well within me to behold
Venus decline; or great Orion, whose belt
Is studded with three nails of burning gold,
Ascend the winter heaven. Who never felt
This wondering joy may yet be good or great:
But envy him not: he is not fortunate.

 Prairie Dawn by Willa Cather

A crimson fire that vanquishes the stars;
A pungent odor from the dusty sage;
A sudden stirring of the huddled herds;
A breaking of the distant table-lands
Through purple mists ascending, and the flare
Of water ditches silver in the light;
A swift, bright lance hurled low across the world;
A sudden sickness for the hills of home.

Willa Cather, public domain, as seen in Poem-a-Day, 

by the Academy of American Poets, September 6, 2014 

The Summer Ends by Wendell Berry

The summer ends, and it is time
To face another way. Our theme
Reversed, we harvest the last row
To store against the cold, undo
The garden that will be undone.
We grieve under the weakened sun
To see all earth's green fountains dried,
And fallen all the works of light.
You do not speak, and I regret
This downfall of the good we sought
As though the fault were mine. I bring
The plow to turn the shattering
Leaves and bent stems into the dark,
From which they may return. At work,
I see you leaving our bright land,
The last cut flowers in your hand. 

"The Summer Ends" by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir. © Counterpoint Press, 1999, in the Writer's Almanac on September 2, 2014,  read by Garrison Keillor

Solitude, by Alexander Pope

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
              In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
              In winter, fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind;
              Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
              With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
              Tell where I lie.

"Solitude" by Alexander Pope. Public Domain.

Extraordinary idealism, how sweet the sound, but....