All by Jorie Graham

All

 

After the rain stops you can hear the rained-on.

You hear oscillation, outflowing, slips.

The tipping-down of the branches, the down, the

exact weight of those drops that fell

 

over the days and nights, their strength, accumulation,

shafting down through the resistant skins,

nothing perfect but then also the exact remain

of sun, the sum

 

of the last not-yet-absorbed, not-yet-evaporated

days. After the rain stops you hear the

washed world, the as-if inquisitive garden, the as-if-perfect beginning again

of the buds forced open, forced open – you

 

cannot not unfurl

endlessly, entirely, till it is the yes of blossom, that end

not end – what does that sound sound like

deep in its own time where it roots us out

 

completed, till it is done. But it is not done.

Here is still strengthening. Even if only where light

shifts to accord the strange complexity which is beauty.

Each tip in the light end-outreaching as if anxious

 

but not. The rain stopped. The perfect is not beauty.

Is not a finished thing. Is a making

of itself into more of itself, oozing and pressed

full force out of the not-having-been

 

into this momentary being – cold, more

sharp, till the beam passes as the rain passed,

tipping into the sound of ending which does not end,

and giving us that sound. We hear it.

 

We hear it, hands

useless, eyes heavy with knowing we do not

understand it, we hear it, keep in its own

consuming, compelling, a dry delight, a just-going-on sound not

 

desire, neither lifeless nor deathless, the elixir of

change, without form, we hear you in our world, you not

of our world, though we can peer at (though not into)

flies, gnats, robin, twitter of what dark consolation –

 

though it could be light, this insistence this morning

unmonitored by praise, amazement, nothing to touch

where the blinding white thins as the flash moves off

what had been just the wide-flung yellow poppy,

 

the fine day-opened eye of hair at its core,

complex, wrinkling and just, and then the blazing ends, sloughed off as if a

god-garment the head and body

of the ancient flower had put on for a while –

 

we have to consider the while it seems

to say or I seem to say or

something else seems to we are not

nothing. 

 

Orpheus and Eurydice by Czesław Miłosz

Orpheus and Eurydice

Standing on flagstones of the sidewalk at the entrance to Hades

Orpheus hunched in a gust of wind

That tore at his coat, rolled past in waves of fog,

Tossed the leaves of the trees. The headlights of cars

Flared and dimmed in each succeeding wave.

He stopped at the glass-paneled door, uncertain

Whether he was strong enough for the ultimate trial.

He remembered her words: “You are a good man.”

He did not quite believe it. Lyric poets

Usually have – he knew it – cold hearts.

It is like a medical condition. Perfection in art

Is given in exchange for such an affliction.

Only her love warmed him, humanized him.

When e was with her, he thought differently about himself.

He could not fail her now, when she was dead.

He pushed open the door and found himself walking in a labyrinth,

Corridors, elevators. The livid light was not light but the dark of the earth.

Electronic dogs passed him noiselessly.

He descended many floors, a hundred, three hundred, down.

He was cold, aware that he was Nowhere.

Under thousands of frozen centuries,

On an ashy trace where generations had moldered,

In a kingdom that seemed to have no bottom and no end.

Thronging shadows surrounded him.

He recognized some of the faces.

He felt the rhythm of his blood.

He felt strongly his life with its guilt

And he was afraid to meet those to whom he had done harm.

But they had lost the ability to remember

And gave him only a glance, indifferent to all that.

For his defense he had a nine-stringed lyre.

He carried in it the music of the earth, against the abyss

That buries all the sounds in silence.

He submitted to the music, yielded

To the dictations of a song, listening with rapt attention,

Became, like his lyre, its instrument.

Thus he arrived at the palace of the rulers of that land.

Persephone, in her garden of withered pear and apple trees,

Black, with naked branches and verrucose twigs,

Listened from the funereal amethyst of her throne.

He sang the brightness of mornings and green rivers,

He sang of smoking water in the rose-colored daybreaks,

Of colors: cinnabar, carmine, burnt sienna, blue,

Of the delight of swimming in the sea under marble cliffs,

Of feasting on a terrace above the tumult of a fishing port,

Of the tastes of wine, olive oil, almonds, mustard, salt.

Of the flight of the swallow, the falcon,

Of a dignified flock of pelicans above a bay,

Of the scent of an armful of lilacs in summer rain,

Of his having composed his words always against death

And of having made no rhyme in praise of nothingness.

I don’t know – said the goddess – whether you loved her or not.

Yet you have come here to rescue her.

She will be returned to you. But there are conditions:

You are not permitted to speak to her, or on the journey back

To turn your head, even once, to assure yourself that she is behind you.

And so Hermes brought forth Eurydice.

Her face no longer hers, utterly gray,

Her eyelids lowered beneath the shade of her lashes.

She stepped rigidly, directed by the hand

Of her guide. Orpheus wanted so much

To call her name, to wake her from that sleep.

But he refrained, for he had accepted the conditions.

And so they set out. He first, and then, not right away,

The slap of the god’s sandals and the light patter

Of her feet fettered by her robe, as if by a shroud.

A steep climbing path phosphorized

Out of darkness like the walls of a tunnel.

He would stop and listen. But then

They stopped, too, and the echo faded.

And when he began to walk the double tapping commenced again.

Sometimes it seemed closer, sometimes more distant.

Under his faith a doubt sprang up

And entwined him like cold bindweed.

Unable to weep, he wept a the loss

Of the human hope for the resurrection of the dead,

Because he was, now, like every other mortal.

His lyre was silent, yet he dreamed, defenseless.

He knew he must have faith and he could not have faith.

And so he would persist for a very long time,

Counting his steps in a half-wakeful torpor.

Day was breaking. Shapes of rock loomed up

Under the luminous eye of the exit from underground.

It happened as he expected. He turned his head

And behind him on the path was no one.

Sun. And sky. And in the sky white clouds.

Only now everything cried to him: Eurydice!

How will I live without you, my consoling one!

But there was a fragrant scent of herbs, the low humming of bees,

And he fell asleep with his cheek on the sun-warmed earth.

(Translated by Czesław Miłosz and Robert Haas)

 

Rosa Parks by Nikki Giovanni

Rosa Parks

This is for the Pullman Porters who organized when people said

they couldn’t. And carried the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago

Defender to the Black Americans in the South so they would

know they were not alone. This is for the Pullman Porters who

helped Thurgood Marshall go south and come back north to fight

the fight that resulted in Brown v. Board of Education because

even though Kansas is west and even though Topeka is the birth-

place of Gwendolyn Brooks, who wrote the powerful “The

Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock,” it was the

Pullman Porters who whispered to the traveling men both

the Blues Men and the “Race” Men so that they both would

know what was going on. This is for the Pullman Porters who

smiled as if they were happy and laughed like they were tickled

when some folks were around and who silently rejoiced in 1954

when the Supreme Court announced its 9—0 decision that “sepa-

rate is inherently unequal.” This is for the Pullman Porters who

smiled and welcomed a fourteen-year-old boy onto their train in

1955. They noticed his slight limp that he tried to disguise with a

doo-wop walk; they noticed his stutter and probably understood

why his mother wanted him out of Chicago during the summer

when school was out. Fourteen-year-old Black boys with limps

and stutters are apt to try to prove themselves in dangerous ways

when mothers aren’t around to look after them. So this is for the

Pullman Porters who looked over that fourteen-year-old while

the train rolled the reverse of the Blues Highway from Chicago to

St. Louis to Memphis to Mississippi. This is for the men who kept

him safe; and if Emmett Till had been able to stay on a train all

summer he would have maybe grown a bit of a paunch, certainly

lost his hair, probably have worn bifocals and bounced his grand-

children on his knee telling them about his summer riding the

rails. But he had to get off the train. And ended up in Money,

Mississippi. And was horribly, brutally, inexcusably, and unac-

ceptably murdered. This is for the Pullman Porters who, when the

sheriff was trying to get the body secretly buried, got Emmett’s

body on the northbound train, got his body home to Chicago,

where his mother said: I want the world to see what they did

to my boy. And this is for all the mothers who cried. And this is

for all the people who said Never Again. And this is about Rosa

Parks whose feet were not so tired, it had been, after all, an ordi-

nary day, until the bus driver gave her the opportunity to make

history. This is about Mrs. Rosa Parks from Tuskegee, Alabama,

who was also the field secretary of the NAACP. This is about the

moment Rosa Parks shouldered her cross, put her worldly goods

aside, was willing to sacrifice her life, so that that young man in

Money, Mississippi, who had been so well protected by the

Pullman Porters, would not have died in vain. When Mrs. Parks

said “NO” a passionate movement was begun. No longer would

there be a reliance on the law; there was a higher law. When Mrs.

Parks brought that light of hers to expose the evil of the system,

the sun came and rested on her shoulders bringing the heat and

the light of truth. Others would follow Mrs. Parks. Four young

men in Greensboro, North Carolina, would also say No. Great

voices would be raised singing the praises of God and exhorting

us “to forgive those who trespass against us.” But it was the

Pullman Porters who safely got Emmett to his granduncle and it

was Mrs. Rosa Parks who could not stand that death. And in not

being able to stand it. She sat back down.

 

Boy at the Paterson Falls by Toi Derricotte

Boy at the Paterson Falls

 

I am thinking of that boy who bragged about the day he threw

     a dog over and watched it struggle to stay upright all

     the way down.

I am thinking of that rotting carcass on the rocks,

and the child with such power he could call to a helpless

     thing as if he were its friend, capture it, and think of

     the cruelest punishment.

It must have answered some need, some silent screaming in

     a closet, a motherless call when night came crashing;

it must have satisfied, for he seemed joyful, proud, as if he

     had once made a great creation out of murder.

That body on the rocks, its sharp angles, slowly took the shape of

     what was underneath, bones pounded, until it lay at the bottom

     like a scraggly rug.

Nothing remains but memory—and the suffering of those who

     would walk into the soft hands of a killer for a crumb of bread. 

 

Journey Into the Interior by Theodore Roethke

Journey Into the Interior

In the long journey out of the self,

There are many detours, washed-out interrupted raw places

Where the shale slides dangerously

And the back wheels hang almost over the edge

At the sudden veering, the moment of turning.

Better to hug close, wary of rubble and falling stones.

The arroyo cracking the road, the wind-bitten buttes, the canyons,

Creeks swollen in midsummer from the flash-flood roaring into the narrow valley.

Reeds beaten flat by wind and rain,

Grey from the long winter, burnt at the base in late summer.

-- Or the path narrowing,

Winding upward toward the stream with its sharp stones,

The upland of alder and birchtrees,

Through the swamp alive with quicksand,

The way blocked at last by a fallen fir-tree,

The thickets darkening,

The ravines ugly. 

 

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth

 

Too many needles spoil the cloth.

Too many parrots spoil the talk.

Too many chapped lips spoil the gloss.

Too many teasel burs spoil the paw.

Too many bubbles spoil the froth.

Too many doorbells spoil the knock.

Too many seeds spoil the floss.

Too many feathers spoil the claw.

Too many lightbulbs spoil the moth.

Too many holes spoil the sock.

Too many sunbeams spoil the moss.

Too many kisses spoil the jaw.

Too many wolves spoil the flock.

Too many necks spoil the block. 

 

The Moose by Elizabeth Bishop

The Moose

From narrow provinces   

of fish and bread and tea,   

home of the long tides

where the bay leaves the sea   

twice a day and takes

the herrings long rides,

where if the river

enters or retreats

in a wall of brown foam   

depends on if it meets   

the bay coming in,

the bay not at home;

where, silted red,

sometimes the sun sets   

facing a red sea,

and others, veins the flats’   

lavender, rich mud

in burning rivulets;

on red, gravelly roads,

down rows of sugar maples,   

past clapboard farmhouses   

and neat, clapboard churches,   

bleached, ridged as clamshells,   

past twin silver birches,

through late afternoon

a bus journeys west,

the windshield flashing pink,   

pink glancing off of metal,   

brushing the dented flank   

of blue, beat-up enamel;

down hollows, up rises,   

and waits, patient, while   

a lone traveller gives   

kisses and embraces

to seven relatives

and a collie supervises.

Goodbye to the elms,   

to the farm, to the dog.   

The bus starts. The light   

grows richer; the fog,   

shifting, salty, thin,

comes closing in.

Its cold, round crystals   

form and slide and settle   

in the white hens’ feathers,   

in gray glazed cabbages,   

on the cabbage roses

and lupins like apostles;

the sweet peas cling

to their wet white string   

on the whitewashed fences;   

bumblebees creep

inside the foxgloves,

and evening commences.

One stop at Bass River.   

Then the Economies—

Lower, Middle, Upper;   

Five Islands, Five Houses,

where a woman shakes a tablecloth   

out after supper.

A pale flickering. Gone.   

The Tantramar marshes   

and the smell of salt hay.   

An iron bridge trembles   

and a loose plank rattles   

but doesn’t give way.

On the left, a red light   

swims through the dark:   

a ship’s port lantern.   

Two rubber boots show,   

illuminated, solemn.   

A dog gives one bark.

A woman climbs in

with two market bags,   

brisk, freckled, elderly.   

“A grand night. Yes, sir,   

all the way to Boston.”   

She regards us amicably.

Moonlight as we enter

the New Brunswick woods,   

hairy, scratchy, splintery;   

moonlight and mist

caught in them like lamb’s wool   

on bushes in a pasture.

The passengers lie back.   

Snores. Some long sighs.   

A dreamy divagation   

begins in the night,

a gentle, auditory,

slow hallucination....

In the creakings and noises,   

an old conversation

—not concerning us,

but recognizable, somewhere,   

back in the bus:

Grandparents’ voices

uninterruptedly

talking, in Eternity:

names being mentioned,   

things cleared up finally;   

what he said, what she said,   

who got pensioned;

deaths, deaths and sicknesses;   

the year he remarried;

the year (something) happened.   

She died in childbirth.

That was the son lost

when the schooner foundered.

He took to drink. Yes.

She went to the bad.

When Amos began to pray   

even in the store and

finally the family had

to put him away.

“Yes ...” that peculiar   

affirmative. “Yes ...”

A sharp, indrawn breath,   

half groan, half acceptance,   

that means “Life’s like that.   

We know it (also death).”

Talking the way they talked   

in the old featherbed,   

peacefully, on and on,

dim lamplight in the hall,   

down in the kitchen, the dog   

tucked in her shawl.

Now, it’s all right now   

even to fall asleep

just as on all those nights.   

—Suddenly the bus driver   

stops with a jolt,

turns off his lights.

A moose has come out of

the impenetrable wood

and stands there, looms, rather,   

in the middle of the road.

It approaches; it sniffs at

the bus’s hot hood.

Towering, antlerless,   

high as a church,

homely as a house

(or, safe as houses).

A man’s voice assures us   

“Perfectly harmless....”

Some of the passengers   

exclaim in whispers,   

childishly, softly,

“Sure are big creatures.”   

“It’s awful plain.”   

“Look! It’s a she!”

Taking her time,

she looks the bus over,   

grand, otherworldly.   

Why, why do we feel   

(we all feel) this sweet   

sensation of joy?

“Curious creatures,”

says our quiet driver,   

rolling his r’s.

“Look at that, would you.”   

Then he shifts gears.

For a moment longer,

by craning backward,   

the moose can be seen

on the moonlit macadam;   

then there’s a dim

smell of moose, an acrid   

smell of gasoline.