I confess

I stalked her
in the grocery store: her crown
of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip,
her erect bearing, radiating tenderness,
the way she placed yogurt and avocados in her basket,
beaming peace like the North Star.
I wanted to ask, "What aisle did you find
your serenity in, do you know
how to be married for fifty years, or how to live alone,
excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to posessess
some knowledge that makes the earth burn and turn on its axis-"
But we don't request such things from strangers
nowadays. So I said, "I love your hair."

-- Alison Luterman

What Gorgeous Thing

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

--Mary Oliver

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you down like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

--Ellen Bass

No beyond

There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.

-- Iris Murdoch

Comes the Dawn

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today,
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.
And you learn and learn…
With every goodbye you learn.

--Veronica Shoffstall

reverence

In order to become attentive to beauty, we need to rediscover the art of reverence. Our world seems to have lost all sense of reverence. We seldom even use the word any more. The notion of reverence is full of riches that we now need desperately. Put simply, it is appropriate that a human being should dwell on this earth with reverence.

-– John O’Donohue

waves

When the waves close over me, I dive down to fish for pearls.

--Masha Kaleko

Who is "me"?

"Here is a story to believe. Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we're frightened the hair in our skins stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we've ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. I'm made up of the memories of my parents and grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So who is "me"?"

--Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Boredom

"Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no rest, just endless, endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you. Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call boredom. That is the rarest talent in the universe. You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!...

You humans are so good at ignoring things. You are almost blind, almost deaf. You look at a tree and see just a tree, a stiff weed. You don't see its history, feel the pumping of the sap, hear every insect in the bark, sense the chemistry of the leaves, notice the hundred shades of green, the tiny movements to follow the sun, the subtle growth of the wood..."

--Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Mother's body

Perhaps when Mother made me⠀⁠
⠀⁠
She kept me short⠀⁠
and heavy⠀⁠
⠀⁠
so I would stay closer to the ground⠀⁠
be closer to the Earth⠀⁠
stay closer to Her⠀⁠
⠀⁠
So She could keep Her eye on me⠀⁠
like a mother watches over children playing nearby⠀⁠
⠀⁠
So the vibration of my moving feet on the soil could bring Her joy – like the joy I felt as my baby kicked in my womb.⠀⁠
⠀⁠
So She could wrap me in Her love, as I sink into the softness of Her mossy hair, in the muddy thickness of Her thighs, in the warm wet sand of Her arms.⠀⁠
⠀⁠
The more mass a thing has, the more gravitational pull it has.⠀⁠
⠀⁠
Perhaps She gave me size because She knew my work would ⠀⁠
be heavy⠀⁠
need roots⠀⁠
require grounding⠀⁠
⠀⁠
knew I would hold⠀⁠
motherhood, womanhood⠀⁠
community⠀⁠
healing⠀⁠
growth⠀⁠
love⠀⁠
like orbiting planets⠀⁠
⠀⁠
Perhaps every pound, every inch was intentional.⠀⁠
⠀⁠⠀⁠
Perhaps my body is exactly as Hers is:⁠⠀⁠
like Mother's.⁠⠀⁠
⠀⁠

--Kendra Coupland

One Version of Events

If indeed we were allowed to choose,
we must have been mulling things over for a long time.

The bodies offered us were uncomfortable
and wore out dreadfully.

The means of satisfying hunger
sickened us.
The passive inheritance of traits
and the tyranny of organs
put us off.

A world that was meant to surround us,
was in endless decay.
The effects of causes wreaked heavy havoc on it.

Of all those fates
given to us for inspection
most we rejected
in sorrow and horror.

Questions arose such as these:
what use is there in the painful delivery
of a dead child?
And why be a sailor
who never reaches port?

We agreed to death
but not in every form.
Love attracted us,
sure, but a love
that kept its word.

The fickleness of judgments
and impermanence of masterpieces
scared us off
from the service of art.

Everyone wanted a homeland without neighbors
and to live their entire lives
in the interval between wars.

None of us wanted to seize power
or be subject to it,
none of us wanted to fall victim
to our own delusions or anyone else’s.
There were no volunteers
for tight crowds, parades,
and even less so for vanishing tribes;
but without them, history
never would have been able to march on
through centuries foreseen.

Meanwhile a goodly number
of lighted stars
had gone out and grown cold.
It was high time for a decision.

After many reservations
there finally appeared a few candidates
for discoverers and healers,
for philosophers without acclaim,
for several anonymous gardeners,
musicians, and conjurers

—though for want of other submissions
even these lives
couldn’t be fulfilled.

The whole thing
had to be rethought yet again.

We were offered
a package tour,
a journey from which we’d return
fast and for certain.

A chance to remain outside eternity,
which is, after all, monotonous
and ignorant of the concept of passing,
might never have come again.

We were riddled with doubt
whether, knowing it all beforehand,
we indeed knew it all.

Is such a premature choice
any choice at all?
Wouldn’t it be better
to let it pass?
And if we are to choose,
to make the choice there?

We took a look at Earth.
Some adventurers were living there already.
A feeble plant
was clinging to a rock
with reckless trust
that the wind would not uproot it.

A smallish animal
was crawling out of its nook
with an effort and a hope that surprised us.

We found ourselves too cautious,
small-minded, and ridiculous.

Anyway, soon our numbers began to fade.
The least patient ones went off somewhere.
Theirs was a trial by fire
—that much was clear.
Indeed, they were lighting one
on the steep bank of a real river.

Several
were already heading back.
But not our way.
And as if they were carrying the spoils? Of what?

By Wislawa Szymborska, Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

Mercy

She asked me to kill the spider
Instead, I got the most
peaceful weapons I can find

I take a cup and a napkin.
I catch the spider, put it outside
and allow it to walk away

If I am ever caught in the wrong place
at the wrong place, just being alive
and not bothering anyone,

I hope I am greeted
with the same kind
of mercy.

- Rudy Francisco

For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day 
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

--W. S. Merwin

Today

Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word
I’m letting all the demons of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.

--Mary Oliver

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
This one time upon the earth,
let's not speak any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.
The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.
What I want shouldn't be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.
If we weren't unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,
if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.
Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I'll go.

--Pablo Neruda

Poem Of The One World

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful, myself.

-- Mary Oliver

A Thank-You Note

I owe a lot
to those I do not love.

Relief in accepting
others care for them more.

Joy that I am not
wolf to their sheep.

Peace be with them
for with them I am free
––love neither gives
nor knows how to take these things.

I don't wait for them
from window to door.
Almost as patient
as a sun dial,
I understand
what love never could.
I forgive
what love never would.

Between rendezvous and letter
no eternity passes,
only a few days or weeks.

Our trips always turn out well:
concerts are enjoyed,
cathedrals toured,
landscapes in focus.

And when seven rivers and mountains
come between us,
they are the rivers and mountains
found on any map.

The credit's theirs
if I live in three dimensions,
in a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space,
with a real, ever-shifting horizon.

They don't even know
how much they carry in their empty hands.

"I owe them nothing,"
love would have said
on this open topic.

-- Wislawa Szymborska
Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you , see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.

In beauty.

--Joy Harjo

And

When summer comes
the cicadas
sing again.
Fireworks
freeze
in my memory.
Distant countries are dim
but the universe
is right in front of your nose.
What a blessing
that people
can die
leaving behind
only the conjunction
"and".

-- Shuntarō Tanikawa
Translated from the Japanese by William I Elliott and Kazuo Kawamure

For The Traveler

Every time you leave home,
another road takes you
into a world you were never in.
New strangers on other paths await.
new places that have never seen you
will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that you know well
will pretend nothing
changed since your last visit.
When you travel, you find yourself
alone in a different way,
more attentive now
to the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
you abroad; and how what meets you
touches that part of the heart
that lies low at home:
How you unexpectedly attune
to the timbre in some voice,
opening a conversation
you want to take in
to where your longing
has pressed hard enough
inward, on some unsaid dark,
to create a crystal of insight
you could not have known
you needed
to illuminate
your way.
When you travel,
a new silence
goes with you,
and if you listen,
you will hear
what your heart would
love to say.
A journey can become a sacred thing:
make sure, before you go,
to take the time
to bless your going forth,
to free your heart of ballast
so that the compass of your soul
might direct you toward
the territories of spirit
where you will discover
more of your hidden life,
and the urgencies
that deserve to claim you.
May you travel
in an awakened way,
gathered wisely
into your inner ground;
that you may not waste
the invitations which
wait along the way
to transform you.
May you travel safely,
arrive refreshed,
and live your time away
to its fullest;
return home more enriched,
and free to balance
the gift of days
which call you.

--John O'Donohue

Exercise

First forget what time it is
for an hour
do it regularly every day

then forget what day of the week it is
do this regularly for a week
then forget what country you are in
and practice doing it in company
for a week
then do them together
for a week
with a few breaks as possible

follow these by forgetting how to add
or to subtract
it makes no difference
you can change them around
after a week
both will help you later
to forget how to count

forget how to count
starting with your own age
starting with how to count backward
starting with even numbers
starting with Roman numerals
starting with fractions of Roman numerals
starting with the old calendar
going on to the old alphabet
going on to the alphabet
until everything is continuous again

go on to forgetting elements
starting with water
proceeding to earth
rising in fire 


forget fire

-- W. S. Merwin

Mindful

Every day
 I see or I hear
  something
   that more or less

kills me
 with delight
  that leaves me
   like a needle.

in the hay stack
 of light.
  It is what I was born for—
   to look, to listen,

to lose myself
 inside this soft world—
  to instruct myself
   over and over

in joy
 and acclamation.
  Nor am I talking
   about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful
 the very extravagant—
  but of the ordinary,
   the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
 Oh, good scholar,
  I say to myself,
   how can you help

but grow wise
 with such teachings
  as these—
   the untrimmable light

 of the world,
  the ocean’s shine,
   the prayers that are made
    out of grass?

--Mary Oliver

It Happens To Those Who Live Alone

It happens to those
who live alone
that they feel sure
of visitors
when no one else
is there,

until the one day
and one particular
hour
working in the
quiet garden,

when they realize
at once, that all along
they have been
an invitation
to everything
and every kind of trouble

and that life
happens by
to those who inhabit
silence

like the bees
visiting
the tall mallow
on their legs of gold,
or the wasps
going from door to door
in the tall forest
of the daisies.

I have my freedom
today
because
nothing really happened

and nobody came
to see me.
Only the slow
growing of the garden
in the summer heat

and the silence of that
unborn life
making itself
known at my desk,

my hands
still
dark with the
crumbling soil
as I write
and watch

the first lines
of a new poem,
like flowers
of scarlet fire,
coming to fullness
in a new light.

-- David Whyte

The Turn of the Century

It was supposed to be better than the rest, our twentieth century,
But it won't have time to prove it.
Its years are numbered,
its step unsteady,
its breath short.

Already too much has happened
that was not supposed to happen.
What was to come
has yet to come.

Spring was to be on its way,
and happiness, among other things.

Fear was to leave the mountains and valleys.
The truth was supposed to finish before the lie.

Certain misfortunes
were never to happen again
such as war and hunger and so forth.

The defenselessness of the defenseless,
was going to be respected.
Same for trust and the like.

Whoever wanted to enjoy the world
faces an impossible task.

Stupidity is not funny.
Wisdom is not cheerful.

Hope
is no longer the same young girl
et cetera. Alas.

God was at last to believe in man:
good and strong,
But good and strong
are still two different people.

How to live--someone asked me in a letter,
someone I had wanted
to ask the very same thing.

Again and as always,
and as seen above
there are no questions more urgent
than the naive ones.

-- Wislawa Szyborska
Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak

Nothing

I ask a student how I can help her. Nothing is on her paper.
It’s been that way for thirty-five minutes. She has a headache.
She asks to leave early. Maybe I asked the wrong question.
I’ve always been dumb with questions. When I hurt,
I too have a hard time accepting advice or gentleness.
I owe for an education that hurt, and collectors call my mama’s house.
I do nothing about my unpaid bills as if that will help.
I do nothing about the mold on my ceiling, and it spreads.
I do nothing about the cat’s litter box, and she pisses on my new bath mat.
Nothing isn’t an absence. Silence isn’t nothing. I told a woman I loved her,
and she never talked to me again. I told my mama a man hurt me,
and her hard silence told me to keep my story to myself.
Nothing is full of something, a mass that grows where you cut at it.
I’ve lost three aunts when white doctors told them the thing they felt
was nothing. My aunt said nothing when it clawed at her breathing.
I sat in a room while it killed her. I am afraid when nothing keeps me
in bed for days. I imagine what my beautiful aunts are becoming
underground, and I cry for them in my sleep where no one can see.
Nothing is in my bedroom, but I smell my aunt’s perfume
and wake to my name called from nowhere. I never looked
into a sky and said it was empty. Maybe that’s why I imagine a god
up there to fill what seems unimaginable. Some days, I want to live
inside the words more than my own black body.
When the white man shoves me so that he can get on the bus first,
when he says I am nothing but fits it inside a word, and no one stops him,
I wear a bruise in the morning where he touched me before I was born.
My mama’s shame spreads inside me. I’ve heard her say
there was nothing in a grocery store she could afford. I’ve heard her tell
the landlord she had nothing to her name. There was nothing I could do
for the young black woman that disappeared on her way to campus.
They found her purse and her phone, but nothing led them to her.
Nobody was there to hold Renisha McBride’s hand
when she was scared of dying. I worry poems are nothing against it.
My mama said that if I became a poet or a teacher, I’d make nothing, but
I’ve thrown words like rocks and hit something in a room when I aimed
for a window. One student says when he writes, it feels
like nothing can stop him, and his laugher unlocks a door. He invites me
into his living.

Copyright © 2020 by Krysten Hill.

About the poem:

“Just as poems are spaces for discovery, for me, poems have also been spaces to document what I am unlearning. I thought a lot about poet and activist Audre Lorde when I was writing this. This poem addresses that there are whole histories and complicated truths in the things that I swallow daily for the comfort of others. Silence is its own kind of hell. Inaction can be its own harmful protection. As a black woman, there are ways I’ve been taught, directly or indirectly, to mask my feelings into a response like ‘It’s nothing’ when, in fact, everything is wrong. Something is very much on fire. When truths come to surface, they are their own kind of ugly-beautiful. They are not ‘nothing.’ There is something very much living inside of them. They are necessary.”

​​​​​​​—Krysten Hill

About the poet:

Krysten Hill is the author of How Her Spirit Got Out (Aforementioned Productions, 2016), which received the 2017 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. The recipient of the 2016 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award and 2020 Mass Cultural Council Poetry Fellowship, she received her MFA in poetry from University of Massachusetts Boston, where she currently teaches.

Thanks

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

--W.S. Merwin, from Migration: New and Selected Poems.