Month: December 2015

“Poplar Street” by Chen Chen

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry1 Comment

Oh. Sorry. Hello. Are you on your way to work, too?
I was just taken aback by how you also have a briefcase,

also small & brown. I was taken by how you seem, secretly,
to love everything. Are you my new coworker? Oh. I see. No.

Still, good to meet you. I’m trying out this thing where it’s good
to meet people. Maybe, beyond briefcases, we have some things

in common. I like jelly beans. I’m afraid of death. I’m afraid
of farting, even around people I love. Do you think your mother

loves you when you fart? Does your mother love you
all the time? Have you ever doubted?

I like that the street we’re on is named after a tree,
when there are none, poplar or otherwise. I wonder if a tree

has ever been named after a street, whether that worked out.
If I were a street, I hope I’d get a good name, not Main

or One-Way. One night I ran out of an apartment,
down North Pleasant Street — it was soft & neighborly

with pines & oaks, it felt too hopeful,
after what happened. After my mother’s love

became doubtful. After I told her I liked a boy & she wished
I had never been born. After she said she was afraid

of me, terrified I might infect my brothers
with my abnormality. Sometimes, parents & children

become the most common strangers. Eventually,
a street appears where they can meet again.

Or not. I’ve doubted my own love for my mother. I doubt.
Do I have to forgive in order to love? Or do I have to love

for forgiveness to even be possible? What do you think?
I’m trying out this thing where questions about love & forgiveness

are a form of work I’d rather not do alone. I’m trying to say,
Let’s put our briefcases on our heads, in the sudden rain,

& continue meeting as if we’ve just been given our names.

 

Chen Chen, via Poetry (June 2015).

“Lines for Winter” by Mark Strand

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for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

Mark Strand, “Lines for Winter” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1979 by Mark Strand.

“The Gentle Gardener” by Edgar A. Guest

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I’d like to leave but daffodills to mark my little
way,
To leave but tulips red and white behind me as
I stray;
I’d like to pass away from earth and feel I’d
left behind
But roses and forget-me-nots for all who come
to find.
I’d like to sow the barren spots with all the
flowers of earth,
To leave a path where those who come should
find but gentle mirth;
And when at last I’m called upon to join the
heavenly throng
I’d like to feel along my way I’d left no sign
of wrong.

And yet the cares are many and the hours of
toil are few;
There is not time enough on earth for all I’d
like to do;
But, having lived and having toiled, I’d like the
world to find
Some little touch of beauty that my soul had
left behind.

Edgar A. Guest

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies… (Bradbury)

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“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Gone to the Unseen” by Rumi

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At last you have departed and gone to the Unseen.
What marvelous route did you take from this world?

Beating your wings and feathers,
you broke free from this cage.
Rising up to the sky
you attained the world of the soul.
You were a prized falcon trapped by an Old Woman.
Then you heard the drummer’s call
and flew beyond space and time.

As a lovesick nightingale, you flew among the owls.
Then came the scent of the rose garden
and you flew off to meet the Rose.

The wine of this fleeting world
caused your head to ache.
Finally you joined the tavern of Eternity.
Like an arrow, you sped from the bow
and went straight for the bull’s eye of bliss.

This phantom world gave you false signs
But you turned from the illusion
and journeyed to the land of truth.

You are now the Sun–
what need have you for a crown?
You have vanished from this world–
what need have you to tie your robe?

I’ve heard that you can barely see your soul.
But why look at all?–
yours is now the Soul of Souls!

O heart, what a wonderful bird you are.
Seeking divine heights,
Flapping your wings,
you smashed the pointed spears of your enemy.

The flowers flee from Autumn, but not you–
You are the fearless rose
that grows amidst the freezing wind.

Pouring down like the rain of heaven
you fell upon the rooftop of this world.
Then you ran in every direction
and escaped through the drain spout…

Now the words are over
and the pain they bring is gone.
Now you have gone to rest
in the arms of the Beloved.

 

The Essential Rumi, by Jalal al-Din Rumi (Author), Coleman Barks (Translator), John Moyne (Translator)