Author: Christina's Words

“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford

“Adios” by Naomi Shihab Nye

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry5 Comments

It is a good word, rolling off the tongue
no matter what language you were born with,
Use it. Learn where it begins,
the small alphabet of departure,
how long it takes to think of it,
then say, then be heard.

Marry it. More than any golden ring,
it shines, it shines.
Wear it on every finger
till your hands dance,
touching everything easily,
letting everything, easily, go.

Strap it to your back like wings.
Or a kite-tail. The stream of air behind a jet.
If you are known for anything,
let it be the way you rise out of sight
when your work is finished.

Think of things that linger: leaves,
cartons and napkins, the damp smell of mold.

Think of things that disappear.

Think of what you love best,
what brings tears into your eyes.

Something that said adios to you
before you knew what it meant
or how long it was for.

Explain little, the word explains itself.
Later perhaps. Lessons following lessons,
like silence following sound.

“Adios” by Naomi Shihab Nye. From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995).

“Lives of the Poets” by Kim Addonizio

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

One stood among the violets
listening to a bird. One went to the toilet
and was struck by the moon. One felt hopeless
until a trumpet crash, and then lo,
he became a diamond. I have a shovel.
Can I turn it into a poem? On my stove
I’m boiling some milk thistle.
I hope it will turn into a winged thesis
before you stop reading. Look, I’m topless!
Listen: approaching hooves!
One drowned in a swimming pool.
One removed his shoes
and yearned off a bridge. One lives
with Alzheimer’s in a state facility, spittle
in his white beard. It
turns out words are no help.
But here I am with my shovel
digging like a fool
beside the spilth and splosh
of the ungirdled sea. I can’t stop.
The horses are coming, the thieves.
I still haven’t found lasting love.
I still want to hear viols
in the little beach hotel
that’s torn down and gone.
I want to see again the fish
schooling and glittering like a veil
where the waves shove
against the breakwater. Gone
is the girl in her white slip
testing the chill with one bare foot.
It’s too cold, but she goes in, so
carefully, oh.

 

“Lives of the Poets” by Kim Addonizio. From Poetry (April 2014).

“Just Delicate Needles—” by Rolf Jacobsen

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry1 Comment

It’s so delicate, the light.
And there’s so little of it. The dark
is huge.
Just delicate needles, the light,
in an endless night.
And it has such a long way to go
through such desolate space.

So let’s be gentle with it.
Cherish it.
So it will come again in the morning.
We hope.

“Just Delicate Needles—” by Rolf Jacobsen. From The Roads Have Come to an End Now: Selected and Last Poems of Rolf Jacobsen, translated by Robert Bly, Roger Greenwald and Robert Hedin (Copper Canyon Press, 2001).

“What The Dead Don’t Need” by Faith Shearin

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry13 Comments

No need for shoes, of course, or closets full of empty
dresses. No need for the shade of trees or the approval
of parents and friends. They don’t care about the objects
of this world: a new computer, a house overlooking
the sea. The place they occupy may or may not contain
a window to all they’ve left behind. We, the living, think
of them without knowing who or what they have become.
Ghosts? Dust? Butterflies? Wind? Other mysteries —
puberty, sex, childbirth — are the business of life, and
anyone can tell their story. On the matter of death: only
a closed box and the silence of earth or ashes. When my
daughter was small, my disappearance behind a blanket
or curtain seemed permanent. How could I exist if
I was not visible? When I returned, she was grateful:
laughter and kisses, her hand on the roots of my hair.

“What The Dead Don’t Need” by Faith Shearin, published in The Sun magazine, March 2008.

“They’re Taking Chocolate Milk Off the Menu” by Kim Dower

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

and that’s only the beginning.
I hear other junk food is at risk:
brownies, pastries, name it,
they’re removing it, the only chance
fifth graders have at happiness.
The only thing I looked forward to
was chocolate milk, especially after
getting yelled at by Miss Paniotoo.
I once poured a carton over her “in”
box, watched the ink bleed down
the equation-filled pages, blurring
the names of my classmates,
never told anyone, not even Donna Nagy,
and now they’re taking it off the menu.
What will our kids be forced to do?
Will they devour each other?
Eat one another’s faces, run across
the handball court sword fighting
with dry straws, wasted with desire?
Word just in they’re even removing
strawberry milk. We never had that.
I’m sure it didn’t smell like the chocolate:
a little sour like yesterday’s dessert.
We had to drink it before it turned,
when it was still cold enough
that even our mittens couldn’t protect us.

“They’re Taking Chocolate Milk Off the Menu,” by Kim Dower, from Slice of Moon. © Red Hen Press, 2013.