"I am offering this poem to you, since I have nothing else to give." ~Jimmy Santiago Baca
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
We take one step at a time when we leave
a love, a job, a belief
after spending days, perhaps months, years
dismissing doubts
their presence, ripples in the air
that can be as soft as moths
wings we pretend are only
the ordinary in and out of our breath
clouds against windows
clear, and one day we see our world differently
feel our hands press against that glass
the cold of it flinging us back
one last time
into the heart of a home we have known
where each piece in its usual place
seems rearranged
as if we are already gone
– Sandy Shreve, “Leaving,” from Belonging (Sono Nis Press, 1997)
Stay, I said
to the cut flowers.
They bowed
their heads lower.
Stay, I said to the spider,
who fled.
Stay, leaf.
It reddened,
embarrassed for me and itself.
Stay, I said to my body.
It sat as a dog does,
obedient for a moment,
soon starting to tremble.
Stay, to the earth
of riverine valley meadows,
of fossiled escarpments,
of limestone and sandstone.
It looked back
with a changing expression, in silence.
Stay, I said to my loves.
Each answered,
Always.
Poem copyright ©2011 by Jane Hirshfield, from Come, Thief, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
Ms. Hirshfield has another poem titled “Stay” from her book After: Poems. We shared it here in June 2014.
I’m gonna take myself a piece of sunshine
and paint it all over my sky.
Be no rain. Be no rain.
I’m gonna take the song from every bird
and make them sing it just for me.
Be no rain.
And I think I’ll call it morning from now on.
Why should I survive on sadness
convince myself I’ve got to be alone?
Why should I subscribe to this world’s madness
knowing that I’ve got to live on?
I think I’ll call it morning from now on.
I’m gonna take myself a piece of sunshine
and paint it all over my sky.
Be no rain. Be no rain.
I’m gonna take the song from every bird
and make them sing it just for me.
Why should I hang my head?
Why should I let tears fall from my eyes
when I’ve seen everything that there is to see
and I know that there ain’t no sense in crying!
I know that there ain’t no sense in crying!
I think I’ll call it morning from now on.
Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution Begins: The Flying Dutchman Masters
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
– Jeffrey McDaniel, “The Quiet World” from The Forgiveness Parade. Copyright © 1998 by Jeffrey McDaniel
Words ... for the Time Being 