![]() |
I notice you immediately
‘Cause you smell like reckless danger Mixed with narcissism and whisky And that’s my favorite scent. You’re a skilled trickster A magician A snake charmer And within six seconds, I’m begging you to bite me Double-dog daring your fangs to slice into my vulnerability. And so you do. I say this makes me sexy and powerful, but really— It slays me so subtly that I miss my own slow-motion death. Your venom slips deep, deep, then deeper, Making me lose my shit. I breathe you in And I lose my shit. This is not love. This is fucked up, This is fucking, But, this is not love. My dark darling, you’ve burned me to the ground again. We dive too deep, consumed with passionate pain Revealing everything Hiding everything Hurting each other is half the fun. A fierce game of Russian roulette A relentless power struggle My bleeding heart splits open— But, hurting each other is half the fun. My dark darling, you’ve burned me to the ground again. Thrilling games like these have a price: A thousand dollars per second To prostitute my tender heart To your hungry soul. Within weeks, I’m sucked dry as a desert, As your sparkling fangs scan for a new, juicy prey. I’m exhausted and empty, As you leave me behind, a shattered survivor of your recklessness. I’m done. My dark darling, I loved you because I hated myself. I’m done. But, I thank you for burning me down, Because I came back from that fiery death To fly into the fierce winds of freedom And soar. Yes, I’m learning to love myself So I can soar. Goodbye dark darling, You’re but a terrible nightmare. It’s my time now, And I plan to fucking soar! Author: Sarah Harvey |
Most Like an Arch This Marriage
By John Ciardi Most like an arch—an entrance which upholds and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace. Mass made idea, and idea held in place. A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds. Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean into a strength. Two fallings become firm. Two joined abeyances become a term naming the fact that teaches fact to mean. Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is, what’s strong and separate falters. All I do at piling stone on stone apart from you is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss I am no more than upright and unset. It is by falling in and in we make the all-bearing point, for one another’s sake, in faultless failing, raised by our own weight. |
Let Me Love You One Day At A Time
Let me love you one day at a time, and please love me that very same way. We may never learn all there is to know about love, but every day together will teach us a little more about ourselves and the special kind of happiness we can bring to each other. One of the best things you've helped me learn is that love starts with being honest, speaking straight from how we really feel. I like how we've opened doors, and windows of our lives and invited each other to come in, look around and get aquainted. The more I'm with you, the more at home I feel. Let me love you one day at a time. Why talk about "always" and say things we're not sure we mean, when we can talk about today and mean exactly what we say. Let's think of each sunrise as a fresh start, a brand new beginning... and try to fill each day with as much love as it can hold. I know you're not always going to be exactly the same person Sunday thru Saturday, January thru December, and neither am I. We both need laughing times and crying times... and time for every mood in between. The important thing is that you can be the kind of you that feels most natural and that I can be my most favorite kind of me. That's what makes us so comfortable together... it's also what keeps us from taking too much for granted. Let me love you one day at a time. Let's not wonder how long love will last but how beautiful we can make it grow. Let's give our best to each other but, let's never expect miracles of our love. There's no need to... the reality of you and me is better than all the impossible dreams and fantasies I've ever imagined. Being with you is feeling proud, blessed, grateful for each hour we share. Let me love you, not according to any how-to-book, or by someone else's set of rules... but simply for who you are and how you are with me. And please love me, not for what I might be molded into, but for what I am here and now. Don't expect me to be someone all good and all giving, someone who could never disappoint you... someone to right to be real and too perfect to be me. I'm just as human as anyone I know... and very thankful that you are too. Let's try to remember that love means keeping in touch with each other's thoughts and feelings... listening not just to words, but to the emotions behind them... seeing, not just the smiles and frowns but the hurt and pleasures that cause them. Let me love you one day at a time, starting today. Let's have the courage to try to change whatever needs changing about us, and wisdom to know what should never be changed. Believing in ourselves and in our ability to handle whatever tomorrow brings... and trusting that this love we share will continue to grow stronger as the future years unfold... One Beautiful Day At A Time. |
|
The Hunter's Song At Nightfall
~Goethe My rifle cocked, in savage calm I prowl the moorland here, Your face before me everywhere, Your vivid face, my dear. You strolled, I'm sure, a sweeter field In sweeter calm today. No thought of me, or such a thought As girls can shrug away. No thought of one who, vexed and glum, Has all the world to track. The roads go east, the roads go west, But not a road goes back. And yet to think of you...such peace Around me settles soon As if I'm puzzled how my gaze Were spellbound on the moon. :moonstars: |
Love Poems to God, II, 22
You are the future, the red sky before sunrise over the fields of time. You are the cock's crow when night is done, you are the dew and the bells of matins, maiden, stranger, mother, death. You create yourself in ever-changing shapes that rise from the stuff of our days--- unsung, unmourned, undescribed, like a forest we never knew. You are the deep innerness of all things, the last word that can never be spoken. To each of us you reveal yourself differently: to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship. --Rainier Maria Rilke |
The Tailor
Listening to the silent words, spoken yet not The tailor pauses--a tender thought playing to his lips His hands traveling--reaching skyward toward the worn patches of colored hue His fingers opening--as the dainty embellishment's, and textures flow through Behold the tapestry of loving tears, he feels it Feeling the gentle embrace, touching yet not The tailor pauses--a tender thought playing to his lips His ears drinking--reaching skyward the fabric swirls and collides against his skin His skin absorbing--as the silken strands tickle and echo Behold the tapestry of loving tears, he hears it The tailor stands within the tapestry As he pauses a tender thought plays to his lips Smiling, he gently enfolds himself The tailor knows his work is secure For the threads woven in love are unbreakable. Make tomorrow's dawn the brightest moment of today. In that--Tears of love are shed. -Lyrical (a random poet I know) |
SEA-CHANGE~
Genevieve Taggard You are no more, but sunken in a sea Sheer into dream, ten thousand leagues, you fell; And now you lie green-golden, while a bell Swings with the tide, my heart; and all is well Till I look down, and wavering, the spell- Your loveliness - returns. There in the sea, Where you lie amber-pale and coral-cool, You are most loved, most lost, most beautiful. |
We Outgrow Love Like Other Things
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) We outgrow love like other things And put it in the drawer, Till it an antique fashion shows Like costumes grandsires wore. |
You Learn
You Learn Jorge Luis Borges 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 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 good-bye you learn. |
Again and Again Rainer Maria Rilke Again and again, however we know the landscape of love and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names, and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others fall: again and again the two of us walk out together under the ancient trees, lie down again and again among the flowers, face to face with the sky. |
Impressions➖ X
E.E. Cummings I will wade out till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers I will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air Alive with closed eyes to dash against darkness in the sleeping curves of my body Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery with chasteness of sea-girls Will I complete the mystery of my flesh I will rise After a thousand years lipping flowers And set my teeth in the silver of the moon. |
MAN AND SEA~🐋~
Charles Baudelaire Man, a free man, always loves the sea and in its endlessly unrolling surge will contemplate his soul as in a glass where gulfs as bitter gape within his mind. Into this image of himself he dives, his arms and eyes wide open and his heart sometimes diverted from its own dead march by the tides of that untamable complaint. How grim their combat, and yet how discreet -who has sounded to its depths the human heart? and who has plucked its riches from the sea? -so jealously they guard their secrets, both! Countless the ages past and still to come in which they wage their unrelenting war for sheer delight in carnage and in death, implacable brothers and eternal foes. |
I Have Found What You Are Like - e.e. cummings
i have found what you are like the rain, (Who feathers frightened fields with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields easily the pale club of the wind and swirled justly souls of flower strike the air in utterable coolness deeds of green thrilling light with thinned newfragile yellows lurch and.press -in the woods which stutter and sing And the coolness of your smile is stirring of birds between my arms;but i should rather than anything have (almost when hugeness will shut quietly) almost, your kiss |
of likely hearts
“For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent, Which join together in sweet sympathy, To work each other's joy and true content, Which they have harbour'd since their first descent Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see And know each other here belov'd to be.” ― Edmund Spenser, Fowre Hymnes |
“How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.” ― W.H. Auden |
http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/CathedralRock.JPG
The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere, they're in each other all along. [From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks] |
The Summons.
I can not bow to woo thee With honey words and flower kisses And the dew of sweet half-truths Fallen on the grass of old quaint love-tales Of broidered days foredone. Nor in the murmurous twilight May I sit below thee, Worshiping in whispers Tremulous as far-heard bells. All these things have I known once And passed In that gay youth I had but yester-year. And that is gone As the shadow of wind. Nay, I can not woo thee thus; But as I am ever swept upward To the centre of all truth So must I bear thee with me Rapt into this great involving flame, Calling ever from the midst thereof, "Follow! Follow!" And in the glory of our meeting Shall the power be reborn. And together in the midst of this power Must we, each outstriving each, Cry eternally: "I come, go thou yet further." And again, "Follow," For we may not tarry. - Ezra Pound |
"When the sweet glance of my true love caught my eyes,
Like alchemy, it transformed my copper-like soul. I searched for Him with a thousand hands, He stretched out His arms and clutched my feet" [From Thief of Sleep by Shahram Shiva] |
A Touch, A Tear, A Tempest
“Tomorrow came with the illusion of today even more fleeting than yesterday it came like it always comes and went like it’s always gone like a favorite song in its final seconds Tomorrow came and left leaving nothing nothing... but a familiar lingering sense of loss behind.” ― Sanober Khan |
A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast, They always must be with us, or we die. Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I Will trace the story of Endymion. The very music of the name has gone Into my being, and each pleasant scene Is growing fresh before me as the green Of our own valleys: so I will begin Now while I cannot hear the city's din; Now while the early budders are just new, And run in mazes of the youngest hue About old forests; while the willow trails Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer My little boat, for many quiet hours, With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. Many and many a verse I hope to write, Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white, Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, I must be near the middle of my story. O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, See it half finished: but let Autumn bold, With universal tinge of sober gold, Be all about me when I make an end! And now at once, adventuresome, I send My herald thought into a wilderness: There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress My uncertain path with green, that I may speed Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed. - Keats |
I Always See You
You aren't physically here with me but I always see you. I see you every morning because you're my sunshine. I see you every afternoon because you're my dream during my nap. I see you every evening because you're my sunset. And I see you every night because you're my blanket of stars. - Anonymous |
You, Therefore You are like me, you will die too, but not today: you, incommensurate, therefore the hours shine: if I say to you “To you I say,” you have not been set to music, or broadcast live on the ghost radio, may never be an oil painting or Old Master’s charcoal sketch: you are a concordance of person, number, voice, and place, strawberries spread through your name as if it were budding shrubs, how you remind me of some spring, the waters as cool and clear (late rain clings to your leaves, shaken by light wind), which is where you occur in grassy moonlight: and you are a lily, an aster, white trillium or viburnum, by all rights mine, white star in the meadow sky, the snow still arriving from its earthwards journeys, here where there is no snow (I dreamed the snow was you, when there was snow), you are my right, have come to be my night (your body takes on the dimensions of sleep, the shape of sleep becomes you): and you fall from the sky with several flowers, words spill from your mouth in waves, your lips taste like the sea, salt-sweet (trees and seas have flown away, I call it loving you): home is nowhere, therefore you, a kind of dwell and welcome, song after all, and free of any eden we can name - Reginald Shepherd |
[love is more thicker than forget] love is more thicker than forget more thinner than recall more seldom than a wave is wet more frequent than to fail it is most mad and moonly and less it shall unbe than all the sea which only is deeper than the sea love is less always than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky - E. E. Cummings |
The Witch of Coos
By Robert Frost Circa 1922 I STAID the night for shelter at a farm Behind the mountain, with a mother and son, Two old-believers. They did all the talking. The Mother Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits She could call up to pass a winter evening, 5 But won’t, should be burned at the stake or something. Summoning spirits isn’t “Button, button, Who’s got the button,” you’re to understand. The Son Mother can make a common table rear And kick with two legs like an army mule. 10 The Mother And when I’ve done it, what good have I done? Rather than tip a table for you, let me Tell you what Ralle the Sioux Control once told me. He said the dead had souls, but when I asked him How that could be—I thought the dead were souls, 15 He broke my trance. Don’t that make you suspicious That there’s something the dead are keeping back? Yes, there’s something the dead are keeping back. The Son You wouldn’t want to tell him what we have Up attic, mother? 20 The Mother Bones—a skeleton. The Son But the headboard of mother’s bed is pushed Against the attic door: the door is nailed. It’s harmless. Mother hears it in the night Halting perplexed behind the barrier 25 Of door and headboard. Where it wants to get Is back into the cellar where it came from. The Mother We’ll never let them, will we, son? We’ll never! The Son It left the cellar forty years ago And carried itself like a pile of dishes 30 Up one flight from the cellar to the kitchen, Another from the kitchen to the bedroom, Another from the bedroom to the attic, Right past both father and mother, and neither stopped it. Father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs. 35 I was a baby: I don’t know where I was. The Mother The only fault my husband found with me— I went to sleep before I went to bed, Especially in winter when the bed Might just as well be ice and the clothes snow. 40 The night the bones came up the cellar-stairs Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me, But left an open door to cool the room off So as to sort of turn me out of it. I was just coming to myself enough 45 To wonder where the cold was coming from, When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom And thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar. The board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on When there was water in the cellar in spring 50 Struck the hard cellar bottom. And then someone Began the stairs, two footsteps for each step, The way a man with one leg and a crutch, Or little child, comes up. It wasn’t Toffile: It wasn’t anyone who could be there. 55 The bulkhead double-doors were double-locked And swollen tight and buried under snow. The cellar windows were banked up with sawdust And swollen tight and buried under snow. It was the bones. I knew them—and good reason. 60 My first impulse was to get to the knob And hold the door. But the bones didn’t try The door; they halted helpless on the landing, Waiting for things to happen in their favor. The faintest restless rustling ran all through them. 65 I never could have done the thing I did If the wish hadn’t been too strong in me To see how they were mounted for this walk. I had a vision of them put together Not like a man, but like a chandelier. 70 So suddenly I flung the door wide on him. A moment he stood balancing with emotion, And all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire Flashed out and licked along his upper teeth. Smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.) 75 Then he came at me with one hand outstretched, The way he did in life once; but this time I struck the hand off brittle on the floor, And fell back from him on the floor myself. The finger-pieces slid in all directions. 80 (Where did I see one of those pieces lately? Hand me my button-box—it must be there.) I sat up on the floor and shouted, “Toffile, It’s coming up to you.” It had its choice Of the door to the cellar or the hall. 85 It took the hall door for the novelty, And set off briskly for so slow a thing, Still going every which way in the joints, though, So that it looked like lightning or a scribble, From the slap I had just now given its hand. 90 I listened till it almost climbed the stairs From the hall to the only finished bedroom, Before I got up to do anything; Then ran and shouted, “Shut the bedroom door, Toffile, for my sake!” “Company,” he said, 95 “Don’t make me get up; I’m too warm in bed.” So lying forward weakly on the handrail I pushed myself upstairs, and in the light (The kitchen had been dark) I had to own I could see nothing. “Toffile, I don’t see it. 100 It’s with us in the room, though. It’s the bones.” “What bones?” “The cellar bones—out of the grave.” That made him throw his bare legs out of bed And sit up by me and take hold of me. I wanted to put out the light and see 105 If I could see it, or else mow the room, With our arms at the level of our knees, And bring the chalk-pile down. “I’ll tell you what— It’s looking for another door to try. The uncommonly deep snow has made him think 110 Of his old song, The Wild Colonial Boy, He always used to sing along the tote-road. He’s after an open door to get out-doors. Let’s trap him with an open door up attic.” Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough, 115 Almost the moment he was given an opening, The steps began to climb the attic stairs. I heard them. Toffile didn’t seem to hear them. “Quick!” I slammed to the door and held the knob. “Toffile, get nails.” I made him nail the door shut, 120 And push the headboard of the bed against it. Then we asked was there anything Up attic that we’d ever want again. The attic was less to us than the cellar. If the bones liked the attic, let them like it, 125 Let them stay in the attic. When they sometimes Come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed Behind the door and headboard of the bed, Brushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers, With sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter, 130 That’s what I sit up in the dark to say— To no one any more since Toffile died. Let them stay in the attic since they went there. I promised Toffile to be cruel to them For helping them be cruel once to him. 135 The Son We think they had a grave down in the cellar. The Mother We know they had a grave down in the cellar. The Son We never could find out whose bones they were. The Mother Yes, we could too, son. Tell the truth for once. They were a man’s his father killed for me. 140 I mean a man he killed instead of me. The least I could do was help dig their grave. We were about it one night in the cellar. Son knows the story: but ’twas not for him To tell the truth, suppose the time had come. 145 Son looks surprised to see me end a lie We’d kept up all these years between ourselves So as to have it ready for outsiders. But tonight I don’t care enough to lie— I don’t remember why I ever cared. 150 Toffile, if he were here, I don’t believe Could tell you why he ever cared himself…. She hadn’t found the finger-bone she wanted Among the buttons poured out in her lap. I verified the name next morning: Toffile. 155 The rural letter-box said Toffile Barre. |
If You Forget Me
I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine. - Pablo Neruda |
If I Believe
if i believe in death be sure of this it is because you have loved me, moon and sunset stars and flowers gold crescendo and silver muting of seatides i trusted not, one night when in my fingers drooped your shining body when my heart sang between your perfect breasts darkness and beauty of stars was on my mouth petals danced against my eyes and down the singing reaches of my soul spoke the green- greeting pale- departing irrevocable sea i knew thee death. and when i have offered up each fragrant night,when all my days shall have before a certain face become white perfume only, from the ashes then thou wilt rise and thou wilt come to her and brush the mischief from her eyes and fold her mouth the new flower with thy unimaginable wings,where dwells the breath of all persisting stars - e.e. cummings |
Love Is A Place
love is a place & through this place of love move (with brightness of peace) all places yes is a world & in this world of yes live (skilfully curled) all worlds - e.e. cummings |
Found
~Goethe Off in the forest, Any old way, Nothing in mind but mosey and stray- Saw there a blossom Hid amid plants, Lovely as starlight, Bright as a glance. Reckoned to pick it, Heard a small cry: "I'm to be broken Only to die?" Stooping I dug it Rootlets and all- I've a fine cottage, Fine garden-wall; Planted it back there, Half in the sun. Look at her prosper -Blossomy one! 🌷 |
You’re
BY SYLVIA PLATH Clownlike, happiest on your hands, Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled, Gilled like a fish. A common-sense Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode. Wrapped up in yourself like a spool, Trawling your dark as owls do. Mute as a turnip from the Fourth Of July to All Fools’ Day, O high-riser, my little loaf. Vague as fog and looked for like mail. Farther off than Australia. Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn. Snug as a bud and at home Like a sprat in a pickle jug. A creel of eels, all ripples. Jumpy as a Mexican bean. Right, like a well-done sum. A clean slate, with your own face on. |
As To Some Lovely Temple, Tenantless
As to some lovely temple, tenantless Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass, Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass Grown up between the stones, yet from excess Of grief hard driven, or great loneliness, The worshiper returns, and those who pass Marvel him crying on a name that was,— So is it now with me in my distress. Your body was a temple to Delight; Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled, Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move; Here might I hope to find you day or night, And here I come to look for you, my love, Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead. - Edna St. Vincent Millay |
Journey
Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind Blow over me—I am so tired, so tired Of passing pleasant places! All my life, Following Care along the dusty road, Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed; Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long Over my shoulder have I looked at peace; And now I fain would lie in this long grass And close my eyes. Yet onward! Cat birds call Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry, Drawing the twilight close about their throats. Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees Pause in their dance and break the ring for me; And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant, Look back and beckon ere they disappear. Only my heart, only my heart responds. Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side All through the dragging day,—sharp underfoot And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs— But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach, And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling, The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. - Edna St. Vincent Millay |
THE PLACE I WANT TO GET BACK TO
is where in the pinewoods in the moments between the darkness and first light two deer came walking down the hill and when they saw me they said to each other, okay, this one is okay, let's see who she is and why she is sitting on the ground, like that, so quiet, as if asleep, or in a dream, but, anyway, harmless; and so they came on their slender legs and gazed upon me not unlike the way I go out to the dunes and look and look and look into the faces of flowers; and then one of them leaned forward and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life bring to me that could exceed that brief moment? For twenty years I have gone every day to the same woods, Not waiting, exactly, just lingering. Such gifts, bestowed, can't be repeated. If you want to talk about this come to visit. I live in the house near the corner, which I have named Gratitude. By Mary Oliver |
Last Night The Rain Spoke To Me
Last night the rain spoke to me slowly, saying, what joy to come falling out of the brisk cloud, to be happy again in a new way on the earth! That’s what it said as it dropped, smelling of iron, and vanished like a dream of the ocean into the branches and the grass below. Then it was over. The sky cleared. I was standing under a tree. The tree was a tree with happy leaves, and I was myself, and there were stars in the sky that were also themselves at the moment at which moment my right hand was holding my left hand which was holding the tree which was filled with stars and the soft rain – imagine! imagine! the long and wondrous journeys still to be ours. - Mary Oliver |
“O love, O fire! once she drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson |
My favorite six letter word is
always because it promises so much. My favorite five letter word is never because it insists on contradicting the promise. My favorite four letter word is once because it says it happened then. My favorite three letter word is yes because I’m just now learning to say it to my heart. My favorite two letter word is if because it makes all things possible like this: If not always If not never Then once. Yes. ― Kate DiCamillo |
Turtle by Kay Ryan
Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, She can ill afford the chances she must take In rowing toward the grasses that she eats. Her track is graceless, like dragging A packing-case places, and almost any slope Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical, She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way To something edible. With everything optimal, She skirts the ditch which would convert Her shell into a serving dish. She lives Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery Will change her load of pottery to wings. Her only levity is patience, The sport of truly chastened things. |
The Arrow and the Song
I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
The Monster Within written by ME
The Monster Within
There lurks within the pages of this history a monster, the Monster within This Monster has been consumed with societal norms, dying to fit in Sitting in the right row, speaking the correct language, all wearing thin This Monster worked real hard at hiding and putting on a good face Taking care of responsibilities because that is how it hid its base The only thing that holds this Monster in check is denial Denial of what it is and what it likes The song of this Monster is adaptability The spirit of this Monster is creativity The soul of this Monster is longevity The name of this Monster is Me |
A Certain Kind of Eden - Kay Ryan
It seems like you could, but
you can’t go back and pull the roots and runners and replant. It’s all too deep for that. You’ve overprized intention, have mistaken any bent you’re given for control. You thought you chose the bean and chose the soil. You even thought you abandoned one or two gardens. But those things keep growing where we put them— if we put them at all. A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall. Even the one vine that tendrils out alone in time turns on its own impulse, twisting back down its upward course a strong and then a stronger rope, the greenest saddest strongest kind of hope. |
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:22 AM. |
ButchFemmePlanet.com
All information copyright of BFP 2018