tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-141248262024-03-19T03:34:40.386-04:00Quiet Epiphaniesonce a regular old blog. now a work-in-progress poetry anthology of one poem a day for a year.Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comBlogger179125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-41555243815411564012013-09-24T13:07:00.003-04:002013-09-24T13:08:30.899-04:00Of the Terrible Doubt of AppearancesOf the terrible doubt of appearances,<br>
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,<br>
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,<br>
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,<br>
May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills,<br>
shining and flowing waters,<br>
The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these<br>
are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real<br>
something has yet to be known,<br>
(How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me!<br>
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them,)<br>
May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem)<br>
as from my present point of view, and might prove (as of course they<br>
would) nought of what they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely<br>
changed points of view;<br>
To me these and the like of these are curiously answer'd by my<br>
lovers, my dear friends,<br>
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me<br>
by the hand,<br>
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason<br>
hold not, surround us and pervade us,<br>
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I<br>
require nothing further,<br>
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity<br>
beyond the grave,<br>
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,<br>
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.<br><br>
--Walt Whitman<br><br>
I post in honor of the anniversary of friends who read this at their wedding. Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-19370281463398002702013-06-27T23:48:00.001-04:002013-06-27T23:48:16.661-04:00Maximus, to Gloucester: Letter 2. . . . . tell you? ha! who<br>
can tell another how<br>
to manage the swimming?<br><br>
he was right: people<br>
don’t change. They only stand more<br>
revealed. I,<br>
likewise<br><br><br>
Charles OlsonStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-61951825455085917232013-06-27T23:44:00.004-04:002013-06-27T23:45:47.422-04:00From The Long Sad PartySomeone was saying<br>
something about shadows covering the field, about<br>
how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning<br>
and the morning goes.<br><br>
Someone was saying<br>
how the wind dies down but comes back,<br>
how shells are the coffins of wind<br>
but the weather continues.<br><br>
It was a long night<br>
and someone said something about the moon shedding its<br>
white<br>
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead<br>
but more of the same.<br><br>
Someone mentioned<br>
a city she had been in before the war, a room with two<br>
candles<br>
against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching.<br>
We begin to believe<br><br>
the night would not end.<br>
Someone was saying the music was over and no one had<br>
noticed.<br>
Then someone said something about the planets, about the<br>
stars,<br>
how small they were, how far away.<br><br><br>
Mark StrandStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-30276229737701998082013-06-05T23:11:00.004-04:002013-06-05T23:12:54.298-04:00My Grandmother’s Love LettersThere are no stars tonight<br />
But those of memory.<br />
Yet how much room for memory there is<br />
In the loose girdle of soft rain.<br /><br />
There is even room enough<br />
For the letters of my mother’s mother,<br />
Elizabeth,<br />
That have been pressed so long<br />
Into a corner of the roof<br />
That they are brown and soft,<br />
And liable to melt as snow.<br /><br />
Over the greatness of such space<br />
Steps must be gentle.<br />
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.<br />
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.<br /><br />
And I ask myself:<br /><br />
“Are your fingers long enough to play<br />
Old keys that are but echoes:<br />
Is the silence strong enough<br />
To carry back the music to its source<br />
And back to you again<br />
As though to her?”<br /><br />
Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand<br />
Through much of what she would not understand;<br />
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof<br />
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.<br /><br /><br />
--Hart CraneStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-66266523674113737392013-05-28T21:15:00.000-04:002013-05-28T21:16:30.827-04:00BirchesWHEN I see birches bend to left and right<br />
Across the line of straighter darker trees,<br />
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.<br />
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.<br />
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them<br />
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning<br />
After a rain. They click upon themselves<br />
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored<br />
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.<br />
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells<br />
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—<br />
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away<br />
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.<br />
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,<br />
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed<br />
So low for long, they never right themselves:<br />
You may see their trunks arching in the woods<br />
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground<br />
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair<br />
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.<br />
But I was going to say when Truth broke in<br />
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm<br />
(Now am I free to be poetical?)<br />
I should prefer to have some boy bend them<br />
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—<br />
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,<br />
Whose only play was what he found himself,<br />
Summer or winter, and could play alone.<br />
One by one he subdued his father's trees<br />
By riding them down over and over again<br />
Until he took the stiffness out of them,<br />
And not one but hung limp, not one was left<br />
For him to conquer. He learned all there was<br />
To learn about not launching out too soon<br />
And so not carrying the tree away<br />
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise<br />
To the top branches, climbing carefully<br />
With the same pains you use to fill a cup<br />
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.<br />
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,<br />
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.<br />
<br /><br />
So was I once myself a swinger of birches;<br />
And so I dream of going back to be.<br />
It's when I'm weary of considerations,<br />
And life is too much like a pathless wood<br />
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs<br />
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping<br />
From a twig's having lashed across it open.<br />
I'd like to get away from earth awhile<br />
And then come back to it and begin over.<br />
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me<br />
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away<br />
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:<br />
I don't know where it's likely to go better.<br />
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,<br />
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk<br />
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more<br />
But dipped its top and set me down again.<br />
That would be good both going and coming back.<br />
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.<br />
<br /><br />
Robert Frost
Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-27657107444758332582013-05-13T22:20:00.003-04:002013-05-13T22:21:34.299-04:00Musee des Beaux ArtsAbout suffering they were never wrong,<br>
The old Masters: how well they understood<br>
Its human position: how it takes place<br>
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;<br>
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting<br>
For the miraculous birth, there always must be<br>
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating<br>
On a pond at the edge of the wood:<br>
They never forgot<br>
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course<br>
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot<br>
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse<br>
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.<br><br>
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away<br>
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may<br>
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,<br>
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone<br>
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green<br>
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen<br>
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,<br>
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.<br><br>
W. H. AudenStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-62977746644880500852013-01-01T13:39:00.003-05:002013-01-01T13:41:21.588-05:00Te DeumTe Deum<br /><br />
Not because of victories<br />
I sing,<br />
having none,<br />
but for the common sunshine,<br />
the breeze,<br />
the largess of the spring.<br /><br />
Not for victory<br />
but for the day's work done<br />
as well as I was able;<br />
not for a seat upon the dais<br />
but at the common table.<br /><br />
Charles ReznikoffStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-90277252665092421162012-07-29T17:38:00.002-04:002012-08-02T11:06:08.386-04:00Dover Beach<p align="left">The sea is calm to-night.<br>
The tide is full, the moon lies fair<br>
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light<br>
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;<br>
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.<br>
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!<br>
Only, from the long line of spray<br>
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,<br>
Listen! you hear the grating roar<br>
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,<br>
At their return, up the high strand,<br>
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,<br>
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring<br>
The eternal note of sadness in.</p>
<p align="left">Sophocles long ago<br>
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought<br>
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow<br>
Of human misery; we<br>
Find also in the sound a thought,<br>
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.</p>
<p align="left">The Sea of Faith<br>
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore<br>
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.<br>
But now I only hear<br>
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,<br>
Retreating, to the breath<br>
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear<br>
And naked shingles of the world.</p>
<p align="left">Ah, love, let us be true<br>
To one another! for the world, which seems<br>
To lie before us like a land of dreams,<br>
So various, so beautiful, so new,<br>
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,<br>
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;<br>
And we are here as on a darkling plain<br>
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,<br>
Where ignorant armies clash by night.</p>
-Matthew Arnold<br>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-52858023669952947142012-01-18T17:42:00.002-05:002012-01-18T17:42:40.428-05:00from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry4<br />
<br />
These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you; <br />
I project myself a moment to tell you—also I return. <br />
<br />
I loved well those cities; <br />
I loved well the stately and rapid river; <br />
The men and women I saw were all near to me; <br />
Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them; <br />
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.) <br />
<br />
5<br />
<br />
What is it, then, between us? <br />
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? <br />
<br />
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.<br />
<br />
<br />
--Walt Whitman<br />
<i>from</i> "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-90773956300095057692012-01-08T19:32:00.000-05:002012-01-08T19:32:04.162-05:00from Dark HarborX<br />
<br />
It is a dreadful cry that rises up,<br />
Hoping to be heard, that comes to you<br />
As you wake, so your day will be spent<br />
<br />
In the futile correction of a distant longing.<br />
All those voices calling from the depths of elsewhere,<br />
From the abyss of an August night, from the misery<br />
<br />
Of a northern winter, from a ship going down in the Baltic,<br />
From heartache, from wherever you wish, calling to be saved.<br />
And you have no choice but to follow their prompting,<br />
<br />
Saving something of that sound, urging the harsh syllables<br />
Of disaster into music. You stare out the window,<br />
Watching the build-up of clouds, and the wind whipping<br />
<br />
The branches of a willow, sending a rain of leaves<br />
To the ground. How do you turn pain<br />
Into its own memorial, how do you write it down,<br />
<br />
Turning it into itself as witnessed<br />
Through pleasure, so it can be known, even loved,<br />
As it lives in what it could not be.<br />
<br />
<br />
Mark Strand<br />
<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
A fairly accurate rendering of my state of mind over the last few days.Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-90738769397632360732012-01-02T13:17:00.000-05:002012-01-02T13:17:40.018-05:00Lines for Winter<i>for Ros Krauss</i><br />
<br />
Tell yourself<br />
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air<br />
that you will go on<br />
walking, hearing<br />
the same tune no matter where<br />
you find yourself—<br />
inside the dome of dark<br />
or under the cracking white<br />
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.<br />
Tonight as it gets cold<br />
tell yourself<br />
what you know which is nothing<br />
but the tune your bones play<br />
as you keep going. And you will be able<br />
for once to lie down under the small fire<br />
of winter stars.<br />
And if it happens that you cannot<br />
go on or turn back<br />
and you find yourself<br />
where you will be at the end,<br />
tell yourself<br />
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs<br />
that you love what you are. <br />
<br />
<br />
Mark StrandStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-16234925138011913492011-11-10T11:56:00.001-05:002011-11-10T11:56:33.546-05:00For FearFor fear I want<br />
to make myself again<br />
under the thumb<br />
of old love, old time<br />
<br />
subservience<br />
and pain, bent<br />
into a nail that will<br />
not come out.<br />
<br />
Why, love, does it<br />
make such a difference<br />
not to be heard<br />
in spite of self<br />
<br />
or what we may feel,<br />
one for the other,<br />
but as a hammer<br />
to drive again<br />
<br />
bent nail<br />
into old hurt?<br />
<br />
<br />
Robert CreeleyStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-31837707927141995122011-11-09T22:15:00.000-05:002011-11-10T11:53:47.682-05:00I'll Be HereThere is a lake of clear water.<br />
There are forms of things despite us.<br />
<br />
Pope said, "A little learning,"<br />
<i>and, and, and, and</i>—the same.<br />
<br />
Why don't you go home and sleep <br />
and come back and talk some more.<br />
<br />
<br />
Robert CreeleyStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-68134089217507449912011-11-08T23:50:00.000-05:002011-11-10T11:51:10.245-05:00A ReasonEach gesture<br />
is a common one, a <br />
black dog, crying, a<br />
man, crying.<br />
<br />
All alike, people<br />
or things grow<br />
fixed with what<br />
happens to them.<br />
<br />
I throw a stone.<br />
It hits the wall,<br />
it hits a dog,<br />
it hits a child--<br />
<br />
my sentimental<br />
names for years<br />
and years ago, from<br />
something I've not become.<br />
<br />
If I look<br />
in the mirror,<br />
the wall, I<br />
see myself.<br />
<br />
If I try<br />
to do better<br />
and better, I<br />
do the same thing.<br />
<br />
Let me hit you.<br />
Will it hurt.<br />
Your face is hurt<br />
all the same.<br />
<br />
<br />
Robert CreeleyStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-79140820039298363432011-11-07T20:52:00.000-05:002011-11-10T11:04:38.802-05:00A PrayerBless<br />
something small<br />
but infinite<br />
and quiet.<br />
<br />
There are senses<br />
make an object<br />
in their simple<br />
feeling for one.<br />
<br />
<br />
Robert CreeleyStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-82253184380953552582011-11-06T12:02:00.000-05:002011-11-10T11:03:27.833-05:00The Door (I)Thump. Thump. The door<br />
which never is knocked upon but cries,<br />
for who sings, dies,<br />
what goes, will go on.<br />
<br />
<br />
Robert CreeleyStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-14092477098190568232011-11-05T10:59:00.000-04:002011-11-10T11:00:02.639-05:00Self-PortraitHe wants to be <br />
a brutal old man, <br />
an aggressive old man, <br />
as dull, as brutal <br />
as the emptiness around him, <br />
<br />
He doesn’t want compromise, <br />
nor to be ever nice <br />
to anyone. Just mean, <br />
and final in his brutal, <br />
his total, rejection of it all. <br />
<br />
He tried the sweet, <br />
the gentle, the “oh, <br />
let’s hold hands together” <br />
and it was awful, <br />
dull, brutally inconsequential. <br />
<br />
Now he’ll stand on <br />
his own dwindling legs. <br />
His arms, his skin, <br />
shrink daily. And <br />
he loves, but hates equally. <br />
<br />
<br />
Robert CreeleyStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-90489534902943299352011-11-04T10:14:00.000-04:002011-11-04T10:14:46.403-04:00The Songs of Maximus: Song 2all<br />
wrong<br />
And I am asked—ask myself (I, too, covered <br />
with the gurry of it) where<br />
shall we go from here, what can we do<br />
when even the public conveyances<br />
sing?<br />
how can we go anywhere,<br />
even cross-town<br />
how get out of anywhere (the bodies <br />
all buried<br />
in shallow graves?Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-18950834787939439992011-11-03T22:07:00.000-04:002011-11-04T10:08:21.797-04:00One ArtThe art of losing isn't hard to master;<br />
so many things seem filled with the intent<br />
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.<br />
<br />
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster<br />
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.<br />
The art of losing isn't hard to master.<br />
<br />
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:<br />
places, and names, and where it was you meant <br />
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.<br />
<br />
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or<br />
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.<br />
The art of losing isn't hard to master.<br />
<br />
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,<br />
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.<br />
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.<br />
<br />
<br />
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture<br />
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident<br />
the art of losing's not too hard to master<br />
though it may look like (<i>Write it!</i>) like disaster.<br />
<br />
<br />
Elizabeth BishopStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-28613740867910372092011-11-01T12:35:00.001-04:002011-11-01T12:35:46.322-04:00Le Pont MirabeauSous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine<br />
Et nos amours<br />
Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne<br />
La joie venait toujours après la peine<br />
<br />
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure<br />
Les jours s’en vont je demeure<br />
<br />
Les mains dans les mains restons face à face<br />
Tandis que sous<br />
Le pont de nos bras passe<br />
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse<br />
<br />
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure<br />
Les jours s’en vont je demeure<br />
<br />
L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante<br />
L’amour s’en va<br />
Comme la vie est lente<br />
Et comme l’Espérance est violente<br />
<br />
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure<br />
Les jours s’en vont je demeure<br />
<br />
Passent les jours et passent les semaines<br />
Ni temps passé<br />
Ni les amours reviennent<br />
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine<br />
<br />
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure<br />
Les jours s’en vont je demeure<br />
<br />
<br />
Guillaume ApollinaireStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-12655267869313722392011-10-31T22:04:00.000-04:002011-11-01T22:07:17.758-04:00Memories Watch MeA morning in June when it's too early yet<br />
to wake, and still too late to go back to sleep.<br />
<br />
I must go out through greenery that's crammed<br />
with memories, that follow me with their eyes.<br />
<br />
They are not visible, wholly dissolve<br />
into background, perfect chameleons.<br />
<br />
They are so close that I can hear them breathe<br />
although the singing of birds is deafening.<br />
<br />
<br />
Tomas TranstromerStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-63512033958547057242011-10-30T14:20:00.000-04:002011-11-01T22:00:24.255-04:00Ye Banks and Braes O Bonnie DoonYE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, <br />
How can ye bloom sae fair? <br />
How can ye chant, ye little birds, <br />
And I sae fu' o' care? <br />
<br />
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird<br />
That sings upon the bough; <br />
Thou minds me o' the happy days <br />
When my fause Luve was true. <br />
<br />
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird <br />
That sings beside thy mate;<br />
For sae I sat, and sae I sang, <br />
And wist na o' my fate. <br />
<br />
Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon <br />
To see the woodbine twine: <br />
And ilka bird sang o' its Luve,<br />
And sae did I o' mine. <br />
<br />
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, <br />
Frae aff its thorny tree; <br />
And my fause Luver staw the rose <br />
But left the thorn wi' me. <br />
<br />
<br />
Robert BurnsStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-80525938071157027202011-10-29T11:20:00.000-04:002011-11-01T21:59:26.112-04:00The Snow ManOne must have a mind of winter<br />
To regard the frost and the boughs<br />
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;<br />
<br />
And have been cold a long time<br />
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,<br />
The spruces rough in the distant glitter<br />
<br />
Of the January sun; and not to think<br />
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,<br />
In the sound of a few leaves,<br />
<br />
Which is the sound of the land<br />
Full of the same wind<br />
That is blowing in the same bare place<br />
<br />
For the listener, who listens in the snow,<br />
And, nothing himself, beholds<br />
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. <br />
<br />
<br />
Wallace StevensStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-10116537024778805952011-10-28T22:01:00.001-04:002011-11-01T22:03:58.117-04:00KyrieSometimes my life opened its eyes in the dark.<br />
A feeling as if crowds drew through the streets<br />
in blindness and anxiety on the way towards a miracle,<br />
while I invisibly remain standing.<br />
<br />
As the child falls asleep in terror<br />
listening to the heart's heavy tread.<br />
Slowly, slowly until morning puts its rays in the locks<br />
and the doors of darkness open.<br />
<br />
<br />
Tomas TranstromerStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14124826.post-55806876600382031412011-10-27T23:32:00.000-04:002011-10-28T11:33:06.768-04:00Around UsWe need some pines to assuage the darkness<br />
when it blankets the mind,<br />
we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly<br />
as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of <br />
needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind,<br />
and a blur or two of a wild thing<br />
that sees and is not seen. We need these things<br />
between appointments, after work,<br />
and, if we keep them, then someone someday,<br />
lying down after a walk<br />
and supper, with the fire hole wet down,<br />
the whole night sky set at a particular<br />
time, without numbers or hours, will cause<br />
a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap--<br />
to close round the moment and the thought<br />
of whatever good we did.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Marvin BellStacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com