Saint Francis and the Sow

by Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

The More Loving One wh auden

The More Loving One
by W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

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.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Kapil's Garden

By Sudipta Chatterjee

One of life’s tiny crayons,
He stood under the rainbow
Lost in the lush mango groves of his home
In the curled up fishing village
Bonpukuria, at the back of beyond.
The green mangoes were his own
The light in the leaves, the roots going down
Down into the verdant past
When his father was all alive
And he got to sit on his shoulders
And smell the sun in his hair.
Kapil was fond of gardens,
What with fragments of clouds in his eye
And the flora he nurtured within.
After the boats took away his father
For the last time, into the heart of river Ganga
Kapil resolved to grow a garden in the vacant space within
A little patch of marigolds,
Tuberoses, sunflowers turning to the sky.
But shades of grey interfered with his colours
In spite of all the weeding and watering,
For the boats kept coming back
Empty.
As Kapil’s mother grew pumpkins, ridge-gourds
On their thatched cottage roof,
Kapil attended to the cattle,
His cheeks fragrant
From fruits he plucked for his mother’s pickles.
At times, he went around
Vending fresh milk and home-made curd
Vending dreams and carrying his colours
Towards the next watercolour sunrise.
As shades of grey
Kept interfering with him,
Little Kapil tended to his garden.

A Few Brief Poems by Vera Pavlova

1. A Beast in Winter
A beast in winter,
a plant in spring,
an insect in summer,
a bird in autumn.
The rest of the time I am a woman.

2. Why is the Word...
Why is the word YES so brief?
It should be
the longest,
the hardest,
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it,
so that upon reflection you could stop
in the middle of saying it...

3. Why Do I Recite My Poems?
Why do I recite my poems by heart?
Because I write them by heart
because I know that kind of spleen
by heart. But, I lie to the pen
not daring to describe how I ambled
along the distant ramparts of love,
barefoot, wearing a birthday suit:
the placental slime and blood.

4. If I Only Knew...
If I only knew from what tongue
your I Love You has been translated,
If I could find the original,
consult the dictionary
be sure the rendition is exact:
the translator is not at fault!

5. I Broke your heart
I broke your heart.
Now barefoot I tread
on shards.

6. Remedy for Insomnia
Not sheep coming down the hills,
not cracks on the ceiling—
count the ones you loved,
the former tenants of dreams
who would keep you awake,
once meant the world to you,
rocked you in their arms,
those who loved you . . .
You will fall asleep, by dawn, in tears.

The Things

- Donald Hall

When I walk in my house I see pictures,
bought long ago, framed and hanging
—de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore—
that I’ve cherished and stared at for years,
yet my eyes keep returning to the masters
of the trivial: a white stone perfectly round,
tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell,
a broken great-grandmother’s rocker,
a dead dog’s toy—valueless, unforgettable
detritus that my children will throw away
as I did my mother’s souvenirs of trips
with my dead father, Kodaks of kittens,
and bundles of cards from her mother Kate.

Following a Stream

- Davind Wagoner

Don’t do it, the guidebook says,
if you’re lost. Then it goes on
to talk about something else,
taking the easy way out,
which of course is what water does
as a matter of course always
taking whatever turn
the earth has told it to
while and since it was born,
including flowing over
the edge of a waterfall
or simply disappearing
underground for a long dark time
before it reappears
as a spring so far away
from where you thought you were
and where you think you are
it might never occur
to you to imagine where
that could be as you go downhill.

The Task

- Jane Hirshfield

It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily - open eyes, braid hair -
a robe unfurled in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.

And yes, it is a simple enough task
we've taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,

from dawn to dusk,
to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,

and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked

sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.