.
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety—
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light—
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
936. Everyone Sang - Siegfried Sassoon
.
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
935. Chess - Jorge Luis Borges
Translated from the Spanish by Alastair Reid
I
Set in their studious corners, the players
move the gradual pieces. Until dawn
the chessboard keeps them in its strict confinement
with its two colors set at daggers drawn.
Within the game itself the forms give off
their magic rules: Homeric castle, knight
swift to attack, queen warlike, king decisive,
slanted bishop, and attacking pawns.
Eventually, when the players have withdrawn,
when time itself has finally consumed them,
the ritual certainly will not be done.
It was in the East this war took fire.
Today the whole earth is its theater.
Like the game of love, this game goes on forever.
II
Faint-hearted king, sly bishop, ruthless queen,
straightforward castle, and deceitful pawn—
over the checkered black and white terrain
they seek out and begin their armed campaign.
They do not know it is the player’s hand
that dominates and guides their destiny.
They do not know an adamantine fate
controls their will and lays the battle plan.
The player too is captive of caprice
(the words are Omar’s) on another ground
where black nights alternate with white days.
God moves the player, he in turn the piece.
But what god beyond God begins the round
of dust and time and sleep and agonies?
I
Set in their studious corners, the players
move the gradual pieces. Until dawn
the chessboard keeps them in its strict confinement
with its two colors set at daggers drawn.
Within the game itself the forms give off
their magic rules: Homeric castle, knight
swift to attack, queen warlike, king decisive,
slanted bishop, and attacking pawns.
Eventually, when the players have withdrawn,
when time itself has finally consumed them,
the ritual certainly will not be done.
It was in the East this war took fire.
Today the whole earth is its theater.
Like the game of love, this game goes on forever.
II
Faint-hearted king, sly bishop, ruthless queen,
straightforward castle, and deceitful pawn—
over the checkered black and white terrain
they seek out and begin their armed campaign.
They do not know it is the player’s hand
that dominates and guides their destiny.
They do not know an adamantine fate
controls their will and lays the battle plan.
The player too is captive of caprice
(the words are Omar’s) on another ground
where black nights alternate with white days.
God moves the player, he in turn the piece.
But what god beyond God begins the round
of dust and time and sleep and agonies?
Monday, May 13, 2013
934. The Reassurance - Thom Gunn
.
About ten days or so
After we saw you dead
You came back in a dream.
I'm alright now you said.
And it was you, although
You were fleshed out again:
You hugged us all round then,
And gave your welcoming beam.
How like you to be so kind,
Seeking to reassure.
And, yes, how like my mind
To make itself secure.
(Thank you Karthika)
About ten days or so
After we saw you dead
You came back in a dream.
I'm alright now you said.
And it was you, although
You were fleshed out again:
You hugged us all round then,
And gave your welcoming beam.
How like you to be so kind,
Seeking to reassure.
And, yes, how like my mind
To make itself secure.
(Thank you Karthika)
Friday, May 10, 2013
933. Detail - Eamon Grennan
.
I was watching a robin fly after a finch—the smaller chirping with excitement, the bigger, its breast blazing, silent in light-winged earnest chase—when, out of nowhere over the chimneys and the shivering front gardens, flashes a sparrowhawk headlong, a light brown burn scorching the air from which it simply plucks like a ripe fruit the stopped robin, whose two or three cheeps of terminal surprise twinkle in the silence closing over the empty street when the birds have gone about their business, and I began to understand how a poem can happen: you have your eye on a small elusive detail, pursuing its music, when a terrible truth strikes and your heart cries out, being carried off.
I was watching a robin fly after a finch—the smaller chirping with excitement, the bigger, its breast blazing, silent in light-winged earnest chase—when, out of nowhere over the chimneys and the shivering front gardens, flashes a sparrowhawk headlong, a light brown burn scorching the air from which it simply plucks like a ripe fruit the stopped robin, whose two or three cheeps of terminal surprise twinkle in the silence closing over the empty street when the birds have gone about their business, and I began to understand how a poem can happen: you have your eye on a small elusive detail, pursuing its music, when a terrible truth strikes and your heart cries out, being carried off.
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