1106. Blackberry Eating - Galway Kinnell

.

I love to go out in late September

among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries

to eat blackberries for breakfast,

the stalks very prickly, a penalty

they earn for knowing the black art

of blackberry making: and as I stand among them

lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries

fall almost unbidden to my tongue,

as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words

like strengths or squinted, or brougham,

many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,

which I squeeze, squelch open, and splurge well

in the silent, startled, icy, black language

of blackberry eating in late September.

1105. The Cambridge Songs (ca. 1,000) - Anon

Translated be Willis Barnstone

From: Poetry For The Earth

This planctus (lament) is the best known surviving woman’s lament from the Latin Middle Ages

Wind is thin,

sun warm,

the earth overflows

with good things.

Spring is purple

jewelry;

flowers on the ground

green in the forest.

Quadrupeds shine

and wander. Birds

nest. On blossoming

branches they cry joy!

My eyes see, my ears

hear so much, and

I am thrilled.

Yet I swallow sighs.

Sitting here alone,

I turn pale. When strong

enough to lift my head,

I hear and see nothing.

Spring, hear me.

Despite green woods, 

my spirit rots.