Books

Evening Poetry, October 26

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Swimming in the Rain by Chana Bloch
Swaddled and sleeved in water,                             
I dive to the rocky bottom and rise 
as the first drops of sky

find the ocean. The waters above 
meet the waters below, 
the sweet and the salt,

and I'm swimming back to the beginning.                       
The forecasts were wrong.                          
Half the sky is dark                                                                                                              
but it keeps changing. Half the stories
I used to believe are false. Thank God  
I've got the good sense at last      

not to come in out of the rain.       
The waves open 
to take in the rain, and sunlight

falls from the clouds
onto the face of the deep as it did  
on the first day

before the dividing began.

You can find this poem in Swimming in the Rain.

Evening Poetry, October 25

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Remember by Joy Harjo
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away tonight.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

You can find this poem in She Had Some Horses.

Evening Poetry, October 24

KimLeave a comment 
A Song for Autumn by Mary Oliver

In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

You can find this poem on the Poetry Foundation website.

Evening Poetry, October 23

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Still Life, Apples and Chestnuts by Los Angeles County Museum of Art is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

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Apples by Danusha Laméris

One, tossed to Aphrodite,
begins a war. Eve, that fateful bite
into the crisp white skin. 
Distracted by the sight of golden apples
a virgin huntress loses a race
and must marry. Each apple
a kind of failure. The body
calling our desire. Isn't there
always something we want
more than our own happiness?
A pull toward the Fall.
Haven't we all loved too much?
Snow White bit into the flesh
laced with poison.
Love is something we fall into.
Fall, the time of ripening apples.
In England one falls pregnant.
Life requires collapse
holds it out to us
sweet and fragrant.

You can find this poem in The Moons of August.

Evening Poetry, October 22

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Think of Others by Mahmoud Darwish

As you prepare your breakfast — think of others.
Don’t forget to feed the pigeons.
As you conduct your wars — think of others.
Don’t forget those who want peace.
As you pay your water bill — think of others.
Think of those who have only the clouds to drink from.
As you go home, your own home — think of others — don’t forget those who live in tents.
As you sleep and count the stars, think of others — there are people who have no place to sleep.
As you liberate yourself with metaphors think of others — those who have lost their right to speak.
And as you think of distant others — think of yourself and say
"I wish I were a candle in the darkness".

You can find this poem in Almond Blossoms and Beyond.

Evening Poetry, October 21

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Fall Song by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

You can find this poem in American Primitive: Poems.

Evening Poetry, October 20

KimLeave a comment

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We Are of a Tribe
by ALBERTO RÍOS

We plant seeds in the ground
And dreams in the sky,
 
Hoping that, someday, the roots of one
Will meet the upstretched limbs of the other.
 
It has not happened yet.
We share the sky, all of us, the whole world:
 
Together, we are a tribe of eyes that look upward,
Even as we stand on uncertain ground.
 
The earth beneath us moves, quiet and wild,
Its boundaries shifting, its muscles wavering.
 
The dream of sky is indifferent to all this,
Impervious to borders, fences, reservations.
 
The sky is our common home, the place we all live.
There we are in the world together.
 
The dream of sky requires no passport.
Blue will not be fenced. Blue will not be a crime.
 
Look up. Stay awhile. Let your breathing slow.
Know that you always have a home here.

You can find this poem in Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems.

Evening Poetry, October 19

KimLeave a comment 
The Empty House
BY WALTER DE LA MARE

See this house, how dark it is
Beneath its vast-boughed trees!
Not one trembling leaflet cries
To that Watcher in the skies—
‘Remove, remove thy searching gaze,
Innocent of heaven’s ways,
Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright,
On secrets hidden from sight.’

‘Secrets,’ sighs the night-wind,
‘Vacancy is all I find;
Every keyhole I have made
Wails a summons, faint and sad,
No voice ever answers me,
Only vacancy.’
‘Once, once … ’ the cricket shrills,
And far and near the quiet fills
With its tiny voice, and then
Hush falls again.

Mute shadows creeping slow
Mark how the hours go.
Every stone is mouldering slow.
And the least winds that blow
Some minutest atom shake,
Some fretting ruin make
In roof and walls. How black it is
Beneath these thick boughed trees!

Find this poem on the Poetry Foundation website.

Evening Poetry, October 18

KimLeave a comment 
A Reminiscence
BY RICHARD O. MOORE

Held in a late season
At a shifting of worlds,
In the golden balance of autumn,
Out of love and reason
 
We made our peace;
Stood still in October
In the failing light and sought,
Each in the other, ease
 
And release from silence,
From the slow damnation
Of speech that is weak
And falls from silence.
 
In the October sun
By the green river we spoke,
Late in October, the leaves
Of the water maples had fallen.
 
But whatever we said
In the bright leaves was lost,
Quick as the leaf-fall,
Brittle and blood red.           


                 For Kenneth Rexroth, 1950

You can find this poem on the Poetry Foundation website.

Evening Poetry, October 17

KimLeave a comment

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Kindness by Anya Silver

Last week, a nurse pulled a warm blanket
from a magical cave of heated cotton
and lay it on my lap, even wrapping
my feet. She admired my red sandals.
Once, a friend brought me a chicken
she’d roasted and packed with whole lemons.
I ate it with my fingers while it was still warm.
Kindnesses appear, then disappear so quickly
that I forget their brief streaks: they vanish,
while cruelty pearls its durable shell.
Goodness streams like hot water through my hair
and down my skin, and I’m able to live
again with the ache. Love wakens the world.
Kindness is my mother, sending me a yellow dress in the mail
for no reason other than to watch me twirl.

You can find this poem in Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness & Connection.