tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30265141426104844432024-03-13T06:02:11.112-07:00Mooing Down the BonesHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.comBlogger133125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-73029797514377497292021-12-21T09:25:00.000-08:002021-12-21T09:25:06.744-08:00The Solstice<p>by W. S. Merwin</p><p><br /></p><p>They say the sun will come back</p><p>at midnight</p><p>after all</p><p>my one love</p><p><br /></p><p>but we know how the minutes</p><p>fly out into</p><p>the dark trees</p><p>and vanish</p><p><br /></p><p>like the great 'ōhi'as and honey creepers</p><p>and we know how the weeks</p><p>walk into the</p><p>shadows at midday</p><p><br /></p><p>at the thought of the months I reach for your hand</p><p>it is not something</p><p>one is supposed </p><p>to say</p><p><br /></p><p>we watch the bright birds in the morning</p><p>we hope for the quiet</p><p>daytime together</p><p>the year turns into air</p><p><br /></p><p>but we are together in the whole night</p><p>with the sun still going away</p><p>and the year</p><p>coming back</p>Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-24225750764517285702021-11-23T12:48:00.000-08:002021-11-23T12:48:50.950-08:00Surprised by Evening<p><i>by Robert Bly</i></p><p><br /></p><p>There is unknown dust that is near us,</p><p>Waves breaking on shores just over the hill,</p><p>Trees full of birds that we have never seen,</p><p>Nets drawn down with dark fish.</p><p><br /></p><p>The evening arrives; we look up and it is there,</p><p>It has come through the nets of the stars, </p><p>Through the tissues of the grass,</p><p>Walking quietly over the asylums of the water.</p><p><br /></p><p>The day shall never end, we think, </p><p>We have hair that seems born for the daylight.</p><p>But, at last, the quiet waters of the night will rise,</p><p>And our skin shall see far off, as it does under water.</p>Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-79397003094000261532014-01-09T16:11:00.002-08:002014-01-09T16:11:13.262-08:00The ArmadilloFor Robert Lowell<br /><br /><br />This is the time of year <br />when almost every night <br />the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.<br />Climbing the mountain height,<br /><br />rising toward a saint<br />still honored in these parts,<br />the paper chambers flush and fill with light<br />that comes and goes, like hearts.<br /><br />Once up against the sky it's hard<br />to tell them from the stars -<br />planets, that is - the tinted ones:<br />Venus going down, or Mars,<br /><br />or the pale green one. With a wind,<br />they flare and falter,, wobble and toss;<br />but if it's still they steer between<br />the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,<br /><br />receding, dwindling, solemnly<br />and steadily forsaking us,<br />or, in the downdraft from a peak,<br />suddenly turning dangerous.<br /><br />Last night another big one fell.<br />It splattered like an egg of fire<br />against the cliff behind the house.<br />The flame ran down. We saw the pair<br /><br />of owls who nest there flying up<br />and up, their whirling black-and-white<br />stained bright pink underneath, until<br />they shrieked up out of sight.<br /><br />The ancient owls' nest must have burned.<br />Hastily, all alone,<br />a glistening armadillo left the scene,<br />rose-flecked, head down, tail down,<br /><br />and then a baby rabbit jumped out,<br />short-eared, to our surprise.<br />So soft! - a handful of intangible ash<br />with fixed, ignited eyes.<br /><br />Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!<br />O falling fire and piercing cry<br />and panic, and a weak mailed fist<br />clenched ignorant against the sky!<br /><br /><br />- Elizabeth BishopHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-28597068576753038832013-11-17T06:30:00.000-08:002013-11-17T06:30:00.197-08:00The Heron<div class="episode_title">
Whenever we noticed her</div>
standing in the stream, still<br />
as a branch in dead air, we<br />
would grab our binoculars,<br />
watch her watching,<br />
her eye fixed on the water<br />
slowly making its own way<br />
around stumps, over a boulder,<br />
under some leaves matted against<br />
a fallen log. She seemed<br />
to appear, stand, peer, then<br />
lift one leg, stretch it, let<br />
a foot quietly settle into the mud<br />
then pull up her other foot, settle<br />
it, and stare again, each step<br />
tendered, an ideogram at the end<br />
of a calligrapher's brush.<br />
Every time she arrived, we watched<br />
until, as if she had suddenly heard<br />
a call in the sky, she would bend<br />
her knees, raise her wide wings,<br />
and lift into the welcome grace<br />
of the air, her legs extending<br />
back behind her, wings rising<br />
and falling elegant under the clouds:<br />
For more than a week now<br />
we have not seen her. We watch<br />
the sky, hoping to catch her great<br />
feathered cross moving above the trees.
<br />
<br />
by Jack RidlHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-30026982249097434592013-11-11T15:03:00.002-08:002013-11-11T15:03:30.271-08:00The Big BangWhen the morning comes that you don't wake up,<br />
what remains of your life goes on as some kind of<br />
electromagnetic energy. There's a slight chance you<br />
might appear on someone's screen as a dot. Face it.<br />
You are a blip or a ping, part of the background noise,<br />
the residue of the Big Bang. You remember the Big<br />
Bang, don't you? You were about 26 years old, driving<br />
a brand new red and white Chevy convertible, with<br />
that beautiful blond girl at your side. Charlene, was<br />
her name. You had a case of beer on ice in the back,<br />
cruising down Highway number 7 on a summer<br />
afternoon and then you parked near Loon Lake just<br />
as the moon began to rise. Way back then you said to<br />
yourself, "Boy, it doesn't get any better than this," and<br />
you were right.<br />
<br />
--Louis Jenkins Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-88123832025718305082013-10-31T05:39:00.001-07:002013-10-31T05:39:47.308-07:00PleasureI remembered what it was like,<br />knowing what you want to eat and then making it,<br />forgetting about the ending in the middle,<br />looking at the ocean for<br />a long time without restlessness,<br />or with restlessness not inhabiting the joints,<br />sitting Indian style on a porch<br />overlooking that water, smooth like good cake frosting.<br />And then I experienced it, falling so deeply<br />into the storyline, I laughed as soon as my character entered<br />the picture, humming the theme music even when I'd told myself<br />I wanted to be quiet by some freezing river<br />and never talk to anyone again.<br />And I thought, now is the right time to cut up your shirt.<br /><br />~Katie PetersonHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-4629858239240461842013-10-31T05:32:00.000-07:002013-10-31T05:32:11.460-07:00SandyI want to tell you a story. There is a dog and sunlight in it. My sister is driving the car. My tall taciturn kid brother is sitting next to me. Our grand-aunt just called,sobbing. Her huge ancient dog has collapsed. We are driving along the beach road toward her house. You wouldn't believe the light this morning. Our grand-aunt is a bigot. It is tense whenever she comes to family dinners, because she will say things like The Yankees went to hell when they hired niggers to play the outfield. There are men on the jetties fishing for striped bass. Our grand-aunt is blind. Her dog shepherds her expertly from couch to kitchen and back, her hand on his shoulder. Our grand-aunt keened at the wedding when her brother, our grandfather, married our grandmother. Keening is wailing for the dead in the ancient Irish tradition. Our grandmother never spoke to our grand-aunt for the rest of her life. How stupid Irish is that, as our dad likes to say. The dog's name is Sandy. He is a great dog. We think he does the laundry. Our sister drives slowly and cranes her neck to see the street signs. My kid brother isn't saying much. The men on the jetties are also hoping for bluefish. Our grand-aunt always says she can tell if people on the radio are Negroes or not. She says there are more Negroes on the radio at night. When we get to the house, we can hear her weeping inside. The front door is locked, so we go around back and let ourselves in and ask for her in the dark. There are piles of newspapers like you wouldn't believe. Why exactly a blind woman would continue to get the paper is a mystery to me, our dad likes to say. When our grand-aunt come to family dinners, she sits at one end of the table, and our dad sits at the other and grinds his teeth. You can hear him do it if you sit close enough. The dog is sprawled on our grand-aunt's kitchen floor. There are dirty dishes piled so high in the sink that if you sneezed there would be a calamity. Our sister knows animals the best, and she kneels down and asks Sandy how he's doing, and he pants and stares at us in a friendly fashion. He has the thickest whitest eyebrows you have ever seen. Our grand-aunt is sobbing on the couch. She tries to explain, but she is not using any words that we know. Sandy is such a huge dog that he takes up most of the kitchen floor. One time at dinner our grand-aunt said that the Negroes were taking over the government, and I bet people in Peru heard our dad grinding his teeth. Our sister stands up and says Sandy is dying and we have to get him to the vet. Our grand-aunt cries even harder. The dog stares at us.<br /> I remember there was a long pause while Sandy panted and our grand-aunt cried and we tried to calculate how we were going to get this dog out of the house and into the car. And then my tall kid brother bent down and picked Sandy up as if the dog weighed no more than an ounce, and he straightened up, with his arms full of dying dog, and there was this look on his face that I just cannot find the words for. That's the story I want to tell you. There was love and pain and fury on his face, but then the words run out of gas, and all I can say is: See his face all twisted and shining in the shadowy kitchen? See? This is the biggest, heaviest, oldest dog you can imagine, and it would have been a miracle if all three of us had managed to hoist him up and haul him to the car, but somehow my kid brother has lifted him like a feather, and now the tears are sliding silver down his face, like water over a rock, and I open the door, and the light comes pouring in all wind and careless and impatient.<br /><br /><br />~ Brian DoyleHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-30358490436784518762013-09-16T07:34:00.000-07:002013-09-16T07:34:00.122-07:00A New LawLet there be a ban on every holiday.<br />
No ringing in the new year.<br />
No fireworks doodling the warm night air.<br />
No holly on the door. I say<br />
let there be no more.<br />
For many are not here who were here before.<br />
<br />
Greg Delanty Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-32406761148557589432013-07-31T19:43:00.000-07:002013-07-31T19:43:00.684-07:00Dear Miss Emily (by James Galvin)I knew the end would be gone before I got there.<br />
After all, all rainbows lie for a living.<br />
And as you have insisted, repeatedly,<br />
The difference between death and the<i> Eternal </i><br />
<i>Present</i> is about as far as one<br />
Eyelash from the next, not wished upon.<br />
Rainbows are not forms or stories, are they?<br />
They are not doors ajar so much as far-<br />
Flung situations without true beginnings<br />
Or any ends--why bother--unless, as you<br />
Suggest--repeatedly---there's nothing wrong<br />
With this life, and we should all stop whining.<br />
So I shift my focus now on how to end<br />
A letter. In XOXOXO,<br />
For example, Miss, which are the hugs<br />
And which the kisses? Does anybody know?<br />
I could argue either way: the O's<br />
Are circles of embrace, the X is someone<br />
Else's star burning inside your mouth;<br />
Unless the O is a mouth that cannot speak,<br />
Because, you know, it's busy.<br />
X is the crucifixion all embraces<br />
Are, here at the nowhere of the rainbow's end,<br />
Where even light has failed its situation,<br />
Slant the only life it ever had,<br />
Where even the most gallant sunset can't<br />
Hold back for more than a nonce the rain-laden<br />
Eastern sky of night. It's clear. It's clear.<br />
X's are both hugs and kisses, O's<br />
Where stars that died gave out, gave up, gave in--<br />
Where no one meant the promises they made.<br />
Oh, and one more thing. I send my love<br />
However long and far it takes--through light,<br />
Through time, thorough all the faithlessness of men,<br />
James Augustin Galvin,<br />
<br />
X,<br />
<br />
His mark. Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-2241711839089155492013-07-28T19:30:00.000-07:002013-07-28T19:30:00.187-07:00He Foretells His Passing<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">I can imagine, years from now, your coming back</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">to this high, old, white house. "Home" I shouldn't say</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">because we can't predict who'll live here with a different </span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;"> name. </span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">How tall the birches will be then. Will you look up</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">from the road past the ash for light in the study windows</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">upstairs and down? Go climb the black maple as first</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">in new sneakers you walked forty feet in air</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">and saw the life to come. Don't forget the cats. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Because you grow away from a house, no matter how much you </span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;"> come back,</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">if the people you love are elsewhere, or if the reason is, </span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;"> say,</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">nostalgia, don't worry about small changes or lost names.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Sit down for a minute under the tallest birch. Look up</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">at the clouds reflected in the red barn's twisted window.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Lean on the wall. Hear our voices as at first</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">they shook the plaster, laughed, then burned in the dry air</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">like a wooden house. I imagine you won't forget the cats.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f9cb9c;">by F. D. Reeve</span>Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-1113922610278577112013-07-21T05:30:00.004-07:002013-07-21T05:30:30.143-07:00My 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.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
~Hart Crane</div>
Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-84529646826479971182013-07-17T05:14:00.000-07:002013-07-17T05:14:00.244-07:00When Ecstasy Is InconvenientFeign a great calm;<br />
all gay transport soon ends.<br />
Chant: who knows—<br />
flight's end or flight's beginning<br />
for the resting gull?<br />
<br />
Heart, be still.<br />
Say there is money but it rusted;<br />
say the time of moon is not right for escape.<br />
It's the color in the lower sky<br />
too broadly suffused,<br />
or the wind in my tie.<br />
<br />
Know amazedly how<br />
often one takes his madness<br />
into his own hands<br />
and keeps it.<br />
<br />
--Lorine Niedecker Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-89404972055869418042013-07-13T17:20:00.001-07:002013-07-13T17:20:46.822-07:00on the beach<h5 class="uiStreamMessage userContentWrapper" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}">
<span class="messageBody"><span class="userContent">so let’s say i ride this giant seahorse into the ocean…<br /> i will cross paths with a red balloon which reminds me<br /> of the city where i was born and it will lilt and bob<br /> over the waves so whimsically that there will be<br /> no way for me to develop my gills. and, after that --<br /> <br /> the waters’ wills cannot do much to convince me<br /> of my being seaworthy and this giant seahorse will<br /> sense something amiss and throw me as soon<br /> as i loose my grip. not much for bridles, not much for<br /> sympathy, this giant seahorse whinnies and grimaces.<br /> he says, “i wanted to have your children.”<br /> <br /> i will be able to catch the sun, in a fraction of a second,<br /> glowing on the other side of that red balloon, so i will<br /> curse myself for ever having laid eyes on the mirror-ball<br /> ocean, for being so easily tempted by gigantic curlicue<br /> hippocampus, for screaming jubilant into each crest<br /> however many hundreds of thousands of fathoms<br /> it took me from land:<br /> <br /> there are no red balloons, under there and no cities<br /> to be born in. there is no sun and no waves upon which<br /> it could dance. were i to climb aback and ride this giant seahorse<br /> into the ocean, i would not be able to say goodbye.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> -Iris Appelquist</span></span></h5>
Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-85669895859446893662013-07-10T07:53:00.002-07:002013-07-10T08:05:03.781-07:00Burning the Old YearLetters swallow themselves in seconds.<br />
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,<br />
transparent scarlet paper,<br />
sizzle like moth wings,<br />
marry the air.<br />
<br />
So much of any year is flammable,<br />
lists of vegetables, partial poems.<br />
Orange swirling flame of days,<br />
so little is a stone.<br />
<br />
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,<br />
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.<br />
I begin again with the smallest numbers.<br />
<br />
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,<br />
only the things I didn’t do<br />
crackle after the blazing dies.<br />
<br />
--Naomi Shihab Nye Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-19178788754939445002013-06-20T20:44:00.000-07:002013-06-20T20:44:04.038-07:00Another Feeling<span itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/CreativeWork"></span><br />
<div class="KonaBody">
Once you saw a drove of young pigs<br />crossing the highway. One of them<br />pulling his body by the front feet,<br />the hind legs dragging flat.<br />Without thinking,<br />you called the Humane Society.<br />They came with a net and went for him.<br />They were matter of fact, uniformed;<br />there were two of them,<br />their truck ominous, with a cage.<br />He was hiding in the weeds. It was then<br />you saw his eyes. He understood.<br />He was trembling.<br />After they took him, you began to suffer regret.<br />Years later, you remember his misfit body<br />scrambling to reach the others.<br />Even at this moment, your heart<br />is going too fast; your hands sweat.
<br />
<br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="poet" itemprop="author">
Ruth Stone</div>
Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-62258812635118967062013-06-20T08:45:00.000-07:002013-06-20T08:45:00.540-07:00Eve, AfterDid she know<br />
there was more to life<br />
than lions licking the furred<br />
ears of lambs,<br />
fruit trees dropping<br />
their fat bounty,<br />
the years droning on<br />
without argument?<br />
<br />
Too much quiet<br />
is never a good sign.<br />
Isn't there always<br />
something itching<br />
beneath the surface?<br />
<br />
But what could she say?<br />
The larder was full,<br />
and they were beautiful,<br />
their bodies new<br />
as the day they were made.<br />
<br />
Each morning the same<br />
flowers broke through<br />
the rich soil, the birds sang,<br />
again, in perfect pitch.<br />
<br />
It was only at night,<br />
when they lay together in the dark,<br />
that it was almost palpable -<br />
the vague sadness, unnamed.<br />
<br />
Foolishness, betrayal,<br />
- call it what you will. What a relief<br />
to feel the weight<br />
fall into her palm. And after,<br />
not to pretend anymore<br />
that the terrible calm<br />
was Paradise.<br />
<br />
- Danusha LamerisHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-30241458012384027532013-06-18T07:29:00.003-07:002013-06-18T07:29:38.960-07:00Complaint of Achilles' HeelEveryone's so quick to blame my<br />tenderness. My wound opening like a mouth <br />to kiss an arrow's steel beak.<br /><br />A beautiful man, now, plants his face<br />in Trojan sand while I tell<br />the secrets of his body--<br /><br />make the ground red with truth.<br />Red with the death of Achilles, felled<br />by an arrow's bite when nothing--<br /><br />nothing--could puncture his Kevlar skin.<br />Everyone skips ahead to the moral: don't<br />be a heel. For just one day I felt<br /><br />sun where the chafing bonds of sandal<br />should have been. Without me, he'd be<br />just more fodder for the cannon. <br /><br />I made him a hero, Troy's poster<br />boy. Everyone forgets I was part of him,<br />I needed him--that even as he died, <br /><br />I tasted each pulse--<br />that I could not hold back its rush of red<br />birds or the season to which they flew.<br /><br /><br />~ Charles JensenHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-33892904521914069262013-06-15T20:42:00.000-07:002013-06-15T20:42:00.771-07:00If You Forget MeI want you to know
<br />one thing.
<br />
<br />You know how this is:
<br />if I look
<br />at the crystal moon, at the red branch
<br />of the slow autumn at my window,
<br />if I touch
<br />near the fire
<br />the impalpable ash
<br />or the wrinkled body of the log,
<br />everything carries me to you,
<br />as if everything that exists,
<br />aromas, light, metals,
<br />were little boats
<br />that sail
<br />toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
<br />
<br />Well, now,
<br />if little by little you stop loving me
<br />I shall stop loving you little by little.
<br />
<br />If suddenly
<br />you forget me
<br />do not look for me,
<br />for I shall already have forgotten you.
<br />
<br />If you think it long and mad,
<br />the wind of banners
<br />that passes through my life,
<br />and you decide
<br />to leave me at the shore
<br />of the heart where I have roots,
<br />remember
<br />that on that day,
<br />at that hour,
<br />I shall lift my arms
<br />and my roots will set off
<br />to seek another land.
<br />
<br />But
<br />if each day,
<br />each hour,
<br />you feel that you are destined for me
<br />with implacable sweetness,
<br />if each day a flower
<br />climbs up to your lips to seek me,
<br />ah my love, ah my own,
<br />in me all that fire is repeated,
<br />in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
<br />my love feeds on your love, beloved,
<br />and as long as you live it will be in your arms
<br />without leaving mine.<br />
<br />
--Pablo Neruda Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-34736767842258525702013-06-15T05:57:00.007-07:002013-06-15T05:57:57.332-07:00The FlightLook back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,<div>
Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,<br />Let our flight be far in sun or blowing rain--<br /><i>But what if I heard my first love calling me again?</i><br /><br />Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,<br />Take me far away to the hills that hide your home;<br />Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door--<br /><i>But what if I heard my first love calling me once more?</i><br /><br /> ~Sara Teasdale</div>
Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-72851735887580548122013-06-08T05:08:00.004-07:002013-06-08T05:08:59.280-07:00InlandPeople that build their houses inland,<br /> People that buy a plot of ground<br />Shaped like a house, and build a house there,<br /> Far from the sea-board, far from the sound<br /><br />Of water sucking the hollow ledges,<br /> Tons of water striking the shore,--<br />What do they long for, as I long for<br /> One salt smell of the sea once more?<br /><br />People the waves have not awakened,<br /> Spanking the boats at the harbour's head,<br />What do they long for, as I long for,--<br /> Starting up in my inland bed,<br /><br />Beating the narrow walls, and finding<br /> Neither a window nor a door,<br />Screaming to God for death by drowning,--<br /> One salt taste of the sea once more?<br /><br /><br />~Edna St. Vincent MillayHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-77252400285205812572013-05-17T06:42:00.005-07:002013-05-17T06:42:52.160-07:00L'Avenir est Quelque ChoseAll day for too long<br />everything I've thought to say<br />has been about umbrellas, <br />how I can't remember how<br />I came to possess whatever weird one<br />I find in my hand, like now, <br />how they hang there on brass hooks<br />in the closet like failed actors,<br />each one tiny or too huge,<br />like ideas, always needing<br />to be shaken off and folded up<br />before we can properly forget them on the train.<br />Most of my predictions are honestly <br />just hopes: a sudden sundress in March, <br />regime change in the North, the one where Amanda <br />wins the big book award from the baby boomers.<br />There's that green and white umbrella<br />the cereal company interns handed us <br />outside the doomed ball game,<br />the one just for sun,<br />the one with the wooden handle<br />as crooked as the future<br />that terrifies me whenever one of us uses it <br />as a stand-in for a dance partner.<br />You once opened it in the living room<br />so Scarlett could have a picnic<br />beneath something that felt to her like a tent<br />as it felt to me like my prediction<br />we would live forever was already true.<br />When I want to try to understand now<br />I tend to look up and how<br />truth be untold, I might see nothing <br />more than a few thousand pinholes in black nylon,<br />it's enough to get you to Greece and back,<br />or something to kiss beneath,<br />who knows how this is going to play out?<br />I know you won't ever be able to say<br />exactly what you're feeling either,<br />the way worry might pop open overhead<br />like fireworks oozing pure midnight --<br />will we ever see the sun? --<br />the way we're sure to pull closer <br />to whatever's between us, the rain playing <br />the drum that's suddenly us. <br /><br /><br />~Dobby GibsonHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-25605221377860774312013-04-25T06:14:00.002-07:002013-04-25T06:14:23.718-07:00SpentLate August morning I go out to cut<br />spent and faded hydrangeas--washed <br />greens, russets, troubled little auras <br /><br />of sky as if these were the very silks <br />of Versailles, mottled by rain and ruin<br />then half-restored, after all this time...<br /><br />When I come back with my handful <br />I realize I've accidentally locked the door,<br />and can't get back into the house.<br /><br />The dining room window's easiest;<br />crawl through beauty bush and spirea, <br />push aside some errant maples, take down <br /><br />the wood-framed screen, hoist myself up. <br />But how, exactly, to clamber across the sill <br />and the radiator down to the tile?<br /><br />I try bending one leg in, but I don't fold <br />readily; I push myself up so that my waist <br />rests against the sill, and lean forward, <br /><br />place my hands on the floor and begin to slide <br />down into the room, which makes me think <br />this was what it was like to be born: <br /><br />awkward, too big for the passageway...<br />Negotiate, submit? <br /> When I give myself<br />to gravity there I am, inside, no harm,<br /><br />the dazzling splotchy flowerheads<br />scattered around me on the floor.<br />Will leaving the world be the same<br /><br />--uncertainty as to how to proceed, <br />some discomfort, and suddenly you're <br />--where? I am so involved with this idea <br /><br />I forget to unlock the door, <br />so when I go to fetch the mail, I'm locked out <br />again. Am I at home in this house, <br /><br />would I prefer to be out here, <br />where I could be almost anyone? <br />This time it's simpler: the window-frame, <br /><br />the radiator, my descent. Born twice <br />in one day! <br /> In their silvered jug,<br />these bruise-blessed flowers: <br /><br />how hard I had to work to bring them <br />into this room. When I say spent, <br />I don't mean they have no further coin.<br /><br />If there are lives to come, I think<br />they might be a littler easier than this one.<br /><br /><br /><br />~Mark DotyHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-12932675714540323042013-03-30T05:39:00.004-07:002013-03-30T05:39:29.615-07:00Gapped Sonnet<br />
Between the blinds Past the coded locks<br />Past the slanted gold bars of the day<br />Smelling of all-night salt rain on the docks<br />Of grief Of birth Of bergamot Of May<br /><br />In the wind that lifts the harbor litter<br />Wet against my fingers in a dream<br />Salvaging among the tideline's bitter<br />gleanings Generous Exigent Lush and lean<br /><br />Your voice A tune I thought I had forgotten<br />The taste of cold July brook on my tongue<br />A fire built on thick ice in the winter<br />The place where lost and salvaged meet and fit<br />The cadences a class in grief is taught in<br />The sound when frozen rivers start to run<br /><br /><br />~ Suzanne GardinierHannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-17995128578415417192013-03-03T06:18:00.000-08:002013-03-03T06:18:00.072-08:00#258There's a certain Slant of light,<br />Winter Afternoons -<br />That oppresses, like the Heft<br />Of Cathedral Tunes -<br /><br />Heavenly Hurt, it gives us -<br />We can find no scar,<br />But internal differences,<br />Where the Meanings, are -<br /><br />None may teach it - Any -<br />'Tis the Seal Despair -<br />An imperial affliction<br />Sent us of the Air -<br /><br />When it comes, the Landscape listens -<br />Shadows - hold their breath -<br />When it goes 'tis like the Distance<br />On the look of Death -<div>
<br /></div>
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~Emily Dickinson</div>
Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026514142610484443.post-40540148134330576182013-03-01T06:01:00.001-08:002013-03-01T06:03:18.514-08:00You Can't Have It AllBut you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands <br />
gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger <br />
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. <br />
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look <br />
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite <br />
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, <br />
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love, <br />
though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam <br />
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys <br />
until you realize foam's twin is blood. <br />
You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs, <br />
so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind, <br />
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness, <br />
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you <br />
all roads narrow at the border. <br />
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, <br />
and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave <br />
where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead, <br />
but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands <br />
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful <br />
for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful <br />
for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels <br />
sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts, <br />
for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream, <br />
the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand. <br />
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, <br />
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping <br />
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise. <br />
You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd <br />
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, <br />
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards, <br />
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, <br />
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind <br />
as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you, <br />
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond <br />
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas <br />
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. <br />
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's, <br />
it will always whisper, you can't have it all, <br />
but there is this.<br />
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~Barbara Ras</div>
Hannah and Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304267075872955240noreply@blogger.com0