Poetry Break: Spring and All

Woods (M.A.Reilly)

Spring and All 

   -by William Carlos Williams 

I

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches—

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind—

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

PoetryBreak: Easter Morning in Wales

 

Wales (M.A.Reilly, May, 2014)

EASTER MORNING IN WALES 

              — by David Whyte

A garden inside me, unknown, secret,

neglected for years,

the layers of its soil deep and thick,

trees in the corners with branching arms

and the tangled briars like broken nets.

Sunrise through the misted orchard,

morning sun turns silver on the pointed twigs,

I have woken from the sleep of ages and I am not sure

if I am really seeing, or dreaming,

or simply astonished

walking towards sunrise

to have stumbled into the garden

where the stone was rolled from the tomb of longing.

…

EASTER MORNING IN WALES

From RIVER FLOW: New and Selected Poems

© David Whyte and Many Rivers PressFrom ‘Time Left Alone’ 

In ‘River Flow: New and Selected Poems’

© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

https://davidwhyte.com/collections/books-cards-and-audio/products/river-flow-new-selected-poems

#PoetryBreak: Sometimes David Whyte

David Whyte: “Sometimes” from This Human Moment on Vimeo.

#PoetryBreak: The Well of Grief

The Well of Grief

     - David Whyte (2019)

Those who will not slip beneath
     the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through its black water,
     to the place we cannot breathe,

will never know the source from which we drink,
     the secret water cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,
    the small round coins,
          thrown by those who wished for something else.

Merry Christmas

Branch Brook Park (Newark, NJ, December 2019)

XLV [Before the ice is in the pools]   Emily Dickinson

https://m.soundcloud.com/poets-org/emily-dickinson-46-before-the-ice-is-in-the-pools

Before the ice is in the pools,       Before the skaters go, Or any cheek at nightfall       Is tarnished by the snow, Before the fields have finished,       Before the Christmas tree, Wonder upon wonder       Will arrive to me! What we touch the hems of       On a summer’s day; What is only walking       Just a bridge away; That which sings so, speaks so,       When there’s no one here,— Will the frock I wept in       Answer me to wear?

Poetry Break: Cutting Loose - A Poem by William Stafford

Cypress with Birds (M.A. Reilly, Tuscany)

Cutting Loose

by William Stafford (From Dancing with Joy)

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell where it is, and you
can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path—but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on the earth, again and again.

Poetry Break: BEANNACHT

(M.A. Reilly)

BEANNACHT 

          For Josie


On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the gray window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the curach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

from: O'Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom . HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

#Poetry Break: DAME LA MANO/GIVE ME YOUR HAND

March (M.A. Reilly, 2015, from my art journal)

DAME LA MANO

        - by Gabriela Mistral

A Tasso de Silveira

Dame la mano y danzaremos;
dame la mano y me amarás.
Como una sola flor seremos,
como una flor, y nada más.

El mismo verso cantaremos,
al mismo paso bailarás.
Como una espiga ondularemos,
como una espiga, y nada mas.

Te llamas Rosa y yo Esperanza;
pero tu nombre olvidarás,
porque seremos una danza
en la colina, y nada mas.

GIVE ME YOUR HAND

For Tasso de Silveira

Give me your hand and give me your love,
give me your hand and dance with me.
A single flower, and nothing more,
a single flower is all we’ll be.

Keeping time in the dance together,
singing the tune together with me,
grass in the wind, and nothing more,
grass in the wind is all we’ll be.

I’m called Hope and you’re called Rose;
but losing our names we’ll both go free,
a dance on the hills, and nothing more,
a dance on the hills is all we’ll be.

[translations by Ursula LeGuin from her book, Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral.]