House: Some Instructions
by Grace Paley
If you have a house
you must think about it all the time
as you reside in the house so
it must be a home in your mind
you must ask yourself (wherever you are)
have I closed the front door
and the back door is often forgotten
not against thieves necessarily
but the wind oh if it blows
either door open then the heat
the heat you’ve carefully nurtured
with layers of dry hardwood
and a couple of opposing green
brought in to slow the fire
as well as the little pilot light
in the convenient gas backup
all of that care will be mocked because
you have not kept the house on your mind
but these may actually be among
the smallest concerns for instance
the house could be settling you may
notice the thin slanting line of light
above the doors you have to think about that
luckily you have been paying attention
the house’s dryness can be humidified
with vaporizers in each room and pots
of water on the woodstove should you leave
for the movies after dinner ask yourself
have I turned down the thermometer
and moved all wood paper away from the stove
the fiery result of excited distraction
could be too horrible to describe
now we should talk especially to Northerners
of the freezing of the pipe this can often
be prevented by pumping water continuously
through the baseboard heating system
allowing the faucet to drip drip continuously
day and night you must think about the drains
separately in fact you should have established
their essential contribution to the ordinary
kitchen and toilet life of the house
digging these drains deep into warm earth
if it hasn’t snowed by mid-December you
must cover them with hay sometimes rugs
and blankets have been used do not be
troubled by their monetary value
as this is a regionally appreciated emergency
you may tell your friends to consider
your house as their own that is
if they do not wear outdoor shoes
when thumping across the gleam of their poly-
urethaned floors they must bring socks or slippers
to your house as well you must think
of your house when you’re in it and
when you’re visiting the superior cabinets
and closets of others when you approach
your house in the late afternoon
in any weather green or white you will catch
sight first of its new aluminum snow-resistant
roof and the reflections in the cracked windows
its need in the last twenty-five years for paint
which has created a lovely design
in russet pink and brown the colors of un-
intentioned neglect you must admire the way it does not
(because of someone’s excellent decision
sixty years ago) stand on the high ridge deforming
the green profile of the hill but rests in the modesty
of late middle age under the brow of the hill with
its back to the dark hemlock forest looking steadily
out for miles toward the cloud refiguring meadows and
mountains of the next state coming up the road
by foot or auto the house can be addressed personally
House! in the excitement of work and travel to
other people’s houses with their interesting improvements
we thought of you often and spoke of your coziness
in winter your courage in wind and fire your small
airy rooms in humid summer how you nestle in spring
into the leaves and flowers of the hawthorn and the sage green
leaves of the Russian olive tree House! you were not forgotten
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Monday, March 18, 2019
"Some Questions about the Storm" by Hilda Raz
Some Questions about the Storm
by Hilda Raz
What's the bird ratio overhead?
Zero: zero. Maybe it's El Niño?
The storm, was it bad?
Here the worst ever. Every tree hurt.
Do you love trees?
Only the gingko, the fir, the birch.
Yours? Do you name your trees?
Who owns the trees? Who's talking
You presume a dialogue. Me and You.
Yes. Your fingers tap. I'm listening.
Will you answer? Why mention trees?
When the weather turned rain into ice, the leaves failed.
So what? Every year leaves fail. The cycle. Birth to death.
In the night the sound of cannon, and death everywhere.
What did you see?
Next morning, roots against the glass.
Who's talking now and in familiar language? Get real.
What's real is the broken crown. The trunk shattered.
Was that storm worse than others?
Yes and no. The wind's torque twisted open the tree's tibia.
Fool. You're talking about vegetables. Do you love the patio
tomato? The Christmas cactus?
Yes. And the magnolia on the roof, the felled crabapple, the topless
spruce.
by Hilda Raz
What's the bird ratio overhead?
Zero: zero. Maybe it's El Niño?
The storm, was it bad?
Here the worst ever. Every tree hurt.
Do you love trees?
Only the gingko, the fir, the birch.
Yours? Do you name your trees?
Who owns the trees? Who's talking
You presume a dialogue. Me and You.
Yes. Your fingers tap. I'm listening.
Will you answer? Why mention trees?
When the weather turned rain into ice, the leaves failed.
So what? Every year leaves fail. The cycle. Birth to death.
In the night the sound of cannon, and death everywhere.
What did you see?
Next morning, roots against the glass.
Who's talking now and in familiar language? Get real.
What's real is the broken crown. The trunk shattered.
Was that storm worse than others?
Yes and no. The wind's torque twisted open the tree's tibia.
Fool. You're talking about vegetables. Do you love the patio
tomato? The Christmas cactus?
Yes. And the magnolia on the roof, the felled crabapple, the topless
spruce.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Friday, March 15, 2019
"Mid-March" by Lizette Woodworth Reese
Mid-March
by Lizette Woodworth Reese
It is too early for white boughs, too late
For snows. From out the hedge the wind lets fall
A few last flakes, ragged and delicate.
Down the stripped roads the maples start their small,
Soft, ’wildering fires. Stained are the meadow stalks
A rich and deepening red. The willow tree
Is woolly. In deserted garden-walks
The lean bush crouching hints old royalty,
Feels some June stir in the sharp air and knows
Soon ’twill leap up and show the world a rose.
The days go out with shouting; nights are loud;
Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold;
The moon’s a sword of keen, barbaric gold,
Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Lizette Woodworth Reese
It is too early for white boughs, too late
For snows. From out the hedge the wind lets fall
A few last flakes, ragged and delicate.
Down the stripped roads the maples start their small,
Soft, ’wildering fires. Stained are the meadow stalks
A rich and deepening red. The willow tree
Is woolly. In deserted garden-walks
The lean bush crouching hints old royalty,
Feels some June stir in the sharp air and knows
Soon ’twill leap up and show the world a rose.
The days go out with shouting; nights are loud;
Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold;
The moon’s a sword of keen, barbaric gold,
Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
"her tin skin" by Evie Shockley
her tin skin
by Evie Shockley
i want her tin skin. i want
her militant barbie breast,
resistant, cupped, no, cocked
in the V of her elbow. i want
my curves mountainous
and locked. i want her
arabesque eyes, i want her
tar markings, her curlicues,
i want her tin skin. she
is a tree, her hair a forest
of strength. i want to be
adorned with bottles. i
want my brownness
to cover all but the silver
edges of my tin skin. my
sculptor should have made
me like her round-bellied
maker hewed her: with chain-
saw in hand, roughly. cut
away from me everything
but the semblance of tender.
let nothing but my flexed
foot, toeing childhood, tell
the night-eyed, who know
how to look, what lies within.
—after alison saar’s “compton nocturne”
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Evie Shockley
i want her tin skin. i want
her militant barbie breast,
resistant, cupped, no, cocked
in the V of her elbow. i want
my curves mountainous
and locked. i want her
arabesque eyes, i want her
tar markings, her curlicues,
i want her tin skin. she
is a tree, her hair a forest
of strength. i want to be
adorned with bottles. i
want my brownness
to cover all but the silver
edges of my tin skin. my
sculptor should have made
me like her round-bellied
maker hewed her: with chain-
saw in hand, roughly. cut
away from me everything
but the semblance of tender.
let nothing but my flexed
foot, toeing childhood, tell
the night-eyed, who know
how to look, what lies within.
—after alison saar’s “compton nocturne”
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
"Last Snow" by Heid E. Erdrich
Last Snow
by Heid E. Erdrich
Dumped wet and momentary on a dull ground
that’s been clear but clearly sleeping, for days.
Last snow melts as it falls, piles up slush, runs in first light
making a music in the streets we wish we could keep.
Last snow. That’s what we’ll think for weeks to come.
Close sun sets up a glare that smarts like a good cry.
We could head north and north and never let this season go.
Stubborn beast, the body reads the past in the change of light,
knows the blow of grief in the time of trees’ tight-fisted leaves.
Stubborn calendar of bone. Last snow. Now it must always be so.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Heid E. Erdrich
Dumped wet and momentary on a dull ground
that’s been clear but clearly sleeping, for days.
Last snow melts as it falls, piles up slush, runs in first light
making a music in the streets we wish we could keep.
Last snow. That’s what we’ll think for weeks to come.
Close sun sets up a glare that smarts like a good cry.
We could head north and north and never let this season go.
Stubborn beast, the body reads the past in the change of light,
knows the blow of grief in the time of trees’ tight-fisted leaves.
Stubborn calendar of bone. Last snow. Now it must always be so.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
"The Wife Speaks" by Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard
The Wife Speaks
by Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard
Husband, today could you and I behold
The sun that brought us to our bridal morn
Rising so splendid in the winter sky
(We though fair spring returned), when we were wed;
Could the shades vanish from these fifteen years,
Which stand like columns guarding the approach
To that great temple of the double soul
That is as one – would you turn back, my dear,
And, for the sake of Love’s mysterious dream,
As old as Adam and as sweet as Eve,
Take me, as I took you, and once more go
Towards that goal which none of us have reached?
Contesting battles which but prove a loss,
The victor vanquished by the wounded one;
Teaching each other sacrifice of self,
True immolation to the marriage bond;
Learning the joys of birth, the woe of death,
Leaving in chaos all the hopes of life—
Heart-broken, yet with courage pressing on
For fame and fortune, artists needing both?
Or, would you rather – I will acquiesce—
Since we must choose what is, and are grown gray,
Stay in life’s desert, watch our setting sun,
Calm as those statues in Egyptian sands,
Hand clasping hand, with patience and with peace,
Wait for a future which contains no past?
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard
Husband, today could you and I behold
The sun that brought us to our bridal morn
Rising so splendid in the winter sky
(We though fair spring returned), when we were wed;
Could the shades vanish from these fifteen years,
Which stand like columns guarding the approach
To that great temple of the double soul
That is as one – would you turn back, my dear,
And, for the sake of Love’s mysterious dream,
As old as Adam and as sweet as Eve,
Take me, as I took you, and once more go
Towards that goal which none of us have reached?
Contesting battles which but prove a loss,
The victor vanquished by the wounded one;
Teaching each other sacrifice of self,
True immolation to the marriage bond;
Learning the joys of birth, the woe of death,
Leaving in chaos all the hopes of life—
Heart-broken, yet with courage pressing on
For fame and fortune, artists needing both?
Or, would you rather – I will acquiesce—
Since we must choose what is, and are grown gray,
Stay in life’s desert, watch our setting sun,
Calm as those statues in Egyptian sands,
Hand clasping hand, with patience and with peace,
Wait for a future which contains no past?
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Monday, March 11, 2019
"San Marcos" by Monica McClure
San Marcos
by Monica McClure
Since I stopped the flow
Of primordial ciswhite straight men
Whom I heedlessly collect
And from whom the spring feeds
Without reason I have been
Shopping so much more
Than suits a prophet in the forest.
A man said he felt like an awful cad
But an admission as such
Does not irrigate a dry spell
Once it’s surpassed the length
Of a petty offense record
Because the body’s memory is not so
Mutated by language
And there’s very little pleasure in force
When the subject is inertia.
I used to leave as soon as
The mysterious chemistry worked out
Now I am both the one who leaves
And the one who stays
Eco-novelty is rare and common
And each design reforms
The future and the last.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Monica McClure
Since I stopped the flow
Of primordial ciswhite straight men
Whom I heedlessly collect
And from whom the spring feeds
Without reason I have been
Shopping so much more
Than suits a prophet in the forest.
A man said he felt like an awful cad
But an admission as such
Does not irrigate a dry spell
Once it’s surpassed the length
Of a petty offense record
Because the body’s memory is not so
Mutated by language
And there’s very little pleasure in force
When the subject is inertia.
I used to leave as soon as
The mysterious chemistry worked out
Now I am both the one who leaves
And the one who stays
Eco-novelty is rare and common
And each design reforms
The future and the last.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Friday, March 8, 2019
"The Danger of Writing Defiant Verse" by Dorothy Parker
The Danger of Writing Defiant Verse
by Dorothy Parker
And now I have another lad!
No longer need you tell
How all my nights are slow and sad
For loving you too well.
His ways are not your wicked ways,
He's not the like of you.
He treads his path of reckoned days,
A sober man, and true.
They'll never see him in the town,
Another on his knee.
He'd cut his laden orchards down,
If that would pleasure me.
He'd give his blood to paint my lips
If I should wish them red.
He prays to touch my finger-tips
Or stroke my prideful head.
He never weaves a glinting lie,
Or brags the hearts he'll keep.
I have forgotten how to sigh—
Remembered how to sleep.
He's none to kiss away my mind—
A slower way is his.
Oh, Lord! On reading this, I find
A silly lot he is.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Dorothy Parker
And now I have another lad!
No longer need you tell
How all my nights are slow and sad
For loving you too well.
His ways are not your wicked ways,
He's not the like of you.
He treads his path of reckoned days,
A sober man, and true.
They'll never see him in the town,
Another on his knee.
He'd cut his laden orchards down,
If that would pleasure me.
He'd give his blood to paint my lips
If I should wish them red.
He prays to touch my finger-tips
Or stroke my prideful head.
He never weaves a glinting lie,
Or brags the hearts he'll keep.
I have forgotten how to sigh—
Remembered how to sleep.
He's none to kiss away my mind—
A slower way is his.
Oh, Lord! On reading this, I find
A silly lot he is.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Thursday, March 7, 2019
"A Double Standard" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
A Double Standard
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Do you blame me that I loved him?
If when standing all alone
I cried for bread a careless world
Pressed to my lips a stone.
Do you blame me that I loved him,
That my heart beat glad and free,
When he told me in the sweetest tones
He loved but only me?
Can you blame me that I did not see
Beneath his burning kiss
The serpent’s wiles, nor even hear
The deadly adder hiss?
Can you blame me that my heart grew cold
That the tempted, tempter turned;
When he was feted and caressed
And I was coldly spurned?
Would you blame him, when you draw from me
Your dainty robes aside,
If he with gilded baits should claim
Your fairest as his bride?
Would you blame the world if it should press
On him a civic crown;
And see me struggling in the depth
Then harshly press me down?
Crime has no sex and yet to-day
I wear the brand of shame;
Whilst he amid the gay and proud
Still bears an honored name.
Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think
Your hate of vice a sham,
When you so coldly crushed me down
And then excused the man?
Would you blame me if to-morrow
The coroner should say,
A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn,
Has thrown her life away?
Yes, blame me for my downward course,
But oh! remember well,
Within your homes you press the hand
That led me down to hell.
I’m glad God’s ways are not our ways,
He does not see as man,
Within His love I know there’s room
For those whom others ban.
I think before His great white throne,
His throne of spotless light,
That whited sepulchres shall wear
The hue of endless night.
That I who fell, and he who sinned,
Shall reap as we have sown;
That each the burden of his loss
Must bear and bear alone.
No golden weights can turn the scale
Of justice in His sight;
And what is wrong in woman’s life
In man’s cannot be right.
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Do you blame me that I loved him?
If when standing all alone
I cried for bread a careless world
Pressed to my lips a stone.
Do you blame me that I loved him,
That my heart beat glad and free,
When he told me in the sweetest tones
He loved but only me?
Can you blame me that I did not see
Beneath his burning kiss
The serpent’s wiles, nor even hear
The deadly adder hiss?
Can you blame me that my heart grew cold
That the tempted, tempter turned;
When he was feted and caressed
And I was coldly spurned?
Would you blame him, when you draw from me
Your dainty robes aside,
If he with gilded baits should claim
Your fairest as his bride?
Would you blame the world if it should press
On him a civic crown;
And see me struggling in the depth
Then harshly press me down?
Crime has no sex and yet to-day
I wear the brand of shame;
Whilst he amid the gay and proud
Still bears an honored name.
Can you blame me if I’ve learned to think
Your hate of vice a sham,
When you so coldly crushed me down
And then excused the man?
Would you blame me if to-morrow
The coroner should say,
A wretched girl, outcast, forlorn,
Has thrown her life away?
Yes, blame me for my downward course,
But oh! remember well,
Within your homes you press the hand
That led me down to hell.
I’m glad God’s ways are not our ways,
He does not see as man,
Within His love I know there’s room
For those whom others ban.
I think before His great white throne,
His throne of spotless light,
That whited sepulchres shall wear
The hue of endless night.
That I who fell, and he who sinned,
Shall reap as we have sown;
That each the burden of his loss
Must bear and bear alone.
No golden weights can turn the scale
Of justice in His sight;
And what is wrong in woman’s life
In man’s cannot be right.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
"Lenten Song" by Phillis Levin
Lenten Song
by Phillis Levin
That the dead are real to us
Cannot be denied,
That the living are more real
When they are dead
Terrifies, that the dead can rise
As the living do is possible
Is possible to surmise,
But all the stars cannot come near
All we meet in an eye.
Flee from me, fear, as soot
Flies in a breeze, do not burn
Or settle in my sight,
I’ve tasted you long enough,
Let me savor
Something otherwise.
Who wakes beside me now
Suits my soul, so I turn to words
Only to say he changes
Into his robe, rustles a page,
He raises the lid of the piano
To release what’s born in its cage.
If words come back
To say they compromise
Or swear again they have died,
There’s no news in that, I reply,
But a music without notes
These notes comprise, still
As spring beneath us lies,
Already something otherwise.
by Phillis Levin
That the dead are real to us
Cannot be denied,
That the living are more real
When they are dead
Terrifies, that the dead can rise
As the living do is possible
Is possible to surmise,
But all the stars cannot come near
All we meet in an eye.
Flee from me, fear, as soot
Flies in a breeze, do not burn
Or settle in my sight,
I’ve tasted you long enough,
Let me savor
Something otherwise.
Who wakes beside me now
Suits my soul, so I turn to words
Only to say he changes
Into his robe, rustles a page,
He raises the lid of the piano
To release what’s born in its cage.
If words come back
To say they compromise
Or swear again they have died,
There’s no news in that, I reply,
But a music without notes
These notes comprise, still
As spring beneath us lies,
Already something otherwise.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
"To Be Held" by Linda Hogan
To Be Held
by Linda Hogan
To be held
by the light
was what I wanted,
to be a tree drinking the rain,
no longer parched in this hot land.
To be roots in a tunnel growing
but also to be sheltering the inborn leaves
and the green slide of mineral
down the immense distances
into infinite comfort
and the land here, only clay,
still contains and consumes
the thirsty need
the way a tree always shelters the unborn life
waiting for the healing
after the storm
which has been our life.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Linda Hogan
To be held
by the light
was what I wanted,
to be a tree drinking the rain,
no longer parched in this hot land.
To be roots in a tunnel growing
but also to be sheltering the inborn leaves
and the green slide of mineral
down the immense distances
into infinite comfort
and the land here, only clay,
still contains and consumes
the thirsty need
the way a tree always shelters the unborn life
waiting for the healing
after the storm
which has been our life.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Monday, March 4, 2019
"An Ordinary Misfortune ["She is girl. She is gravel."]" by Emily Jungmin Yoon
An Ordinary Misfortune ["She is girl. She is gravel."]
by Emily Jungmin Yoon
She is girl. She is gravel. She is grabbed. She is grabbed like handfuls of gravel. Gravel grated by water. Her village is full of gravel fields. It is 1950. She is girl. She is grabbed. She is not my grandmother, though my grandmother is girl. My grandmother’s father closes the gates. Against American soldiers, though they jump over stone walls. To a girl who is not my grandmother. The girl is gravel grabbed. Her language is gravel because it means nothing. Hands full of girl. Fields full of gravel. Korea is gravel and graves. Girl is girl and she will never be a grandmother. She will be girl, girl is gravel and history will skip her like stone over water. Oh girl, oh glory. Girl.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
by Emily Jungmin Yoon
She is girl. She is gravel. She is grabbed. She is grabbed like handfuls of gravel. Gravel grated by water. Her village is full of gravel fields. It is 1950. She is girl. She is grabbed. She is not my grandmother, though my grandmother is girl. My grandmother’s father closes the gates. Against American soldiers, though they jump over stone walls. To a girl who is not my grandmother. The girl is gravel grabbed. Her language is gravel because it means nothing. Hands full of girl. Fields full of gravel. Korea is gravel and graves. Girl is girl and she will never be a grandmother. She will be girl, girl is gravel and history will skip her like stone over water. Oh girl, oh glory. Girl.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
Friday, March 1, 2019
"Resistance" by Traci Brimhall
Resistance
by Traci Brimhall
I must be the heavy globe
of hydrangea, always bowing
by summer’s end. Must be salt,
like sadness at a burning city,
an ethical disobedience. I must be
a violet thorn of fire. These days
I don’t taste good, but I must
be singing and boneless, a lily.
I must beg for it, eyes flashing
silver as a fish. Must be a rosary
of listening. This is how I know
to love. I must hide under desks
when the forecast reads: leaves red
as meat, sleeping lions, chandelier
of bone, moon smooth as a worry
stone. I must want my life and fear
the thin justice of grass. Clouds
hunt, wound the rising tide. I must
be paradised. On my knees again.
by Traci Brimhall
I must be the heavy globe
of hydrangea, always bowing
by summer’s end. Must be salt,
like sadness at a burning city,
an ethical disobedience. I must be
a violet thorn of fire. These days
I don’t taste good, but I must
be singing and boneless, a lily.
I must beg for it, eyes flashing
silver as a fish. Must be a rosary
of listening. This is how I know
to love. I must hide under desks
when the forecast reads: leaves red
as meat, sleeping lions, chandelier
of bone, moon smooth as a worry
stone. I must want my life and fear
the thin justice of grass. Clouds
hunt, wound the rising tide. I must
be paradised. On my knees again.
Read, listen, share, create, and be on watch.
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