Poetry

Forest Lake

 

I was alone on a sunny shore

by the forest's pale blue lake,

in the sky floated a single cloud

and on the water a single isle.

 

The ripe sweetness of summer dripped

in beads from every tree

and straight into my opened heart

a tiny drop ran down.

                       -- Edith Sodergran (1892 - 1923)

 

 

Underwater Autumn

 

Now the summer perch flips twice and glides

a lateral fathom at the first cold rain,

the surface near to silver from a frosty hill.

Along the weed and grain of log he slides his tail.

 

Nervously the trout (his stream-toned heart

locked in the lake, his poise and nerve disgraced)

above the stirring catfish, curves in bluegill dreams

and curves beyond the sudden thrust of bass.

 

Surface calm and calm act mask the detonating fear,

the moving crayfish claw, the stare

of sunfish hovering above the cloud-stained sand,

a sucker nudging cans, the grinning maskinonge.

 

How do carp resolve the eel and terror here?

They face so many times this brown-ribbed fall of leaves

predicting weather foreign as a shark or prawn

and floating still above them in the paling sun.

                    -- Richard Hugo.

 

 

Memory

 

The wild cries

Fall through the

   Autumn Moonlight

 

But the geese

Have already gone

   -- Thomas McGrath.

 

 

 

White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field

 

Coming down

out of the freezing sky

with its depths of light,

like an angel,

or a Buddha with wings,

it was beautiful

and accurate,

striking the snow and whatever was there

with a force that left the imprint

of the tips of its wings --

five feet apart -- and the grabbing

thrust of its feet,

and the indentation of what had been running

through the white valley

of the snow ---

 

and then it rose, gracefully,

and flew back to the frozen marshes,

to lurk there,

like a little lighthouse,

in the blue shadows --

so I thought:

maybe death

isn't darkness, after all,

but so much light

wrapping itself around us ---

as soft as feather ---

that we are instantly weary

of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,

not without amazement,

and let ourselves be carried,

as through the translucence of mica,

to the river

that is without the least dapple or shadow --

that is nothing but light -- scalding, aortal light --

in which we are washed and washed

out of our bones.

Maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but light ...

            -- Mary Oliver.

 

 

Instinct

 

In the dark I travel by instinct,

through the rubble of nightmares,

groaning of monsters toward the crack of light

along your body's horizon.

I roll over on my side, take you in my nostrils

test you for shape, intention and food

as nations fall apart.

Small winds tattoo my check.

Soon they will bring mist,

a small rain to clean the world

send rainbows to dress us,

for the ceremony

to rid us of the enemy mind.

             -- Joy Harjo [Muscogee Tribe].