Friday, August 13, 2021
Thursday, August 12, 2021
Update on a great book —
KENT JOHNSON'S ~ I ONCE MET ~
176 pages
Perfect bound softcover
Illustrated
New with small book label fully signed by Kent Johnson on the opening flyleaf
____________________________________
LONGHOUSE
PO Box 2454
West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Monday, August 9, 2021
GUNTER EICH ~
Inventory
This is my cap,
this is my coat,
here's my shaving gear
in a linen sack.
A can of rations:
my plate, my cup,
I've scratched my name
in the tin.
Scratched it with this
valuable nail
which I hide
from avid eyes.
In the foodsack is
a pair of wool socks
and something else that I
show to no one,
it all serves as a pillow
for my head at night.
The cardboard here lies
between me and the earth.
The lead in my pencil
I love most of all:
in the daytime it writes down
the verses I make at night.
This is my notebook,
this is my tarpaulin,
this is my towel,
this is my thread.
____________________
Gunter Eich
Valuable Nail
translated from the German by
Stuart Friebert, David Young & David Walker
Field, 1981
Saturday, August 7, 2021
MARIE HARRIS ~
Sunapee Mandala
Leave your shadow here
on the long memory of rock
that you may number among
the friends of the planet:
we are one
in summer woods
overflowing with wings,
in the fires kindled by orange lily
struck against fern flint,
one with the music of wind
played on icy birch bones,
and the promise pollen spells
across the watery mirrors
of our future.
_______________________
Marie Harris
Desire Lines
Hobblebush Books
2019
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Monday, August 2, 2021
N. SCOTT MOMADAY ~
The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee
I am a feather on the bright sky.
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain.
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water.
I am the shadow that follows a child.
I am the evening light, the luster of meadows.
I am an eagle playing with the wind.
I am a cluster of bright beads.
I am the farthest star.
I am the cold of dawn.
I am the roaring of the rain.
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow.
I am the long track of the moon in a lake.
I am a flame of four colors.
I am a deer standing away in the dusk.
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche.
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky.
I am the hunger of a young wolf.
I am the whole dream of these things.
You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth.
I stand in good relation to the gods.
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful.
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte.
You see, I am alive, I am alive.
___________________________
N. Scott Momaday
from When the Light of the
World Was Subdued, Our Songs
Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo
Norton, 2020
Sunday, August 1, 2021
Thursday, July 29, 2021
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
Monday, July 26, 2021
Sunday, July 25, 2021
Saturday, July 24, 2021
ROBERT HAYDEN ~
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
__________________________
Robert Hayden
African American Poetry
250 Years of struggle & song
Kevin Young, editor
Library of America
2020















