daydreaming w/ Bob Arnold
The Present Speaks of Past Pain
It's that hour of dusk
when the sky is awash
in waning light, when, if we might
forgive each other, this would be
the hour for it.
I lay down beneath a yellow tree.
I understand I could hold on to the past
or be happy.
Then, nothing. You did not appear to me.
The sky filled with stars
that had been there already.
_____________
Maya C. Popa
Wound Is the Origin of Wonder
Norton, 2023
Robert "Mack" McCormick at work on his book in the spring of 1970. Robert "Mack" McCormick Collection, NMAH
A Music Sentence
A poet now, instead of me,
writes a poem
on the willow of distant wind.
So why does a rose in the wall
wear new petals?
A boy now, instead of us,
sets a dove flying
high toward the cloud ceiling.
So why does the forest shed all
this snow around a smile?
A bird now, instead of us,
carries a letter
from the land of the gazelle to the blue.
So why does the hunter enter the scene
and fling his arrow?
A man now, instead of us,
washes the moon
and walks over the river's crystal.
So why does color fall on the earth
and we are naked like trees?
A lover now, instead of me,
sweeps his love
into the mire of bottomless springs.
So why does the cypress stand here
like a watchman at the garden gate?
A horseman now, instead of me,
stops his horse
and dozes under the shadow of a holm oak.
So why do the dead flock
to us out of wall and closet?
______________
Mahmoud Darwish
If I Were Another
Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009
translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah
beggar child —
even in his lap
morning frost
the old hand
swats a fly
already gone
snow melting —
the thin children
of the slum
a chicken strolls
through the sitting room. . .
a long day
we start the spring
in our everyday clothes. . .
me and sparrow
_______________
A Taste of Issa
HaikuGuy. com
Years after Jane Alpert's
own classic
Growing Up Underground
(the underground is large enough)
