True Poverty

When abba Macarius was in Egypt, he found a man who had brought a beast to his cell and was stealing his possessions. He went up to the thief as though he were a traveler who did not live there and helped him to load the beast and led him on his way in peace, [...]

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Poem of the day, April 30

That Everything’s Inevitable
That everything’s inevitable.
That fate is whatever has already happened.
The brain, which is as elemental, as sane, as the rest of the processing universe is.
In this world, I am the surest thing.
Scrunched-up arms, folded legs, lovely destitute eyes.
Please insert your spare coins.
I am filling them up.
Please insert your spare vision, your vigor, your vim.
But [...]

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Poem of the day, April 29 2009

Floater
—to Dan
Maddening shadow across your line of vision—
what might be there, then isn’t, making it
hard to be on the lookout, concentrate, even
hear—well, enough of the story I’ve
given you, at least—you’ve had your fill, never
asked for this, though you were the one
to put a hand out, catch hold, not about to let [...]

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Poem of the day, April 28 2009

History of Hurricanes
Because we cannot know—
we plant crops, make love in the light of our not-knowing
A Minuteman prods cows from the Green with his musket,
his waxed paper windows snapping in the wind,
stiletto stalks in the herb garden upright—Now
blown sideways—Now weighted down in genuflection,
not toward,
And a frail man holding an Imari [...]

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Unpublished poem fragment from the early 1950s

Where are the dolls who loved me so
when I was young? . . .
Through their real eyes
blank crotches,
and play wrist-watches,
whose hands moved only when they wanted —
Their stoicism I never mastered
their smiling phrase for every occasion —
They went their rigid little ways
To meditate in a closet or a trunk
To let unforeseen emotions
glance off their glazed [...]

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Poem of the day, April 27 2009

We Address
…a lead pencil held between thumb and forefinger
of each hand forms a bridge upon which
two struggling figures, “blood all around”…
I was born in a city between colored wrappers
I was born in a city the color of steam, between two pillars, between pillars and curtains, it was up to me to pull the [...]

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Poem of the day, April 26 2009

Terezin
—a transfer camp in the Czech Republic
We rode the bus out, past fields of sunflowers
that sloped for miles, hill after hill of them blooming.
The bus was filled with old people.
On their laps women held loaves of freshly baked bread.
Men slept in their seats wearing work clothes.
You stared out the window beside me. [...]

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Poem of the day, April 25 2009

Lion and Gin
I pet my father like some big cat a hunter has set on the ground,
though I am in Iowa now and not the Great Rift Valley
and what I sense as tent canvas flapping, thick with waterproofing,
is cheap cotton
choked with starch.
Still, he is a lion on the gurney.
I talk a little to make sure [...]

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i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a [...]

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Poem of the day, April 24 2009

[In Colorado, In Oregon, upon]
In Colorado, In Oregon, upon
each beloved fork, a birthday is celebrated.
I miss each and every one of my friends.
I believe in getting something for nothing.
Push the chair, and what I can tell you
with almost complete certainty
is that the chair won’t mind.
And beyond hope,
I expect it is like this everywhere.
Music soothing people.
Change [...]

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