I dare not ask of the moon its light

I dare not ask of the moon its light

I dare not ask of the moon its light,
Or it may shine all the day
And benumb those in its way,
Till the ice-glow turns to common sight.

I dare not ask of the sun its heat,
Or it may burn through the night
And steal from lovers and vagrants the right
To romance the dusk in the street.

I dare not ask of the rain its tears,
Or it may drown every joy,
Flooding and rushing and charging to cloy
Jupiter’s blessings to fears.

I dare not ask of my love his care
Or he may lavish it on me,
Answering only to my plea;
I should rather sink to a sea of despair
Than secure an owed love to me.

11.30.05
crystal l.

Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I Would Live In Your Love

I like poems that are rife with double meanings, poems with impossible rhythm, poems with similes that make me think in new dimensions.

But sometimes... sometimes a poem comes along that is so pure in its simplicity that I fall in love with it almost against my will. I shouldn't like a poem like this--so basic, so one-leveled. But it makes me cry, it's so uncomplicated and wide-eyed and innocently courageous. The poet knows exactly what she is saying.

I Would Live In Your Love
by Sara Teasdale

I would live in your love
as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes,
drawn down by each wave that recedes;

I would empty my soul of the dreams
that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats,
I would follow your soul as it leads.

For the Beauty of the Earth

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies;
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour,
Of the day and of the night;
Hill and vale and tree and flow'r,
Sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight;
For the mystic harmony,
Linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child;
Friends on Earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For Thy church that evermore,
Lifteth holy hands above;
Off'ring up on ev'ry shore,
Her pure sacrifice of love;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

--Folliott S. Pierpoint, 1864

Keeping Things Whole

Keeping Things Whole
by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

The Simple Truth

What is the truth that stays in the back of your throat, that you've never uttered? The truth you have no words for? The truth you live on?

The Simple Truth
by Philip Levine

I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes,
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt.
Then I walked through the dried fields
on the edge of town. In middle June the light
hung on in the dark furrows at my feet,
and in the mountain oaks overhead the birds
were gathering for the night, the jays and mockers
squawking back and forth, the finches still darting
into the dusty light. The woman who sold me
the potatoes was from Poland; she was someone
out of my childhood in a pink spangled sweater and sunglasses
praising the perfection of all her fruits and vegetables
at the road-side stand and urging me to taste
even the pale, raw sweet corn trucked all the way,
she swore, from New Jersey. "Eat, eat" she said,
"Even if you don't I'll say you did."
Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.
My friend Henri and I arrived at this together in 1965
before I went away, before he began to kill himself,
and the two of us to betray our love. Can you taste
what I'm saying? It is onions or potatoes, a pinch
of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious,
it stays in the back of your throat like a truth
you never uttered because the time was always wrong,
it stays there for the rest of your life, unspoken,
made of that dirt we call earth, the metal we call salt,
in a form we have no words for, and you live on it.

As kingfishers catch fire

Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Victorian poet in era, but nearly Modern in skill and vision. Virtually unknown in his lifetime, his poems are now recognized for their use of "sprung rhythm," a system of meter that Hopkins himself created that captures the natural inflections and tones in speech and capitalizes on them, as well as "inscape," "the unified complex of characteristics that give each thing its uniqueness and that differentiate it from other things," and "instress," "either the force of being which holds the inscape together or the impulse from the inscape which carries it whole into the mind of the beholder." Inscape can be succinctly described as the innate essence of a thing; instress as the impression the thing communicates to the seer. These visionary elements are all wrapped up in one of my favorite poems, "As kingfishers catch fire." Read it aloud and listen to the flawless rhythm:

As kingfishers catch fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is--
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

The force that through the green fuse...

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
by Dylan Thomas

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Midnight Gladness

Midnight Gladness
by Denise Levertov
"Peace be upon each thing my eye takes in,
Upon each thing my mouth takes in." --Carmina Gadelica

The pleated lampshade, slightly askew,
dust a silverish muting of the lamp's fake brass.
My sock-monkey on the pillow, tail and limbs asprawl,
weary after a day of watching sunlight
prowl the house like a wolf.
Gleams of water in my bedside glass.
Miraculous water, so peacefully
waiting to be consumed.

The day's crowding arrived
at this abundant stillness. Each thing
given to the eye before sleep, and water
at my lips before darkness. Gift after gift.