Poems that I love

by Wallace Stevens One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

by Jane Hirshfield I want to give myself utterly as the maple that burned and burned for three days without stinting and then in two more dropped off very leaf; as this lake that, no matter what comes to its green-blue depths, both takes and returns it. In the still heart, that refuses nothing, the world is twice-born — two earths wheeling, two heavens, two egrets reaching down into subtraction; even the fish for an instant doubled, before it is gone. I want the fish. I want the losing it all when it rains and I want the returning transparence. I want the place by the edge-flowers where the shallow sand is deceptive, where whatever steps in must plunge, and I want that plunging. I want the ones who come in secret to drink only in early darkness,’ and I want the ones who are swallowed. I want the way the water sees without eyes, hears without ears, shivers without will or fear at the gentlest touch. ...

by Thomas Merton Be still Listen to the stones of the wall. Be silent, they try To speak your   Name. Listen To the living walls. Who are you? Who Are you? Whose Silence are you?   Who (be quiet) Are you (as these stones Are quiet). Do not Think of what you are Still less of What you may one day be. Rather Be what you are (but who?) be The unthinkable one You do not know. O be still, while You are still alive, And all things live around you Speaking (I do not hear) To your own being, Speaking by the Unknown That is in you and in themselves. “I will try, like them To be my own silence: And this is difficult. The whole World is secretly on fire. The stones Burn, even the stones They burn me. How can a man be still or Listen to all things burning? How can he dare To sit with them when All their silence Is on fire?”

by Leonard Cohen Dont really know who sent me To raise my voice and say: May the lights in the land of plenty Shine on the truth some day. I dont know why I come here, Knowing as I do, What you really think of me, What I really think of you. For the millions in a prison, That wealth has set apart, For the christ who has not risen, From the caverns of the heart. For the innermost decision, That we cannot but obey - For whats left of our religion, I lift my voice and pray: May the lights in the land of plenty Shine on the truth some day.

T his morning, I started getting ready to clean up my room, pack a bag and head up to St Dot’s later in the week. Lewis Headrick, an old friend from the days when Issan lived at Hartford St, shot me a message on Facebook which turned my attention around. He said he read "Ad patrem sinensis" aloud at breakfast with his spouse, and I began looking for more of Phil Whalen’s poetry. After Phil died in 2002, Poltroon Press put the out of print, Prolegomena to a Study of the Universe up online as a kind of tribute. http://www.poltroonpress.com/whalen.html It was and is a generous and lovely act in this world of words. I take the liberty of quoting here from this short, wonderful book. (I apologize that the type-face is small. I had to reduce it in order to keep Phil’s arrangement of the lines on the page. Put on your reading glasses – it’s worth it!) From Kevin Power’s Introduction: Buddha in an early sutra sets out one of Whalen’s essential poetic princip...

by Dylan Thomas An excerpt from A Child's Christmas in Wales . While sorting my thoughts about Christmas, it hit me: at the family celebration that I have invited to, I will see the same uncles I see every year! And I am one of them. "Were there Uncles like in our house?"   "There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle and sugar fags, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in their fur-a...

by W. H. Auden You can never read too much Auden. And there is an enormous amount to read. Even though Christmas is not the time for academic lectures, for anyone who thinks that I have perhaps gone overboard on Auden, I refer you to Adam Gopnik’s article in the New Yorker: The Double Man Why Auden is an indispensable poet of our time. Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree, Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes -- Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic. The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt, And the children got ready for school. There are enough Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week -- Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot, Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully -- To love all of our relatives, and in general Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed To do ...