Gratitude: October 24, 2023

What My House Would Be If It Were A Person

This person would be an animal.

This animal would be large, at least as large

as a workhorse. It would chew cud, like cows,

having several stomachs.

No one could follow it

into the dense brush to witness

its mating habits. Hidden by fur,

its sex would be hard to determine.

Definitely it would discourage

investigation. But it would be, if not teased,

a kind, amiable animal,

confiding as a chickadee. Its intelligence

would be of a high order,

neither human nor animal, elvish.

And it would purr, though of course,

it being a house, you would sit in its lap,

not it in yours. 

Denise Levertov

#poetryfoundation

The Night Migrations

This is the moment when you see again
the red berries of the mountain ash
and in the dark sky
the birds' night migrations.

It grieves me to think
the dead won't see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.

What will the soul do for solace then?
I tell myself maybe it won't need
these pleasures anymore; 
maybe just not being is simply enough,
hard as that is to imagine. 
Louise Gluck
RIP

Gratitude: October 5, 2023

I know now the beloved
Has no fixed abode,
That each body 
She inhabits
Is only a temporary
Home.
             That she
Casts off forms
As eagerly
As lovers shed clothes.

I accept that he's
Just passing through
That flower
Or that stone.

And yet, it makes 
Me dizzy—
The way he hides
In the flow of it,
The way she shifts
In fluid motions,
Becoming other things.

I want to stop him— 
If only briefly.
I want to lure her
To the surface
And catch her
In this net of words.

Gregory Orr

*

To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That's crudely put, but...
If we're not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?

Gregory Orr