First Lesson by Philip Booth

Lie back, daughter, let your head

be tipped back in the cup of my hand.

Gently, and I will hold you. Spread

your arms wide, lie out on the stream

and look high at the gulls. A dead-

man's-float is face down. You will dive

and swim soon enough where this tidewater

ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe

me, when you tire on the long thrash

to your island, lie up, and survive.

As you float now, where I held you

and let go, remember when fear

cramps your heart what I told you:

lie gently and wide to the light-year

stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you. 

A Slice of Actual Light by James Crews

And then one day, life placed

a slice of actual light on your plate

instead of the usual portion of grief

you thought would be your daily meal

for the rest of your time on earth.

You just turned and saw a patch

of sun sliding up and down

the wall beside the bed, last gasp

of daylight so inviting, how could you

not reach out and touch the heat

that slipped through a momentary

crack in the clouds? Now, believe

this will keep happening, these

glimmers gathering to overtake

the long shadow of sorrow for whole

minutes, even hours at a time.

Milkweed by James Wright

While I stood here, in the open, lost in myself,
I must have looked a long time
Down the corn rows, beyond grass,
The small house,
White walls, animals lumbering toward the barn.
I look down now. It is all changed.
Whatever it was I lost, whatever I wept for
Was a wild, gentle thing, the small dark eyes
Loving me in secret.
It is here. At a touch of my hand,
The air fills with delicate creatures
From the other world.

Thank-You Note

I owe so much

to those I don’t love.

The relief as I agree

that someone else needs them more.

The happiness that I’m not

the wolf to their sheep.

The peace I feel with them,

the freedom –

love can neither give

nor take that.

I don’t wait for them,

as in window-to-door-and-back.

Almost as patient

as a sundial,

I understand

what love can’t,

and forgive

as love never would.

From a rendezvous to a letter

is just a few days or weeks,

not an eternity.

Trips with them always go smoothly,

concerts are heard,

cathedrals visited,

scenery is seen.

And when seven hills and rivers

come between us,

the hills and rivers

can be found on any map.

They deserve the credit

if I live in three dimensions,

in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space

with a genuine, shifting horizon.

They themselves don’t realize

how much they hold in their empty hands.

“I don’t owe them a thing,”

would be love’s answer

to this open question.

Wisława Szymborska

“Lately I’ve been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I want to love, and what I need to learn to love that way, and who I need to become to become the kind of love I want to be……and when I break it all down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this:  

Before I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they know they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe.  

I will keep it safe.”

 

All the time I pray to Buddha 

I keep on 

    killing mosquitoes.

                        Kobayashi Issa 

Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.

Izumi Shibiku