Praising Spring by Linda Gregg

The day is taken by each thing and grows complete.

I go out and come in and go out again,

confused by a beauty that knows nothing of delay,

rushing like fire. All things move faster

than time and make a stillness thereby. My mind

leans back and smiles, having nothing to say.

Even at night I go out with a light and look

at the growing. I kneel and look at one thing

at a time. A white spider on a peony bud.

I have nothing to give, and make a poor servant,

but I can praise the spring. Praise this wildness

that does not heed the hour. The doe that does not

stop at dark but continues to grow all night long.

The beauty in every degree of flourishing. Violets

lift to the rain and the brook gets louder than ever.

The old German farmer is asleep and the flowers go on

opening. There are stars. Mint grows high. Leaves

bend in the sunlight as the rain continues to fall.

Grinding the Lens By Linda Gregg

I am pulling myself together.

Don’t want to go on a trip.

I have painted the living room white

and taken out most of my things.

The room has never been so empty.

Just now a banging thunder

and suddenly falling rain.

I leave the typewriter and run

outside in my nightgown and take

the cotton blanket off the line.

It is summer and I am in the middle

of my life. Alone and happy.

Any Morning by William Stafford

 

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won't even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

ANTICIPATION by Ada Limon

Before I dug 
the plot 
in our yard 
before we had 
a yard, when 
grass only grew 
between stop 
signs and garbage 
cans, when I 
had one pot 
for a pepper 
And one pot 
for a roma
on the fire 
escape, I was 
planting my 
secret seeds 
inside you 
the crimson 
linen curtains 
billowing in 
liquid spring 
wind, the future
deepening 
in the heat. 

 

“I'm learning so many different ways to be quiet. There's how I stand in the lawn, that's one way. There's also how I stand in the field across from the street, that's another way because I'm farther from people and therefore more likely to be alone. There's how I don't answer the phone, and how I sometimes like to lie down on the floor in the kitchen and pretend I'm not home when people knock. There's daytime silent where I stare, and a nighttime silent when I do things. There's shower silent and bath silent and California silent and Kentucky silent and car silent and then there's the silence that comes back, a million times bigger than me, sneaks into my bones and wails and wails and wails until I can't be quiet anymore. That's how this machine works.”

We are hard by Margaret Atwood

i

We are hard on each other
and call it honesty,
choosing our jagged truths
with care and aiming them across
the neutral table.

The things we say are
true; it is our crooked
aim, our choices
turn them criminal.

ii

Of course your lies
are more amusing:
you make them new each time.

Your truths, painful and boring
repeat themselves over & over
perhaps because you own
so few of them

iii

A truth should exist,
it should not be used
like this. If I love you

is that a fact or a weapon?

iv

Does the body lie
moving like this, are these
touches, hairs, wet
soft marble my tongue runs over
lies you are telling me?

Your body is not a word,
it does not lie or
speak truth either.

It is only
here or not here.

Up by Margaret Atwood

You wake up filled with dread.
There seems no reason for it.
Morning light sifts through the window,
there is birdsong,
you can’t get out of bed.

It’s something about the crumpled sheets
hanging over the edge like jungle
foliage, the terry slippers gaping
their dark pink mouths for your feet,
the unseen breakfast— some of it
in the refrigerator you do not dare
to open— you will not dare to eat.

What prevents you? The future. The future tense,
immense as outer space.
You could get lost there.
No. Nothing so simple. The past, its density
and drowned events pressing you down,
like sea water, like gelatin
filling your lungs instead of air.

Forget all that and let’s get up.
Try moving your arm.
Try moving your head.
Pretend the house in on fire
and you must run or burn.
No, that one’s useless.
It’s never worked before.

Where is it coming from, this echo,
this huge No that surrounds you,
silent as the folds of the yellow
curtains, mute as the cheerful

Mexican bowl with its cargo
of mummified flowers?
(You chose the colours of the sun,
not the dried neutrals of shadow.
God knows you’ve tried.)

Now here’s a good one:
you’re lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?