Dog Star

Take today. I want there
            to be less
of everything—wind

& worry, of leaves
            littering the ground
& love letters, addressee

unknown. Return
            to sender—
this, my quarrel

with what
            must be
told. No,

I insist, No.

Yet the wind won’t
            go away 
so easily, the stars remain

& do not grey—
            the boy looking
up into them thinks

he’s seeing them first
            tonight—it’s true,
here the sky & moon

do meet
            in an overgrown field—
nothing here 

tall enough to pretend
            to reach—even him
amazed at the blue,

even you.

Kevin Young

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can't beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you. 

Charles Bukowski

For My Unwritten Poems

I write a poem for my unwritten poems,
for those that lie still in the rigid rest of nothingness,
as in the rest of reason—unemerged ideas.

How good the word is that has not yet been pronounced,
growing to its maturity in beds of silence
like the corn kernel in the field. 
Tomorrow perhaps the sun will crawl out
from the wind-swept, snowed-in heights,
and the seed
and the word
will rise into the blossoming beauty
of visible being.
Tomorrow perhaps there will be pain in the renewed white heat
of spring’s ascent towards bloom.

How good the kernel is,
that hibernates through years’ becoming
in the peace of its own essence,
beneath the earth,
like the bear after months of sleep— 
waiting, expecting
to awaken. 

Itshe Slutsky 

Upon Awakening

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours

ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin,

we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be

divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.

Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties

with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our

thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our

thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may

not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask

God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We

relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often

surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this

for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional

inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind.

Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious

contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be

inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all

sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that

our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the

plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer

that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to

be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such

problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and

are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may

ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are

careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of usSaddlebackclub.com

have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You

can easily see why.

Meta 

The feel of a much needed hug in a moment of sorrow

An unexpected helping hand from the stranger

The curl of the tiniest of fingers wrapped trustingly around your own

A gentle breeze on the cusp of Autumn

And the way a leaf  flies against it

The acrid scent of dying sugar maple

Hurried against an ombre October sunset

How the moon fills the sky

And lights a child’s face when she sees it

The way giggles sound sweeter when hurled against the din

Of a tide rising at their feet

The curious curl of a mustached lip smiling across the Metro

The extended hand on the crowded, too fast jitney

The arms carrying the wounded

And the hearts carrying their prayers

The church bell in the distance

And the train whistle calling memory home

All the tender places we land

In our journeys

Glances that smile

Whispers that remind you

Touches that feather sweetness

Compassion and care

These moments

When life unfurls sorrows

Yields weariness

Beckons the best of us

Burrows to the core

Sways in endless fields of  blossoms

You are the wind, the leaf, the tree

You are the raging ocean inviting giggles

You are the blessed setting sun

Ablaze in fiery colors

You are the hum of  home and the traveler

You are the dying and the giver of  Life

You are the sun and the moon and the stars

You are the promise that moves mountains

You are all that is good and loving and kind

You are Life and Life Everlasting

I AM You and You are Me

We are one unto each other

We are the Thing unto Itself

Rev. Robin G. Wright

Knucklehead Learns a New Word

I'm sorry it wasn't till the end of the year

that I asked you to write about yourselves.

 

You filled pages in May and June, my arm

and wrist were sore from writing

wow and oh my goodness in the margins

 

as you shared stories from your lives,

about the times you fell in love

or lost somebody or learned to ride a bike.

 

And so many of you wrote about your mothers

as so many of the boys and girls I've taught since

have written about their mothers.

 

To my mother, for my mother. I've read these words

over and over for fifteen years and still

they move me. And that year, my first

 

time craning my neck to read them, I didn't

understand how holy it was, what I was doing,

holier than the masses I attended

 

at the mission, than the confessions I made or the readings

I assigned you: Dante and the Bible and Huckleberry Finn.

I wasted so many words and days, bleeding

 

the clock down, forcing your silence. When you broke it,

Ay Maestro! You would say. Tell us something new.

Now I can't remember anything I said. I remember

 

it felt strange not to know what word would come

next. I remember thinking I did not like

letting go control.

 

And on the radios blasting as I walked home I heard

Pasame la botella and you singing along

 

Voy a beber en nombre de ella

and whizzing by me too on the bikes

 

you'd long since learned to ride.

Ay Maestro! Ay Dante! you'd call out,

 

A smile and a laugh at my nickname

but yes, even the snicker's a grace, I realize now.

 

I don't have the yearbook anymore from '05-'06

but I bet some of you do, some of you

 

were on student council, right?

Put us back in touch.

 

I want more than regret

for my first seven months as your teacher,

 

want more than the cliché—you gave me

more than I gave you—that's not enough

 

though it's certainly true. There's another,

maybe better: Words can travel a thousand miles.

 

And what I'm thinking about now

is the 5 or 10 or 20

 

your mothers traveled for our first

parent teacher conferences. How nervous

 

I was, and did not know yet

how much you loved them.

 

For the Spanish speaking I knew enough

to say es un privilegio a enseñar

 

a su hijo. It is a privilege

to teach your son.

 

Even then, slow as I was to see

how holy it all was,

 

I saw that. Privilegio. I say it still

in Spanish that hasn't got much better,

 

to parents of boys and girls

who speak that tongue. Es un privilegio.

 

Privilegio. PRIV - IL - LAY - HEE - OH.

the word lighter in Spanish than English,

 

floating through tongue and teeth.

I learned it, among many other things,

 

my first year, with you.

Zach Czaia