Not the bristle-bearded Igors bent

under burlap sacks, not peasants knee-deep

 in the rice paddy muck,

nor the serfs whose quarter-moon sickles

 make the wheat fall in waves

they don't get to eat. My friend the Franciscan

 nun says we misread

that word meek in the Bible verse that blesses them.

 To understand the meek

(she says) picture a great stallion at full gallop

 in a meadow, who—

at his master's voice—seizes up to a stunned

 but instant halt.

So with the strain of holding that great power

 in check, the muscles

along the arched neck keep eddying,

and only the velvet ears

prick forward, awaiting the next order.
Mary Karr

I do not know if the seasons remember their history or if the days and
nights by which we count time remember their own passing.
I do not know if the oak tree remembers its planting or if the pine
remembers its slow climb toward sun and stars.
I do not know if the squirrel remembers last fall's gathering or if the
bluejay remembers the meaning of snow.
I do not know if the air remembers September or if the night remembers
the moon.
I do not know if the earth remembers the flowers from last spring or if
the evergreen remembers that it shall stay so.
Perhaps that is the reason for our births -- to be the memory for
creation.
Perhaps salvation is something very different than anyone ever expected.
Perhaps this will be the only question we will have to answer:
"What can you tell me about September?"

~ Burton D. Carley ~

Grief will come to you.
Grip and cling all you want,
It makes no difference.

Catastrophe? It's just waiting to happen.
Loss? You can be certain of it.

Flow and swirl of the world.
Carried along as if by a dark current.

All you can do is keep swimming;
All you can do is keep singing.

~ Gregory Orr ~

Woke up this morning with

a terrific urge to lie in bed all day

and read. Fought against it for a minute.



Then looked out the window at the rain.

And gave over. Put myself entirely 

in the keep of this rainy morning.



Would I live my life over again?

Make the same unforgiveable mistakes?

Yes, given half a chance. Yes.
--Raymond Carver

We start by fanning out the money, colored 

like Necco wafers: pink, yellow, mint, gold.

From the first roll of the dice, differences widen:

the royal blues of Boardwalk and Park Place

look down their noses at the grapey immigrants

from Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues.

My grandparents coming from Italy in steerage

measured their gold in olive oil, not bank notes

and deeds. The man in the top hat and tuxedo

always holds the good cards. The rest of us

hope we can pay the Electric Company.

We know there is no such thing as Free Parking, 

and Bank Errors are never in our favor.

In the background, Johnny Mathis croons

Chances Are from the cracked vinyl radio.

We played for hours, in those years

before television, on the Formica table,

while my mother coaxed a chicken,

cooking all day on the back burner, to multiply

itself into many meals. The fat rose to the surface, 

a roiling ocean of molten gold.
--Barbara Crooker

They used to say we're living on borrowed

time but even when young I wondered

who loaned it to us? In 1948 one grandpa

died stretched tight in a misty oxygen tent,

his four sons gathered, his papery hand

grasping mine. Only a week before, we were fishing.

Now the four sons have all run out of borrowed time

while I'm alive wondering whom I owe

for this indisputable gift of existence.

Of course time is running out. It always

has been a creek heading east, the freight

of water with its surprising heaviness

following the slant of the land, its destiny.

What is lovelier than a creek or riverine thicket?

Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us

birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water

and all living things borrowing time.

Would I still love the creek if I lasted forever?
--Jim Harrison

it's amazing how death
is always around the corner,
or not even so far away
as that, hiding in the little pleasures
that some of us would go
so far as to say
are the only things
keeping us alive.
- Jason Schneiderman

Stumble to silence, all you uneasy things,
That pack the day with bluster and with fret.
For here is music at each window set;
Here is a cup which drips with all the springs
That ever bud a cowslip flower; a roof
To shelter till the argent weathers break;
A candle with enough of light to make
My courage bright against each dark reproof.
A hand's width of clear gold, unraveled out
The rosy sky, the little moon appears;
As they were splashed upon the paling red,
Vast, blurred, the village poplars lift about.
I think of young, lost things: of lilacs; tears;
I think of an old neighbor, long since dead.
--by Lizette Woodworth Reese

for Adrienne Rich

You came in a dream, yesterday
--The first day we met
you showed me your dark workroom
off the kitchen, your books, your notebooks.

Reading our last, knowing-last letters
--the years of our friendship
reading our poems to each other,
I would start breathing again.

Yesterday, in the afternoon,
more than a year since you died,
some words came into the air.
I looked away a second,
and they were gone,
six lines, just passing through.
--Jean Valentine

A young mother on a motor scooter stopped at a traffic
light, her little son perched on the ledge between her
legs; she in a gleaming helmet, he in a replica of it,
smaller, but the same color and just as shiny. His visor
is swung shut, hers is open.
As I pull up beside them on my bike, the mother
is leaning over to embrace the child, whispering
something in his ear, and I'm shaken, truly shaken, by
the wish, the need, to have those slim strong arms
contain me in their sanctuary of affection.
Though they call this regression, though that
implies a going back to some other state and this has
never left me, this fundamental pang of being too soon
torn from a bliss that promises more bliss, no matter
that the scooter's fenders are dented, nor that as it
idles it pops, clears its throat, growls.
--by C. K. Williams

Even now,
decades after,
I wash my face with cold water—

Not for discipline,
nor memory,
nor the icy, awakening slap,

but to practice
choosing
to make the unwanted wanted.

--Jane Hirshfield