“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Gazebo Chairs (2018) Pamela Morris
Oil on canvas
~~~~~~~~~
The Chairs That No One Sits In
by Billy Collins
You see them on porches and on lawns
down by the lakeside,
usually arranged in pairs implying a couple
who might sit there and look out
at the water or the big shade trees.
The trouble is you never see anyone
sitting in these forlorn chairs
though at one time it must have seemed
a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.
Sometimes there is a little table
between the chairs where no one
is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.
It might be none of my business,
but it might be a good idea one day
for everyone who placed those vacant chairs
on a veranda or a dock to sit down in them
for the sake of remembering
whatever it was they thought deserved
to be viewed from two chairs
side by side with a table in between.
The clouds are high and massive that day.
The woman looks up from her book.
The man takes a sip of his drink.
Then there is nothing but the sound of their looking,
the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird
then another, cries of joy or warning—
it passes the time to wonder which.
Like This
Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the night sky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this?
If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
or what “God’s fragrance” means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this?
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to “die for love,” point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuu.
How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us.
Like this.
From ‘The Essential Rumi’, Translations
by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
Like the Water
by Wendell Berry
Like the water
of a deep stream,
love is always too much.
We did not make it.
Though we drink till we burst,
we cannot have it all,
or want it all.
In its abundance
it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill,
and sleep,
while it flows
through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us,
except we keep returning to its rich waters
thirsty.
We enter,
willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.
The Sweet Sound Of Bees
by T.E. Ballard
Could you love a bee
that buzzed, tickled your ear,
brought tiny legs up to lips,
while amber honey dripped
down your breast?
And if he followed it there
carried it down
to the place where you open
like flowers, clear petals. If wings
grew tongues, and he said
you were enough
the very essence of you
that he could live, grow
in the sweet sugar of your hip.
Would you then turn and walk away?
Say he is not a man with legs,
speak of spiders or ants
who would deny you both a place.
What if these were not reasons
just something you said,
for the hum had grown so sweet,
you realized an ability to sting.
The Origins of Idiosyncrasy II
Miguel Rivera
"This complex work is the result of overlaying of images. The object’s color scheme is primarily golden yellow, pale blue, burgundy, white and black. The image is so complicated that it is somewhat difficult to read all of the layers. The overall image has a structure of linked geometric lines superimposed upon it and a spiraling linear vortex motif begins in the lower right corner, tilts and expands as it moves toward the upper left lower portion of the print."
Love’s Gleaning Tide
by William Morris
Draw not away thy hands, my love,
With wind alone the branches move,
And though the leaves be scant above
The Autumn shall not shame us.
Say; Let the world wax cold and drear,
What is the worst of all the year
But life, and what can hurt us, dear,
Or death, and who shall blame us?
Ah, when the summer comes again
How shall we say, we sowed in vain?
The root was joy, the stem was pain
The ear a nameless blending.
The root is dead and gone, my love,
The stem’s a rod our truth to prove;
The ear is stored for nought to move
Till heaven and earth have ending.
How Will You Kiss?
by Judith Pordon
How Will You Kiss?
Lilt me your lips,
our lost breath intermingling.
Synchronize our silence
as lazy hours ease by.
Waft cocoa, hazelnut, cinnamon,
scents around me.
Tremble with me
in paralyzing pauses.
I may no longer breathe
without breathing you.
Autumn Butterfly
Pablo Neruda
The butterfly dances
and burns – with the sun – sometimes,
flits and flies flaring in a swirl,
now still,
on a leaf that rocks it.
They said, “You have nothing.
Not this sickness. You persist.”
I said nothing either.
And it is past the hour of the harvest.
Today a hand of anguish
filled the autumn sky.
And into my soul the fall leaves pushed.
They said, “You have nothing.
Not this sickness. You persist.”
It was the hour of the scythe.
The sun, now,
convalesced.
Everything leaves this life, my friends.
It leaves or perishes.
It leaves the hand that beckons.
It leaves or perishes.
It leaves the rose you loosen.
And the mouth that gives you a kiss.
Water, shadow and vase.
It leaves or perishes.
It is past the hour of the scythe.
The sun, now, convalesced.
Its warm tongue enveloped me.
And then I said: “-You persist.”
The butterfly dances,
shudders,
disappears.
Maverick Mist 