How do we stop the terror?
We have to imagine Sisyphus happy,
It is the most important philosophical question.
I wear my father’s face sometimes
Until I break my own heart. Like how the hope
won’t remember its wounds
no matter how many times we sacrifice
Dad, are you listening?
The best part of me
was wherever my mother’s shadow fell
Here’s the life you never wanted
as small as my childhood
Don’t worry. Have hope
& and someday will come.
I promise to forgive someday,
in your death or mine
I will know a life beyond this,
but I will never learn to let go.
When there’s nothing left,
and I am all alone—
I will see it again & again
And look down to find your own hands.
If you asked for forgiveness
& I gave it
Don’t be afraid, your daughter
is only you turned wild
trying to hope a little longer.
The white in your hair
shows the heartbreak. & remember,
hurt is still a lesson
in life. Here’s
the room with everyone in it.
The dreams we killed,
the life that was lived,
through a mirror. Here’s a story
with an infinite ending & a child
to make it continue. Yes, here’s the past,
so beautiful and liminal,
I swear, you will see all that could be—
& mistake these regrets
for a legacy.
Spring [from The Wild Iris Poem by Louise Gluck]
What suffering?
To where?
I have heard death, of course.
It was a winter of barren branches.
The birds rustle in the sun,
Something, some fluttering thing, light and wind
caressing their newness gently.
It is not so terrible,
Not so terrible as the unconscious depths,
The sea, the sky. The abyssinian deep.
Well, I think it began then. I do not fear life.
A soul, bloody and raw,
just beginning. Curving like willow branches,
bending a little. Oh, look at them.
Little creatures of the wind.
I remember their birth,
they will not.
Their burst from oblivion, pitiful and tiny and gorgeous;
Let’s not talk about their return.
Their voice, yes, sharp and loud and alive.
They cannot know their beginning,
They will only know the sunlight
glimmering on melting snow.
Above me the planes sore,
Lying in the field of warm grass
falling like the stray feather of a bird
Over the river and through the woods,
The geese squawk to one another
Towards the southern tip of the hills.
In front of me,
In the field of warmth next to two barns,
A willow tree sheltering the bench
Where he once sat.
I sigh, as the western storm rolls in.
The planes land, there joy ride is over .
I don’t know my purpose.
Over my head, I see a mermaid, heart, and a dinosaur
With a nice fresh breeze that rustles leaves and branches
The lake behind the mini forest
Slowly falling in the abyss
The dog looking for a snack
The parrot yelling random names
But in the distances,
All around me,
Is the smell of chicken soup,
Soda,
And the chit-chat of family and friends.
As I lean back, giving myself more momentum,
I see Him looking back at me.
What a beautiful sight
(from Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
-James Wright)
Beyond
A flicker of gold, she sees it shine
still dormant
in the recesses of her heart.
Bubbling and seething
in the shadow it casts, lay
a chasm
forged from solitude and naivety,
where silence deafens
and emptiness rings loud,
fading away with the perforations of
time
She looks ahead,
an entity of luminescence.
Yet day by day
she puts up another wall
blocking her light and hiding it,
to be protected
by an impenetrable fortress
blackened by weakness of years past.
Those memories burn
white hot
sending down a flurry of searing snowflakes.
So she looks up, opens her mouth,
and tastes them
She catches a glimpse of what lies ahead
destiny whipping past like a bullet
Her life has just begun
she is restless.
Found Poem from Detail of the Woods (by Siken)
Could I swim?
Would that still it? The ocean?
And if I swam out far enough? Where—
There is only the sinking. There is only the pull.
And it is calling— calling— calling—
Echo so wide I must shrink it
Must sink.
And now, permission?
Now, finally, light?
Let me tell you about darkness, fearing, at the heart of the sea
Found Poem from Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
By James Wright
Sunlight dazzles my eyes
Making me flinch and turn away,
Away from the reason I came here.
Further along the foliage thickens,
Wind dances through tree canopies
The sound of whispering leaves surrounds me
Swallowing me whole.
Stones glittering with mica and quartz
Fall away under the force of my step
To be admired by another after me.
This light is a reminder of what I lust for
A coward’s wish I hold tight
That will soon rot away.
Found Poem from Detail of the Woods (Richard Siken):
The vastness of the ocean captured me.
Endless water without a container.
There’s so much we don’t know about the ocean. Countless bodies.
Bodies of sadness stuck in a body of water. Why are we all stuck?
The tide moves with the moon. The moon controls us.
The ocean: makes us feel small.
The moon: even smaller.
What do we know about the ocean? What do we know about the moon?
Both hold shadows. Both have secrets.
At night my body is afraid of everything.
Found Poem from The Wild Iris (Louise Gluck)
My suffering ends
at the long narrow path
A dead end without return
As the folk stories say.
A falling cascade of memories,
Comes to a halt in bitter darkness.
Life glistens in the ocean waves,
so small and insignificant.
A mere soul, an embodiment of existence,
Floating in the silence of the abyss.
It comes to half,
With a sense of nothingness
It all ends, with no physical form of oneself.
The world moves in slow motion,
shifting, moving, into physicality.
A lost soul with no memories
travels without recollection.
It leaves,
It Returns
And finds itself within its confines.
The core of life,
sprouts from depths
of the lost abyss where it dwells.
Found Poem from Casabianca (Elizabeth Bishop):
Flames engulfing her,
she attempted to scream
yet nothing came out of her mouth.
Everything went flaming up around,
yet nothing came out of her mouth.
Warned not to go there
but she never heard their warnings,
now, she stood there
trying to cry out for help
But nothing came out of her mouth.
How do we stop the terror?
We have to imagine Sisyphus happy,
It is the most important philosophical question.
I wear my father’s face sometimes
Until I break my own heart. Like how the hope
won’t remember its wounds
no matter how many times we sacrifice
Dad, are you listening?
The best part of me
was wherever my mother’s shadow fell
Here’s the life you never wanted
as small as my childhood
Don’t worry. Have hope
& and someday will come.
I promise to forgive someday,
in your death or mine
I will know a life beyond this,
but I will never learn to let go.
When there’s nothing left,
and I am all alone—
I will see it again & again
And look down to find your own hands.
If you asked for forgiveness
& I gave it
Don’t be afraid, your daughter
is only you turned wild
trying to hope a little longer.
The white in your hair
shows the heartbreak. & remember,
hurt is still a lesson
in life. Here’s
the room with everyone in it.
The dreams we killed,
the life that was lived,
through a mirror. Here’s a story
with an infinite ending & a child
to make it continue. Yes, here’s the past,
so beautiful and liminal,
I swear, you will see all that could be—
& mistake these regrets
for a legacy.
Spring [from The Wild Iris Poem by Louise Gluck]
What suffering?
To where?
I have heard death, of course.
It was a winter of barren branches.
The birds rustle in the sun,
Something, some fluttering thing, light and wind
caressing their newness gently.
It is not so terrible,
Not so terrible as the unconscious depths,
The sea, the sky. The abyssinian deep.
Well, I think it began then. I do not fear life.
A soul, bloody and raw,
just beginning. Curving like willow branches,
bending a little. Oh, look at them.
Little creatures of the wind.
I remember their birth,
they will not.
Their burst from oblivion, pitiful and tiny and gorgeous;
Let’s not talk about their return.
Their voice, yes, sharp and loud and alive.
They cannot know their beginning,
They will only know the sunlight
glimmering on melting snow.
Above me the planes sore,
Lying in the field of warm grass
falling like the stray feather of a bird
Over the river and through the woods,
The geese squawk to one another
Towards the southern tip of the hills.
In front of me,
In the field of warmth next to two barns,
A willow tree sheltering the bench
Where he once sat.
I sigh, as the western storm rolls in.
The planes land, there joy ride is over .
I don’t know my purpose.
Over my head, I see a mermaid, heart, and a dinosaur
With a nice fresh breeze that rustles leaves and branches
The lake behind the mini forest
Slowly falling in the abyss
The dog looking for a snack
The parrot yelling random names
But in the distances,
All around me,
Is the smell of chicken soup,
Soda,
And the chit-chat of family and friends.
As I lean back, giving myself more momentum,
I see Him looking back at me.
What a beautiful sight
(from Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
-James Wright)
Beyond
A flicker of gold, she sees it shine
still dormant
in the recesses of her heart.
Bubbling and seething
in the shadow it casts, lay
a chasm
forged from solitude and naivety,
where silence deafens
and emptiness rings loud,
fading away with the perforations of
time
She looks ahead,
an entity of luminescence.
Yet day by day
she puts up another wall
blocking her light and hiding it,
to be protected
by an impenetrable fortress
blackened by weakness of years past.
Those memories burn
white hot
sending down a flurry of searing snowflakes.
So she looks up, opens her mouth,
and tastes them
She catches a glimpse of what lies ahead
destiny whipping past like a bullet
Her life has just begun
she is restless.
Found Poem from Detail of the Woods (by Siken)
Could I swim?
Would that still it? The ocean?
And if I swam out far enough? Where—
There is only the sinking. There is only the pull.
And it is calling— calling— calling—
Echo so wide I must shrink it
Must sink.
And now, permission?
Now, finally, light?
Let me tell you about darkness, fearing, at the heart of the sea
Found Poem from Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
By James Wright
Sunlight dazzles my eyes
Making me flinch and turn away,
Away from the reason I came here.
Further along the foliage thickens,
Wind dances through tree canopies
The sound of whispering leaves surrounds me
Swallowing me whole.
Stones glittering with mica and quartz
Fall away under the force of my step
To be admired by another after me.
This light is a reminder of what I lust for
A coward’s wish I hold tight
That will soon rot away.
Found Poem from Detail of the Woods (Richard Siken):
The vastness of the ocean captured me.
Endless water without a container.
There’s so much we don’t know about the ocean. Countless bodies.
Bodies of sadness stuck in a body of water. Why are we all stuck?
The tide moves with the moon. The moon controls us.
The ocean: makes us feel small.
The moon: even smaller.
What do we know about the ocean? What do we know about the moon?
Both hold shadows. Both have secrets.
At night my body is afraid of everything.
Found Poem from The Wild Iris (Louise Gluck)
My suffering ends
at the long narrow path
A dead end without return
As the folk stories say.
A falling cascade of memories,
Comes to a halt in bitter darkness.
Life glistens in the ocean waves,
so small and insignificant.
A mere soul, an embodiment of existence,
Floating in the silence of the abyss.
It comes to half,
With a sense of nothingness
It all ends, with no physical form of oneself.
The world moves in slow motion,
shifting, moving, into physicality.
A lost soul with no memories
travels without recollection.
It leaves,
It Returns
And finds itself within its confines.
The core of life,
sprouts from depths
of the lost abyss where it dwells.
Found Poem from Casabianca (Elizabeth Bishop):
Flames engulfing her,
she attempted to scream
yet nothing came out of her mouth.
Everything went flaming up around,
yet nothing came out of her mouth.
Warned not to go there
but she never heard their warnings,
now, she stood there
trying to cry out for help
But nothing came out of her mouth.