Permission Granted by David Allen Sullivan

Mary

Megan

You do not have to choose the bruised peach

or misshapen pepper others pass over.

You don't have to bury

your grandmother's keys underneath

her camellia bush as the will states.

You don't need to write a poem about

your grandfather coughing up his lung

into that plastic tube—the machine's wheezing

almost masking the kvetching sisters

in their Brooklyn kitchen.

You can let the crows amaze your son

without your translation of their cries.

You can lie so long under this

summer shower your imprint

will be left when you rise.

You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.

Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude.

Revel in the flight of birds without

dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of

raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie.

Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune

yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.

Each beat of the world's pulse demands

only that you feel it. No thoughts.

Just the single syllable: Yes ...

See the homeless woman following

the tunings of a dead composer?

She closes her eyes and sways

with the subways. Follow her down,

inside, where the singing resides.

Wage Peace by Judyth Hill

Megan

Mary

Wage Peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and fresh mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, memorize the words for thank you in 3 languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the word seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

The Truly Great by Stephen Spender

Megan

Mary

I think continually of those who were truly great.

Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history

Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns,

Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition

Was that their lips, still touched with fire,

Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song.

And who hoarded from the Spring branches

The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious, is never to forget

The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs

Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.

Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light

Nor its grave evening demand for love.

Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother

With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,

See how these names are fêted by the waving grass

And by the streamers of white cloud

And whispers of wind in the listening sky.

The names of those who in their lives fought for life,

Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.

Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun

And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Postscript by Seamus Heaney

Megan

Mary

And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you'll park or capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open 

Rain on the Roof by Janet Frame

Mary

Megan

My nephew sleeping in a basement room

has put a sheet of iron outside his window

to recapture the sound of rain falling on the roof.

I do not say to him, The heart has its own comfort for grief.

A sheet of iron repairs roofs only. As yet unhurt by the demand

that change and difference never show, he is still able

to mend damages by creating the loved rain-sound

he thinks he knew in early childhood.

Nor do I say, In the travelling life of loss

iron is a burden, that one day he must find

within himself in total darkness and silence

the iron that will hold not only the lost sound of the rain

but the sun, the voices of the dead, and all else that has gone.

Hummingbird Sleep by Coleman Barks

Megan

Mary

A hummingbird sleeps among the wonders.

Close to dark, he settles on a roosting limb

and lowers his body temperature

to within a few degrees of the air's own.

As the bird descends into torpor,

he assumes his heroic sleep posture,

head back, tilted beak pointing to the sky,

angling steep, Quixotic, Crimean.

This noctivation, the ornithologist word for it,

is very like what bears do through the winter.

Hummingbirds live the deep drop every night.

You can yell in his face and shake the branch.

Nothing. Gone. Where? What does he dream of?

He dreams he is the great air itself, the substance

he swims in every day, and the rising light

coming back to be his astonishing body.

Next Time by Joyce Sutphen

Megan

Mary

I'll know the names of all of the birds

and flowers, and not only that, I'll

tell you the name of the piano player

I'm hearing right now on the kitchen

radio, but I won't be in the kitchen,

I'll be walking a street in

New York or London, about

to enter a coffee shop where people

are reading or working on their

laptops. They'll look up and smile.

Next time I won't waste my heart

on anger; I won't care about

being right. I'll be willing to be

wrong about everything and to

concentrate on giving myself away.

Next time, I'll rush up to people I love,

look into their eyes, and kiss them, quick.

I'll give everyone a poem I didn't write,

one specially chosen for that person.

They'll hold it up and see a new

world. We'll sing the morning in,

and I will keep in touch with friends,

writing long letters when I wake from

a dream where they appear on the

Orient Express. "Meet me in Istanbul,"

I'll say, and they will.

The Weight of Yesterday by Eric Pankey

Mary

Megan

Like a fish trap woven from grasses,

It allows passage of the element

In which it is suspended.

Like the light at Lascaux,

It is transparent

And dissolves as salt does on the tongue.

A fragile filament of graphite

Or three columbine seeds,

Or a dime would tip the scales.

Rolled between your fingers,

It crumbles like a dried sage leaf

To fragrant dust wind disperses.

You wonder how such a small thing,

Removed as if a mote from your eye,

Could have caused such irritation.

Held in your palm, it is a smidgen,

An iota, a whit, nothing

A tear could not wash away.

Garlic Planting Time by Helen Lehndorf

Mary

Megan

There has not been much to recommend the future lately,
but still you go outside in gumboots, three layers of wool,
the rhythms of the garden offering solace.

Under dark hills that are not the mountain
you were born under, you prepare the beds
for the shortest day. Preventative medicine.

You stoop, claw at the earth
digging over the dirt, raking in
sheep manure and comfrey tea.

You hope to grow enough for a whole year. It
will hang in plaits around the garage, drying
in the warm summer air, warding off colds and evil spirits.

Have you noticed how there is a lull in the cold,
before it rains? It gets a little warmer. This is
what to look for – small breaks in the weather. Breathers.

When a friend brings you cloves
of new varieties: silverskin, purple stripe –
you cradle them like a papery currency, rustling gift.

This is storing and healing. This is
planning and tending. With muddy fists,
you take possession of the year.

Canticle of Clouds by Jennifer Atkinson

Megan

Mary

Stratus—stuff and nonsense;

                                           how things tear and frazzle;

A happenstance of riffle and spume; dust and diaspora; in short, the long view.

Cirrus—easy come;

                              how things tendril, spindle, and tuft;

The ice- and milt-stippled current; a sigh; the intervention of drift.

Contrail—a stitch in time;

                                       how things linger and fade;

Legato passage, the having been; seam in the collateral damask.

Cumulus—two heads are better;

                                               how things swell and rush

To judgment; the hurly-burly of Moe and Larry; magisterial pomp, pratfallen.

Nimbus—see no, speak no evil;

                                              how things brim and spill;

Part and whole; the unmarked field over a field; pure radiance put to use.

Traveller, There Is No Path by Antonio Machado

Mary

Megan

Everything passes on and everything remains,

But our lot is to pass on,

To go on making paths,

Paths across the sea.

I never sought glory,

Nor to leave my song

In the memory of man;

I love those subtle worlds,

Weightless and graceful,

As bubbles of soap.

I like to watch as they paint themselves

In sunlight and scarlet, floating

Beneath the blue sky, trembling

Suddenly then popping…

I never sought glory.

Traveller, your footprints

Are the path and nothing more;

Traveller, there is no path,

The path is made by walking.

By walking the path is made

And when you look back

You'll see a road

Never to be trodden again.

Traveller, there is no path,

Only trails across the sea…

Some time past in that place

Where today the forests are dressed in barbs

A poet was heard to cry

"Traveller, there is no path,

The path is made by walking…"

Beat by beat, verse by verse…

The poet died far from home.

He lies beneath the dust of a neighbouring land.

As he walked away he was seen to weep.

"Traveller, there is no path,

The path is made by walking…"

Beat by beat, verse by verse…

When the goldfinch cannot sing,

When the poet is a pilgrim,

When prayer will do us no good.

"Traveller, there is no path,

The path is made by walking…"

Beat by beat, verse by verse.

Butterfly with Parachute by Stephen Burt

Mary

A real one wouldn't need one, 

but the one Nathan draws surely does: 

four oblongs the size and color of popsicles, 

green apple, toasted coconut and grape, 

flanked, two per side, by billowing valentine hearts, 

in a frame of Scotch tape. 

Alive, it could stay off the floor 

for a few unaerodynamic minutes; 

thrown as a paper airplane, for a few more.

Very sensibly, therefore, 

our son gave it something, not to keep it apart 

from the ground forever, but rather to make safe its

descent.  When we ask that imagination discover the limits

of the real 

world only slowly, 

maybe this is what we meant.

To See This Clearly by Maya Stein

Mary

Megan

I am no magic trick, no doer of miracles, no water walker.

I am no architect of glory, no layer-on of hands, no angel wing.

I am no weaver of gold, no mythmaker, no parachute artist.

I am no halo of stillness in a downpour.

I am no treasure chest, no hero, no thunderbolt wielder.

I am no rabbit foot or lottery number.

I am no combination lock, no mystery ingredient, no optical illusion.

But here is a handful of sunflowers from the florist's sidewalk jungle.

Here is a blanket to spread on the grass for an afternoon.

Here is a song on the radio that calls for dancing.

Here is a chocolate bar I will share with you.

Here is a road sign, a notebook, photographs of those I have loved.

Here is a slice of bright blue sky, a hummingbird

thrashing her wings around an apricot tree.

To see this clearly

is enough.

Midday Summer Dream: 14 by Yannis Ritsos

Megan

Mary

The girls lather the sun's head, and he curses like a

spoiled boy when they thrust his head into the wash basin

in order to rinse it. 

Thousands of soap bubbles rise into

the air, like tiny rainbows above the horizon of a

spellbound butterfly. 

The pigeons chase after the bubbles.

The light gestures, scolding the just waking swallows.

It's amazing the grownups remain asleep with so much

racket. 

We'll thrust a cicada under grandfather's nostril

so he can smell our same spring and the end of his cane

will bloom like a miniature cherry tree.

Being But Men by Dylan Thomas

Being but men, we walked into the trees
Afraid, letting our syllables be soft
For fear of waking the rooks,
For fear of coming
Noiselessly into a world of wings and cries.

If we were children we might climb,
Catch the rooks sleeping, and break no twig,
And, after the soft ascent,
Thrust out our heads above the branches
To wonder at the unfailing stars.

Out of confusion, as the way is,
And the wonder, that man knows,
Out of the chaos would come bliss.

That, then, is loveliness, we said,
Children in wonder watching the stars,
Is the aim and the end.

Being but men, we walked into the trees.

Monet refuses the operation by Liesel Mueller

Doctor, you say there are no halos

around the streetlights of Paris

and what I see is an aberration

caused by old age, an affliction.

I tell you it has taken me all my life

to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,

to soften and blur and finally banish

the edges you regret I don’t see,

to learn that the line I called the horizon

does not exist and sky and water,

so long apart, are the same state of being.

Fifty-four years before I could see

Rouen cathedral is built

of parallel shafts of sun,

and now you want to restore

my youthful errors: fixed

notions of top and bottom,

the illusion of three-dimensional space,

wisteria separate

from the bridge it covers.

What can I say to convince you

the Houses of Parliament dissolve

night after night to become

the fluid dream of the Thames?

I will not return to a universe

of objects that don’t know each other,

as if islands were not the lost children

of one great continent. The world

is flux, and light becomes what it touches,

becomes water, lilies on water,

above and below water,

becomes lilac and mauve and yellow

and white and cerulean lamps,

small fists passing sunlight

so quickly to one another

that it would take long, streaming hair

inside my brush to catch it.

To paint the speed of light!

Our weighted shapes, these verticals,

burn to mix with air

and change our bones, skin, clothes

to gases. Doctor,

if only you could see

how heaven pulls earth into its arms

and how infinitely the heart expands

to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

 

Desire by Alice Walker

My desire
is always the same; wherever Life
deposits me:
I want to stick my toe
& soon my whole body
into the water.
I want to shake out a fat broom
& sweep dried leaves
bruised blossoms
dead insects
& dust.
I want to grow
something.
It seems impossible that desire
can sometimes transform into devotion;
but this has happened.
And that is how I've survived:
how the hole
I carefully tended
in the garden of my heart
grew a heart
to fill it.

Wild Daisies by Bub Bridger

If you love me

Bring me flowers 

Wild daisies 

Clutched in your fist 

Like a torch 

No orchids or roses 

Or carnations 

No florist's bow 

Just daisies 

Steal them 

Risk your life for them 

Up the sharp hills 

In the teeth of the wind 

If you love me 

Bring me daisies 

That I will cram 

In a bright vase 

And marvel at

The Visit by Jenny Bornholdt

Megan

Mary

You approach the world

with open arms and hope

it wants you. Hope to be

asked in to sit amongst the

fine furniture. The world is

busy and polite and believes

in independence. You want

to make friends, be

boisterous. You'd expected

something a little more

gregarious but you'll

take a photo anyway to show

your friends. Here it is.

Here's the world on a good

day, turned slightly

away, but this is no

offence, merely the sun was

in its eyes and it turned

briefly to avoid being

blinded by it.

Sprezzatura by James Arthur

Mary

Megan

        Effortlessness, I learn again,

        means putting all opinion & mulishness aside,

    

        so when this almost-nothingness

        alights, as occasionally it must

        it lands with the padding footfall of a child ballerina

        who's terrified to be there, & hopeful,

        so that when it turns,

        fast, spinning

        as a dreidel spins, it seems to have no contours

        or definite sides,

        so that it's compact

        & can deflect any point

        & springs like laughter, for it's of the world

        & there is such a thing