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.