Incurable sweetness

Edward Hirsch's "Milk." 

Welcome to the world, Finn Kjartan Elde-Sylvester!

Spring

Nine months pregnant

Boughs sleeved in pink puffs,

hyacinth nibs starfish curling,

yellow poms on everything.

And the tulips. Such abandon

in the face of a little sun.

How they loose their petals

to the point of near loss—

all but overcome before closing,

opening again.

--me

What you have to say

"Don't think what you have to say is important. The way you say it is what's important. What you have to say is rubbish." --William Logan

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
   That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
   A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
   And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
   Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
   Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
   In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
   In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
   Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

--William Wordsworth

Spring

Nine months pregnant

Boughs sleeved in pink puffs,

hyacinth nibs starfish curling,

yellow poms on everything.

And the tulips. Such abandon

in the face of a little sun.

How they loose their petals

to the point of near loss—

all but overcome before closing,

opening again.

--me

The Road

for Sandra Nystrom

Your steep deserted road:
Around a hill it wends
And tapers toward the sky
Or where the canvas ends

In dim but rosy distance.
The stubborn eye desires 
To trace the road beyond
The place it disappears.

What lurks around the bend?
Any drama lies
Beyond the line of sight.
No houses and no trees.

Low clouds, or the low light,
Refuse to give away
The hour, which, though veiled,
Is surely one of two:

Dawn gleam or sunset glow,
Promise or memory.
There is no need to know. 
The painting doesn't say,

But endlessly your road
Unspools around that hill
Against a moody sky
Changing, still. 

--Rachel Hadas

Home

Whorl of underpasses, offramps,
freeways that splay
running sedans and tanker trucks

to odd-numbered interstates
with Indian names:
everything aiming 

at everything
and just missing
in eternal roar and return,

sky fixed with the rickety
circuitry of an old rollercoaster park
as we break

out of the airport tunnel--
ascension, assimilation:
even the wish

in the back of a cab
not to think
comes with its own pictures and music.

--Nate Klug

Any day now... (!)

Listening

You wept in your mother's arms
and I knew that from then on
I was to forget myself.
Listening to your sobs,

I was resolved against my will
to do well by us
and so I said, without thinking,
in great panic, To do wrong
in one's own judgment,
though others thrive by it,
is the right road to blessedness.
Not to submit to error
is in itself wrong
and pride.

Standing beside you,
I took an oath
to make your life simpler
by complicating mine
and what I always thought
would happen did:
I was lifted up in joy.

--David Ignatow