Emily Dickinson  (1830-1886)

 

 

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love, happiness & understanding

 

 

May 19, 2022

 

 

The Infinite a sudden Guest

Has been assumed to be—

But how can that stupendous come

Which never went away?

 

*

 

A Light exists in Spring

Not present on the Year

At any other period —

When March is scarcely here

 

A Color stands abroad

On Solitary Fields

That Science cannot overtake

But Human Nature feels.

 

It waits upon the Lawn,

It shows the furthest Tree

Upon the furthest Slope you know

It almost speaks to you.

 

Then as Horizons step

Or Noons report away

Without the Formula of sound

It passes and we stay —

 

A quality of loss

Affecting our Content

As Trade has suddenly encroached

Upon a Sacrament.

 

—Emily Dickinson

*

 

O Taste and See

 

The world is 

not with us enough

O taste and see

 

the subway Bible poster said,

meaning The Lord, meaning

if anything all that lives

to the imagination’s tongue,

 

grief, mercy, language,

tangerine, weather, to

breathe them, bite,

savor, chew, swallow, transform

 

into our flesh our

deaths, crossing the street, plum quince,

living in the orchard and being

 

hungry, and plucking

the fruit.

 

Denise Levertov  (1923-1997)

*

 

from My Wisdom

 

When people have a lot

they want more

 

When people have nothing

they will happily share it

 

*

 

Silence waits

for truth to break it

 

*

 

Calendars can weep too

They want us to have better days

 

*

 

Welcome to every minute

Feel lucky you’re still in it

 

*

 

No bird builds a wall

 

*

 

Won’t give up

our hopes

            for anything!

 

*

 

Not your fault

You didn’t make the world

 

*

 

Refuse to give

   mistakes

      too much power

 

*

 

Babies want to help us

They laugh

for no reason

 

*

 

 Pay close attention to

a drop of water

on the kitchen table

 

Naomi Shihab Nye  (1952- )

*

 

Happiness

 

There’s just no accounting for happiness,

or the way it turns up like a prodigal

who comes back to the dust at your feet

having squandered a fortune far away.

 

And how can you not forgive?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

 

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

 

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots

in the night.

                     It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

 

Jane Kenyon  (1947-1995)

*

 

from Reconciliation: A Prayer

 

II.

Oh sun, moon, stars, our other relatives peering at us from the inside of god’s house walk with us as we climb into the next century naked but for the stories we have of each other. Keep us from giving up in this land of nightmares which is also the land of miracles.

 

We sing our song which we’ve been promised has no beginning or end.

 

III.

All acts of kindness are lights in the war for justice.

 

IV.

We gather up these strands broken from the web of life. They shiver with our love, as we call them the names of our relatives and carry them to our home made of the four directions and sing:

 

Of the south, where we feasted and were given new clothes.

 

Of the west, where we gave up the best of us to the stars as food for the battle.

 

Of the north, where we cried because we were forsaken by our dreams.

 

Of the east because returned to us is the spirit of all we love.

 

Joy Harjo  (1951- ) (Currently Poet Laureate of the United States)

*

 

At Blackwater Pond

 

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled

after a night of rain.

I dip my cupped hands. I drink

a long time. It tastes

like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold

into my body, waking the bones. I hear them

deep inside me, whispering

oh what is that beautiful thing

that just happened?

 

Mary Oliver  (1935-2019)

*

 

Miracle Fair

 

Commonplace miracle:

that so many commonplace miracles happen.

 

An ordinary miracle:

in the dead of night

the barking of invisible dogs.

 

One miracle out of many:

a small, airy cloud

yet it can block a large and heavy moon.

 

Several miracles in one:

an alder tree reflected in the water,

and that it’s backwards left to right

and that it grows there, crown down

and never reaches the bottom,

even though the water is shallow.

 

An everyday miracle:

winds weak to moderate

turning gusty in storms.

 

First among equal miracles:

cows are cows.

 

Second to none:

just this orchard

from just that seed.

 

A miracle without a cape and top hat:

scattering white doves.

 

A miracle, for what else could you call it:

today the sun rose at three-fourteen

and will set at eight-o-one.

 

A miracle, less surprising than it should be:

even though the hand has fewer than six fingers,

it still has more than four.

 

A miracle, just take a look around:

the world is everywhere.

 

An additional miracle, as everything is additional:

the unthinkable

is thinkable.

 

Wisława Szymborska  (1923-2012)

*

 

The Award

 

Though not

A contest

Life

Is

The award

& we

Have

Won.

*

 

Despite the Hunger

 

Despite

the hunger

we cannot

possess

more

than

this:

Peace

in a garden

of

our own.

 

Alice Walker  (1944- )