on the floor for a tired woman in a gray dress who’ll lift them to the trash,
not noticing the moms’ lips, not wondering for even a heartbeat
if the kisses there meant hello or good-bye.
To Flush, My Dog
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
I
Loving friend, the gift of one
Who her own true faith has run
Through thy lower nature,
Be my benediction said
With my hand upon thy head,
Gentle fellow creature!
II
Like a lady’s ringlets brown,
Flow thy silken ears adown
Either side demurely
Of thy silver-suited breast,
Shining out from all the rest
Of thy body purely.
III
Darkly brown thy body is,
Till the sunshine striking this
Alchemize its dullness,
When the sleek curls manifold
Flash all over into gold,
With a burnished fullness.
IV
Underneath my stroking hand,
Startled eyes of hazel bland
Kindling, growing larger,
Up thou leapest with a spring,
Full of prank and curveting,
Leaping like a charger.
V
Leap! thy broad tail waves a light,
Leap! thy slender feet are bright,
Canopied in fringes;
Leap—those tasselled ears of thine
Flicker strangely, fair and fine,
Down their golden inches.
VI
Yet, my pretty, sportive friend,
Little is ’t to such an end
That I praise thy rareness!
Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears,
And this glossy fairness,
VII
But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary,—
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.
VIII
Roses, gathered for a vase,
In that chamber died apace,
Beam and breeze resigning;
This dog only, waited on,
Knowing that when light is gone
Love remains for shining.
IX
Other dogs in thymy dew
Tracked the hares and followed through
Sunny moor or meadow;
This dog only, crept and crept
Next a languid cheek that slept,
Sharing in the shadow.
X
Other dogs of loyal cheer
Bounded at the whistle clear,
Up the woodside hieing;
This dog only, watched in reach
Of a faintly uttered speech,
Or a louder sighing.
XI
And if one or two quick tears
Dropped upon his glossy ears,
Or a sigh came double,—
Up he sprang in eager haste,
Fawning, fondling, breathing fast
In a tender trouble.
XII
And this dog was satisfied
If a pale thin hand would glide
Down his dewlaps sloping,—
Which he pushed his nose within,
After,—platforming his chin
On the palm left open.
XIII
Call him now to blyther choice
Than such chamber-keeping,
“Come out!” praying from the door,—
Presseth backward as before,
Up against me leaping.
XIV
Therefore to this dog will I,
Tenderly not scornfully,
Render praise and favour:
With my hand upon his head,
Is my benediction said
Therefore, and for ever.
XV
And because he loves me so,
Better than his kind will do
Often, man or woman,
Give I back more love again
Than dogs often take of men,
Leaning from my Human.
XVI
Blessings on thee, dog of mine,
Pretty collars make thee fine,
Sugared milk make fat thee!
Pleasures wag on in thy tail,
Hands of gentle motion fail
Nevermore, to pat thee!
XVII
Downy pillow take thy head,
Silken coverlid bestead,
Sunshine help thy sleeping!
No fly’s buzzing wake thee up,
No man break thy purple cup,
Set for drinking deep in.
XVIII
Whiskered cats arointed flee,
Sturdy stoppers keep from thee
Cologne distillations;
Nuts lie in thy path for stones,
And thy feast-day macaroons
Turn to daily rations!
XIX
Mock I thee, in wishing weal?—
Tears are in my eyes to feel
Thou art made so straitly,
Blessing needs must straiten too,—
Little canst thou joy or do,
Thou who lovest greatly.
XX
Yet be blessèd to the height
Of all good and all delight
Pervious to thy nature;
Only loved beyond that line,
With a love that answers thine,
Loving fellow creature.
HOW TO LIVE
IN COLLEGE, I took a course called Moral and Social Inquiry, taught by the child psychiatrist Dr. Robert Coles. It was considered one of the easiest courses at Harvard because it met at noon and almost everyone got an A. But in fact it was the most challenging, because Dr. Coles asked us to think about the hardest question of all: how to live a life.
Poetry can help us answer that question. It concerns itself with the fundamental questions and reconnects us with our deepest emotions. When everyday life distracts us, poetry can help us feel centered. When the way forward seems blocked and the burdens of work and family overwhelm us, poetry can help us find our voice. This is as true for young women as it is for those of us who are older. People sometimes make the mistake of thinking that poetry is removed or disconnected from life, but Wallace Stevens wrote that the purpose of poetry is “to help people live their lives.”
The poems in this section are the reward for having made it through the rest of the book. They encompass all you really need to know. Two of my favorites are “To be of use” by Marge Piercy and “Leap Before You Look” by W. H. Auden. These are the poems that started this book. They were sent to me by a friend at exactly the right time—and reminded me that there is always more to do, and no reason not to do it.
Poetry and prayer are not so different, as we can see from the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts.” Other poems teach us that despite our efforts to control our destiny, our lives are influenced by events larger than ourselves. Poems like “September, 1918” by Amy Lowell and “24th September 1945” by Nazim Hikmet seek to restore hope to a world devastated by war and destruction. Dick Davis’s “6 A.M. Thoughts” intertwines humor and acceptance as a strategy for coping with events beyond our control.
Fundamentally, poetry celebrates our individuality and the creative effort of living. The next to last poem in this book was one of my mother’s favorites. She loved the ancient Greek attitude toward life—the closeness to nature, the relationship of men and gods, and the reverence for the heroic. Constantine Cavafy, a modern Greek poet who lived a short and tragic life in Alexandria, drew heavily on the ancient myths and history in his work. “Ithaka” is his masterpiece, and it is one of those poems that I carry with me always in my
mind.
May 2
DAVID LEHMAN
Someday I’d like to go
to Atlantic City with you
not to gamble ( just being
there with you is enough
of a gamble) but to ride
the high white breakers
have a Manhattan and listen
to a baritone saxophone
play a tune called “Salsa
Eyes” with you beside me
on a banquette but why
stop there let’s go to
Paris in November when
it’s raining and we read
the Tribune at La Rotonde
our hotel room has a big
bathtub I knew you’d like
that and we can be a couple
of unknown Americans what
are we waiting for let’s go
From a Letter to His Daughter
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities
no doubt have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely
and with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with
your old nonsense.
This day is all that is
good and fair.
It is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on yesterdays.
To be of use
MARGE PIERCY
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Leap Before You Look
W. H. AUDEN
The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.
The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.
The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.
Much can be said for social savoir-faire,
But to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.
A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
One of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
Leisure
W. H. DAVIES
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
The Waking
THEODORE ROETHKE
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
September, 1918
AMY LOWELL
This afternoon was the color of water falling through sunlight;
The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;
The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,
And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.
Under a tree in the park,
Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,
Were carefully gathering red berries
To put in a pasteboard box.
Some day there will be no war,
Then I shall take out this afternoon
And turn it in my fingers,
And rema
rk the sweet taste of it upon my palate,
And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.
To-day I can only gather it
And put it into my lunch-box,
For I have time for nothing
But the endeavor to balance myself
Upon a broken world.
6 A.M. Thoughts
DICK DAVIS
As soon as you wake they come blundering in
Like puppies or importunate children;
What was a landscape emerging from mist
Becomes at once a disordered garden.
And the mess they trail with them! Embarrassments,
Anger, lust, fear—in fact the whole pig-pen;
And who’ll clean it up? No hope for sleep now—
Just heave yourself out, make the tea, and give in.
A Minor Bird
ROBERT FROST
I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.
May today there be peace within
ST. TERESA OF AVILA
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that
has been given to you. . . .
May you be content knowing you are a child of God. . . .
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to
sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.
The Bacchae Chorus
EURIPIDES
CHORUS
When shall I dance once more