Don’t surrender your loneliness 
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human 
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft
My voice 
So tender

My need of God
Absolutely 
Clear.

~ from The Subject Tonight is Love, translated by Daniel Ladinsky (Pumpkin House Press, 1996)

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
 In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human—
looks out of the heart
burning with purity—
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love—
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
—cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

—must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye—

yes, yes,
that’s what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

~ from Collected Poems 1947-1980 (Harper Collins, 1981)

         The legendary Cang Jie was said to 
                  have invented writing after observing 
                  the tracks of birds.


A light snow last night,
and now the earth falls open to a fresh page.

A high wind is breaking up the clouds.
Children wait for the yellow bus in a huddle,

and under the feeder, some birds
are busy writing short stories,

poems, and letters to their mothers.
A crow is working on an editorial.

That chickadee is etching a list,
and a robin walks back and forth

composing the opening to her autobiography.
All so prolific this morning,

these expressive little creatures,
and each with an alphabet of only two letters.

A far cry from me watching
in silence behind a window wondering

what just frightened them into flight —
a dog's bark, a hawk overhead?

or had they simply finished
saying whatever it was they had to say?

~ from Ballistics (Random House, 2008)

IIt could have happened. It had to happen. It happened earlier. Later. Nearer. Farther off. It happened, but not to you. You were saved because you were the first. You were saved because you were the last. Alone. With others. On the right. The left. Because it was raining. Because of the shade. Because the day was sunny. You were in luck -- there was a forest. You were in luck -- there were no trees. You were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake, A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . . So you're here? Still dizzy from another dodge, close shave, reprieve? One hole in the net and you slipped through? I couldn't be more shocked or speechless. Listen, how your heart pounds inside me. ~ from Poems New and Collected 1957-1997

Along this cobble-stoned path	
a skin of ice tries to steal my step
as iris leaves, parched
but not yet snowbound,
whisper and rattle in judgment
from their frozen bed.

Some say a ghost lives in this house,	
a wife still waiting by the window
for the evening train.
How many years ago
did her husband ride the rails
each day, whistling,
swinging his lunch pail (so light,
so empty, on his return)
until the day of no return,
no whistle save the train’s?

Some say the draft	
that tonight in the dining room
licks my cheek like a plume
of cold breath is her spirit.
I am a skeptic		
but like the story, prefer it
to the diagnosis
“insufficient insulation.”

Outside, the irises dance:  
undone beauties
condemned to watch the living
carry on living.  Inside,
I turn to you without words,	
the two of us becalmed
amidst this restlessness of leaves,
a widow’s rustling skirts.

~ from The Heart of All That Is: Reflections on Home (Holy Cow Press, 2013)

I can’t leave my house
or answer the phone.
I’m going down again
but feeling no pain.

Settling at last		
accounts of the soul;
this for the trash,
that paid in full.

As for the fall, it
began long ago:
Can’t stop the rain,
Can’t stop the snow.

I sit in my chair.
I look at the street.
The neighbor returns   
my smile of defeat.

I move with the leaves.
I shine with the chrome.
I’m almost alive
I’m almost at home.

No one to follow
and nothing to teach,
except that the goal
falls short of the reach.

~ from Book of Longing (McLelland & Stewart Ltd, 2006)

Understand from the first this certainty. Butterflies don’t write books, neither do lilies, or violets. Which doesn’t mean they don’t know, in their own way, what they are. That they don’t know they are alive – that they don’t feel, that action upon which all consciousness sits, lightly or heavily. Humility is the prize of the leaf-world. Vainglory is the bane of us, the humans.

Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.

~from Upstream (Penguin Press, 2016)

I meant to return long before this	
but in looking back we learn too much
of loss and I dreaded that.

Now going through the house	
and my parents’ lives
too revealed by what they saved

and what they left behind
for me to find, I feel nothing
but pain for the past

trying to understand
how I fell so short of what I intended
to do with my live.

How life twists and turns	
against us.  How a childhood
is not really understood

until it is lived a second time
in memory.  How wonderful
and how terrible

it seems now 
because it is gone
and because it was mine.

~ from The Heart of All That Is: Reflections on Home (Holy Cow Press, 2013)

In the land of mists,
always shrouded in mist,
nothing ever happens.
And if something happens
nothing can be seen
because of the mist.
For if you live in mist
you get accustomed to mist
so you do not try to see.
Therefore in the land of mists
you should not try to see.
You have to hear things.
For if you do not hear you cannot live,
so ears keep growing bigger.
People like rabbits
with ears of white mist
live in the land of mists.

~ translated by Brother Anthony, from This Same Sky, Poems from around the World, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye (First Aladdin Paperbacks, 1996)

Sunlight climbs the snowpeak
     glowing pale red
Cold sinks into the gorge
     shadows merge.
Building a fire of pine twigs
     at the foot of a cliff,
Drinking hot tea from a tin cup 
     in the chill air--
Pull on a sweater and roll a smoke.
     a leaf
     beyond fire
Sparkles with nightfall frost.

~ from A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry. Edited by Czelaw Milosz, (Harcourt Brace & Co, 1996)

Four generations	
of women sitting in the 	
kitchen
the smells of cumin,
mustard seeds, onions,
turmeric, and saffron
simmer in the background
the cosy feeling of
warmth rises from
the hot cups of tea 
before them
they are talking about
how it used to be
how it was, and
what would happen?
In my day says
one woman in Kuchi
when we were young
says one woman in Gujarati
my daughter doesn’t 
understand, says one
woman in Urdu
I do understand says
the woman in English
blends of spices and scents
flavours in the air mix
with ages of conversation
poetic almost,
memorable moments, 
forgotten times,
thoughtful comments,
hopeful futures.

~ from Aurat Durbar, Writings by Women of South Asian Origin, edited by Fauzia Rafiq (Second Story Press, 1995)

You’ve left with me
the things you couldn’t take
or bear to give away –
books, records and a biscuit-tin
that Nanna gave you.
 
It’s old and dirty
and the lid won’t fit.
Standing in the corner of my room,
quite useless, it’s as touching
as a once loved toy
 
Yes, sentimental now –
but if you’d stayed,
we would have quarreled
just the same as ever,
found excuses not to phone.
 
We never learn.  We’ve grown up
struggling, frightened
that the family would drown us,
only giving in to love
when someone’s dead or gone.

~ from Good Poems for Hard Times. Selected by Garrison Keillor. (Viking Penguin, 2005)

Look: the sun has spread its wingsover the earth 
to dispel the darkness.

Like a great tree, with its roots in heaven, 
and its branches reaching down to the earth.

~ translated from the Hebrew by T. Carmi
from A Book of Luminous Things edited by Czeslaw Milosz

Look: the sun has spread its wingsover the earth 
to dispel the darkness.

Like a great tree, with its roots in heaven, 
and its branches reaching down to the earth.

~ translated from the Hebrew by T. Carmi
from A Book of Luminous Things edited by Czeslaw Milosz

A man filled with the gladness of living
Put his keys on the table,
Put flowers in a copper bowl there.
He put his eggs and milk on the table.
He put there the light that came in through the window,
Sounds of a bicycle, sound of a spinning wheel.
The softness of bread and weather he put there.
On the table the man put
Things that happened in his mind.
What he wanted to do in life,
He put that there.
Those he loved, those he didn't love,
The man put them on the table too.
Three times three make nine:
The man put nine on the table.
He was next to the window next to the sky;
He reached out and placed on the table endlessness.
So many days he had wanted to drink a beer!
He put on the table the pouring of that beer.
He placed there his sleep and his wakefulness;
His hunger and his fullness he placed there.

Now that's what I call a table!
It didn't complain at all about the load.
It wobbled once or twice, then stood firm.
The man kept piling things on. 

~from Dirty August (Talisman House, 2009)  Translated from the Turkish by Julia Clare Tillinghast and Richard Tillinghast

It is very deep to have a cup of tea 
Also coffee in a white cup 
with milk 
a hand to go around the cup 
and a mouth to open and take it in 
It is very deep and very good to have a heart 
Do not take the heart for granted 
it fills with blood and lets blood out
 
Good to have this chair to sit in 
with these feet on the floor 
while I drink this coffee 
in a white cup 
To have the air around us to be in 
To fill our lungs and empty them like weeping 
this roof to house us 
the sky to house the roof in endless blue 
To be in the Midwest 
with the Atlantic over there 
and the Pacific on our other side
 
It is good this cup of coffee 
the milk in it 
the cows who gave us this milk 
this 
simple as a long piece of grass 

~from Top of My Lungs (The Overlook Press, 2002)

It’s what she does and what her mother did.
It’s what I’d do if I were anything
like her mother’s mother—or if the times
demanded that I work in my garden,
planting rows of beans and carrots, weeding
the pickles and potatoes, picking worms
off the cabbages.
                         Today she's canning
tomatoes, which means there are baskets
of red Jubilees waiting on the porch
and she’s been in the cellar looking for jars.
There’s a box of lids and a heap of gold
rings on the counter. She gets the spices
out; she revs the engine of the old stove.

Now I declare her Master of Preserves!
I say that if there were degrees in canning
she would be summa cum laude—God knows
she’s spent as many hours at the sink peeling
the skins off hot tomatoes as I have
bent over a difficult text. I see
her at the window, filling up the jar,
packing a glass suitcase for the winter.

~ from First Words. (Red Dragonfly Press, 2010)

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as
two or three, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail …

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.
To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome
and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the
companion that was so companionable as solitude …

If one advances confidently in the direction of his
dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has
imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in
common hour …

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.
So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.
We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and
took advantage of every accident that befell us. Sometimes, in
a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my
sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the
pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and
stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through
the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the
noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant highway, I was
reminded of the lapse of time.

~ in the Public Domain

is an important aspect
of any class text.  Ask
your professor if you may 
say no way! to object, or
hey! to interject, in any essay
meant to earn respect.

You can’t say: this dude
Knows his shit.  Nor can you
Say: he’s full of it.  to argue
Your point, your joint
Gotta have vocab game.

However and nonetheless
Kick but’s ass.  They got
Up-in-the-front-of-the-class.
Address to impress.
Your convention hall pass.

The rules of tone are all    
unspoken.  One learns
the hard way
that they can be broken.

~ from Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets (Mansfield Press, 2004)

Solo heron’s slow     
clear compass point
spans the seething highway.

Three swans travers    
a rutted county lane
a laboring triangle
white against steel cloud
pinions whistling
wingbeats shearing the air.

An osprey scopes the bay   
above the high shore road
mesmerizing fish
with godlike upward gyres
before the spearing dive.

A wood duck fusses her neat,    
queuing children to the verge,
retreats in panic
from the sudden squeal of tires.

In the ordinary light of day   
a small mad bird  
divebombs a gloating crow
away from it’s nesting tree
hidden by the roadside.

Epics glimpsed, speeding by,    
avian tragedy strikes swiftly,
moments in the mind’s sky, 
what we thing we see.

~from Still Dances (2015)