So that’s life, then: things as they are? 
                           — Wallace Stevens 

Once there was music that could tear
your heart open and heal it
before you took another breath.
That was what art could do.
Kings and princes, bishops and popes

all knew this, as they knew
how to get what they wanted and keep
what they had. Mostly what happens
to people doesn’t happen by chance.
You spend your life in the mud,

you eat the same thin soup each night,
and then on Sunday a thousand angels
start to sing. The walls are ablaze
with suffering and forgiveness.
And you think this is what you’ll see

when you die. When you yearn,
this is what you yearn for. Or something
like it, the version you’ve been told
you can afford. They were smart to keep
belief and understanding at a distance,

go for the big effects, everything you get
when you’re through with this world,
the one you got stuck with—potatoes and soup,
the morning and the afternoon,

the afternoon and the evening,
things as they are.

~ from The History of Forgetting (Penguin Books, 2009)

Brains so sharp they know everything at once	
and don’t sort it into parts, their caw, caw, caw
parsed only by the dead in the stench of the gut.

Two crows or one: sorrow and joy have nothing	
to do with them.  Meat does, and the eyes of lambs,	
and rotting matter.  In the high boughs of the spruce

they tuck their feet beneath their robes and take confession.
Go on—it’s you who gives them that, their black	
Madonnas, their worry beads of bones.

They have no gods of punishment or absolution.
They have no stations.  Yet, without exception,	
they dote on their young, give them what they lac,

pluck the songbird’s newly hatched like living plums.

~ from The Wrong Cat (McClelland & Stewart, 2015)

It is I who must begin.

Once I begin, once I try —
here and now,
right where I am,
not excusing myself
by saying things
would be easier elsewhere,
without grand speeches and
ostentatious gestures,
but all the more persistently
— to live in harmony
with the “voice of Being,” as I
understand it within myself
— as soon as I begin that,
I suddenly discover,
to my surprise, that
I am neither the only one,
nor the first,
nor the most important one
to have set out
upon that road.

Whether all is really lost
or not depends entirely on
whether or not I am lost.

~from Life Prayers from Around the World, edited by 
Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996)

Then, the winter will have fallen all in white
and the hill will be rising to the north,
the night also rising and leaving,
dawn light just coming in, the fire out.

Down the hill running will come that flame
among the dancing skeletons of the ash trees.
I will leave the door open for him.

~ from Winter (Hobblebush Books, 2013)

Let us step outside for a moment
As the sun breaks through clouds
And shines on wet new fallen snow,
And breathe the new air.
So much has died that had to die this year.

We are dying away from things.
It is a necessity—we have to do it
Or we shall be buried under the magazines,
The too many clothes, the too much food.
We have dragged it all around
Like dung beetles
Who drag piles of dung
Behind them on which to feed,
In which to lay their eggs.

Let us step outside for a moment
Among ocean, clouds, a white field,
Islands floating in the distance.
They have always been there.
But we have not been there.

We are going to drive slowly
And see the small poor farms,
The lovely shapes of leafless trees
Their shadows blue on the snow.
We are going to learn the sharp edge
Of perception after a day’s fast.

There is nothing to fear.
About this revolution…
Though it will change our minds.
Aggression, violence, machismo
Are fading from us
Like old photographs
Faintly ridiculous
(Did a man actually step like a goose
To instill fear?
Does a boy have to kill
To become a man?)

Already there are signs.
Young people plant gardens.
Fathers change their babies’ diapers
And are learning to cook.

Let us step outside for a moment.
It is all there
Only we have been slow to arrive
At a way of seeing it.
Unless the gentle inherit the earth
There will be no earth.

~ from Collected Poems (Norton, 1993)

Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. But there are so few days as compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day were not a hundred times more interesting than most people. But usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills the lost traveler and bunches of cattle. For some reason we like to see days pass, even though most of us claim we don’t want to reach our last one for a long time. We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, no, this isn’t one I’ve been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when we are convinced, our lives will start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by perfectly well-adjusted, as some days are, with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the faint odor of last night’s meandering skunk.

~ from Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and New Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2013)

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