the last time i was home
to see my mother we kissed
exchanged pleasantries
and unpleasantries pulled a warm   
comforting silence around
us and read separate books

i remember the first time
i consciously saw her
we were living in a three room   
apartment on burns avenue

mommy always sat in the dark
i don’t know how i knew that but she did

that night i stumbled into the kitchen
maybe because i’ve always been
a night person or perhaps because i had wet
the bed
she was sitting on a chair
the room was bathed in moonlight diffused through   
  tiny window panes   
she may have been smoking but maybe not
her hair was three-quarters her height
which made me a strong believer in the samson myth   
and very black

i’m sure i just hung there by the door
i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady
she was very deliberately waiting
perhaps for my father to come home   
from his night job or maybe for a dream
that had promised to come by   
“come here” she said “i’ll teach you   
a poem: i see the moon
               the moon sees me
               god bless the moon
               and god bless me”   
i taught it to my son
who recited it for her
just to say we must learn   
to bear the pleasures
as we have borne the pains

~ from Love Poems (William Morrow and Co, 1997)

The storm is over; too bad I say.
   At least storms are clear	
about their dangerous intent.

Ordinary days are what I fear, 	
   the sneaky speed
with which noon arrives, the sun

shining while a government darkens
   a decade, or a man
falls out of love.  I fear the solace

of repetition, a withheld slap in the face.
   Someone is singing	
in Portugal.  Here the mockingbird

is a crow and a grackle, then a cat.
   So many things	
happening at once.  If I decide

to turn over my desk, go privately wild,
   trash the house,
no one across town will know.

I must insist how disturbing this is—	
   the necessity 
of going public, of being a fool.

~ from New and Selected Poems, 1974-1994  
(W.W. Norton and Company, 1995)

after chopping off all the arms that reached out to me;
after boarding up all the windows and doors;

after filling all the pits with poisoned water;
after building my house on the rock of no,
inaccessible to flattery and fear;

after cutting off my tongue and eating it;
after hurling handfuls of silence 
and monosyllable of scorn at my loves;

after forgetting my name;
and the name of my birthplace;
and the name of my race;

after judging and sentencing myself
to perpetual waiting,
and perpetual loneliness, I heard
against the stones of my dungeon of syllogisms,

the humid, tender, insistent
onset of spring.

~ from Teaching With Fire; Sam Intrator, Megan Scribner, editors (Jossey-Bass, 2003)

Women standing
drawn in their dailiness
the steam from the iron
flowing towards the horizon
Women of the family
faces stiffened into an inherited
sweetness in the portrait
where the artist paces
painting the calm water of their eyes
eyes of the maiden
or the silent mother
blessed by the sound of white sheets
flapping in the emptiness of a sharp breeze.
Women fixed forever by a wise eye
as wise as their hands that invent a happiness
that life itself would deny them.

~ from Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Issue 81, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2010, 183-185

I lie in the palm of its hand. I wake in the quiet	
separate from the air that’s moving the trees outside.
I walk on its path, fall asleep in it’s darkness.
Loud sounds produce this silence.  One of the markers	
of the unknown, a thing in itself.  To say
When I was in love gives birth to something else.
I walk on it’s path.  the food I put in my mouth.
The girl I was riding her horse is not a memory	
of desire.  It is the place where the unknown 
was hovering.  The shadow in the cleavage	
where two mountains met.  The dark trees
and the shade and moving shadows there
where the top of the mountain stops and meets
the light much bigger than it is.
Its weight against all the light.  A birthplace	
of the unknown, the quick, the invisible.
I would get off my horse and lie down there,	
let the wind from the ocean blow the high grass over
my body, be hidden with it, be one of its secrets.

~from All of It Singing  (Graywolf Press, 2008)

So here I am again hanging out clothes
as the sun goes down.  I always mis-time that last laundry load
so I’m sending it out on the line into the dark.  
I look like a crazy woman doing this.  
People hang clothes in the morning.
I know this.

But alone on the back porch hanging up clothes in the dark,
I reason with myself out loud:
What can happen to clothes in the dark air 
that we are afraid to leave them overnight?
Will they be gone in the morning 
because we let the dark have them?
Will the dark cling to our clothes like vapors, 
making us do unpredictable things when we wear them?

I decide I’m past the worrying point.
I’m standing here in the dark hanging up clothes, 
talking to myself about whether hanging up clothes
in the dark is going to make me do insane things.

I look at all the things I’ve hung up so far, and figure 
they could be made whiter than white with the light
from the stars.  But why waste all that darkness?
I have a blue shirt that faded a bit 
the last time it was washed.  I hang it up last.
I figure it will soak up a little midnight 
and be really stunning by the time the sun comes up.

~from The Spirits Need To Eat (Nine-Patch Press, 1999)

why
is what i ask myself
maybe it is the afrikan in me
still trying to get home
after all these years
but when i wake to the heat of morning
galloping down the highway of my life
something hopeful rises in me
rises and runs me out into the road
and i lob my fierce thigh high
over the rump of the day and honey
i ride i ride 

~ from Blessing the Boats, New and Selected Poems 
1988-2000 (BOA Editions, Ltd, 2000)

The beautiful boy with rain in his voice	
could do it.  Put it all into three lines.		
Then he would sing it, and pieces	
of mystery would suddenly shift,
reveal themselves over guitar strings.
So, too, should the poet be able.  Call		
up Orpheus, make him do his little jig
for you.  Three lines to sum up your life.
Your whole world through your back		
window.  Grind of the 11 Bus going by.
That hour in the morning when the left	
foot of a dream steps into your daylight.
But what they really want is Korea, what	
it means to you.  
Easier to describe wind	
down a hallway.  How it marries the dark
smell of nighttime, the yellow purr of your 
desk lamp.  There.  There is place in that
and meaning.  Those words alone must do.

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

All this time,
the life you were
supposed to live
has been rising around you
like the walls of a house
designed with warm
harmonious lines.
As if you had actually
planned it that way.
As if you had
stacked up bricks
at random,
and built by mistake
a lucky star.

~from Northern Oracle (Spout Press, 2007)

My great grand uncle had a peculiar hobby.
He used to collect the feathers	
    of different kinds of birds
    of different colours, from different places.
His bedroom, corridor and staircase
Were full of thousands of colourful, colourless feathers.

On the day of his death
Just before sunrise, at dawn, 
My great grand uncle	
    went to the rooftop of his house
And threw the feathers into the morning air.
The feathers floated in the golden rays
            of the rising sun.
Some of the feathers dropped near.
Some went far.
Some floated towards eternity, the sky.

No, it is not possible to write a story	
            on this subject
But some feathers are still floating	
in the sky.

translated by the poet
~ from This Same Sky, A Collection of Poems from around the World, Selected by Naomi Shihab Nye (Aladdin Paperbacks, 1992)

Don’t be ashamed that your parents
Didn’t happen to meet at an art exhibit
Or at a protest against a foreign policy
Based on fear of negotiation,
But in an aisle of a discount drugstore,
Near the antihistamine section,
Seeking relief from the common cold.
You ought to be proud that even there,
Amid coughs and sneezes,
They were able to peer beneath
The veil of pointless happenstance.
Here is someone, each thought,
Able to laugh at the indignities
That flesh is heir to. Here
Is a person one might care about.
Not love at first sight, but the will
To be ready to endorse the feeling
Should it arise. Had they waited
For settings more promising,
You wouldn’t be here,
Wishing things were different.
Why not delight at how young they were
When they made the most of their chances,
How young still, a little later,
When they bought a double plot
At the cemetery. Look at you,
Twice as old now as they were
When they made arrangements,
And still you’re thinking of moving on,
Of finding a town with a climate
Friendlier to your many talents.
Don’t be ashamed of the homely thought
That whatever you might do elsewhere,
In the time remaining, you might do here
If you can resolve, at last, to pay attention.

~ from Callings (Penguin Poets, 2010)

She is working now, in a room     
not unlike this one,     
the one where I write, or you read.     
Her table is covered with paper.     
The light of the lamp would be     
tempered by a shade, where the bulb's     
single harshness might dissolve,     
but it is not, she has taken it off.     
Her poems? I will never know them,     
though they are the ones I most need.     
Even the alphabet she writes in     
I cannot decipher. Her chair—     
Let us imagine whether it is leather     
or canvas, vinyl or wicker. Let her     
have a chair, her shadeless lamp,     
the table. Let one or two she loves     
be in the next room. Let the door     
be closed, the sleeping ones healthy.     
Let her have time, and silence,     
enough paper to make mistakes and go on. 

~from The Lives of the Heart. © Harper Perennial, 1997

It happens all the time in heaven,
And some day

It will begin to happen
Again on earth -

That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are
Lovers,

And women and women
Who give each other
Light,

Often will get down on their knees

And while so tenderly
Holding their lover's hand,

With tears in their eyes,
Will sincerely speak, saying,

'My dear,
How can I be more loving to you;

How can I be more
Kind?'
	
~ from The Subject Tonight is Love (Pumpkin House Press, 1996)

It’s not holy if you tell it	
to a stranger 
on the beach.

It cannot be holy	
if it is a story whose telling
has just become habitual,
I met her in the shade,	
she wore green, 
inclined her head a bit,
we’d gone to the same school
but never met.

It is coarse, it is crude,	
it is profane and it does no favours
to the millions who wait
knowing or unknowing
for what is holy,
for what is secret,
for what can be told only in fragments,
reluctantly,
to old drunks and grandmothers
on buses,
barely listening. 

~ from Undercurrents, New Voices in Canadian Poetry
edited by Robyn Sarah (Cormorant Books, 2011)

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)