Memorabilia

--Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,

----And did he stop and speak to you?

And did you speak to him again?

----How strange it seems, and new!

--But you were living before that,

----And you are living after,

And the memory I started at—

----My starting moves your laughter!

--I crossed a moor, with a name of its own

----And a certain use in the world no doubt,

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone

----'Mid the blank miles round about:

--For there I picked up on the heather

----And there I put inside my breast

A moulted feather, an eagle-feather—

----Well, I forget the rest.

-Robert Browning

I'm almost done with my year of monthly mixes (the first one was here--December, January and March are also online). This is April's--I would post May's, but I haven't put it together yet. Also, I like this one. As usual, it's fairly long and fairly eclectic, and even though I try to avoid this, it features most of my standbys (Greg Brown, Dylan, Tom Waits).
Speaking of April, a person I know named April said she sent this link along to some folks, so if new people are reading this--hello. At this point I tend to approach the endeavor with the attitude of a person hollering at a cliff (or into the void of the internet). Which is to say: it's mostly for my own entertainment, because it keeps me reading poetry and taking pictures. If it entertains other people as well, that's great. Welcome.

Spring

Somewhere
---a black bear
------has just risen from sleep
---------and is staring

down the mountain.
---All night
------in the brisk and shallow restlessness
---------of early spring.

I think of her,
---her four black fists
------flicking the gravel,
---------her tongue.

like a red fire
---touching the grass,
------the cold water.
---------There is only one question:

how to love this world.
---I think of her
------rising
---------like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
---the silence
------of the trees.
---------Whatever else

my life is
---with its poems
------and its music
---------and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
---coming
------down the mountain,
---------breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her--
---her white teeth,
------her wordlessness,
---------her perfect love.

-Mary Oliver, 1990

This one's for dad, who thought that one poem about the dog was by Mary Oliver, when actually it was by Jane Kenyon. So here's a Mary Oliver one (last time I posted Mary Oliver, it was for mom, and almost two years ago). This one's also for the bear that came down the mountain last week, upturned the bird feeder and the compost bin, and left dusty footprints on the front porch.

It's not Wednesday.

It is, in fact, Friday. I was going to backdate this post to make it look like it was up on Wednesday, but that would be a lie.

Guilt at Leaving the Hermit's Life

To stay in the mountains is called great ambition;
leaving the mountains you become a small weed.
It was already stated in ancient times.
Why didn't I foresee all this happening?
All my life I longed to go my own way
and to give my ambition to hills and valleys.
I paint and write for my own entertainment,
hoping to keep my nature wild.
Unfortunately, I am trapped in a net of dust,
I turn and get tangled up.
I was a gull over the waters,
now a bird in cage.
Who cares about my sad singing?
Day by day my feathers dry to ruin.
Without relatives' and friends' help,
vegetables and fruit were often scarce.
My sick wife carried my weak son,
and they left for a place ten thousand miles away.
We were separated, flesh and bones,
and our family tombs have no one to tend them.
When sorrow is deep, words all gone,
I gaze at clouds riding south till my vision fails.
A sad wind comes and I cry,
"How can I tell heaven my story?"

-Zhao Menfu

The Path

People believe that they create a path for themselves but
the path does not quietly conform to what people intend.
Either it drags people onward until suddenly
there they are, stranded in failure at the edge of a cliff,
or it deliberately dives into a flood, forcing them to leave it.
Seeing this, people claim that the man-made path teaches
the wisdom of living, not the other way round;
equally they claim that it calls people abroad
and shows them every kind of place and way of living;
that is how it instructs them in the principles of life.
So they believe that such is all the path's intent.
They do not realize that the path leads people
from the outside inward
and obliges them to scrutinize their own hidden depths.
The path only grows subservient to those who know
that it leads not outward but inward,
embroidering itself with flowers, increasing their scent,
casting a shadow and enabling people to cool their sweat.
People who once know that will never be heard to claim
that it was they who made the path they took.

-Shin Kyong-Rim