''Full Moon
''
Good God!
What did I dream last night?
[[I dreamt I was the moon->Night Light]].
I woke and found myself still asleep.
It was like this: my face misted up from inside
And I came and went at will through a little peephole.
[[I had no voice, no mouth->Oh My God, I'll Never Get Home]], nothing to express my trouble,
except my shadows leaning downhill, not quite parallel.
Something needs to be said to describe my moonlight.
Almost frost but softer, almost ash but wholer.
Made almost of water, which has strictly speaking
No feature, but a kind of counter-light, call it insight.
Like in woods, when they jostle their hooded shapes,
Their heads congealed together, having murdered each other,
[[There are moon-beings, sound-beings->Of the Dark Doves]], such as deer and half-deer
Passing through there, whose eyes can pierce through things.
I was like that: visible invisible visible invisible.
There's no material as variable as moonlight.
I was climbing, clinging to the underneath of my bones, thinking:
Good God! [[Who have I been last night?->Calling Things What They Are]]
--Alice Oswald''Rain''
Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
and yellow
a terrible amber.
[[In the cold streets->Full Moon]]
your warm body.
In whatever room
your warm body.
[[Among all the people->There Will Come Soft Rains]]
your absence.
The people who are always
not you.
I have been easy with trees
too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
[[Now
suddenly
this rain->Litany for the Animals Who Run from Me]].
--Jack Gilbert''Wood. Salt. Tin.
''
Little soul,
[[do you remember->In This World]]?
You once walked
over wooden boards
to a house
that sat on stilts in the sea.
It was early.
The sun painted
[[brightness onto the water->The Kingfisher]],
and wherever you sat
that path
led directly to you.
Some mornings
the sea-road was muted
scratched tin,
some mornings blinding.
Then it would leave.
Little soul,
it is strange —
[[even now it is early->Moses]].
--Jane Hirshfield''The Rabbit Hole
'' by handmade ghost
This is a game of warrens and wandering.
Each poem in the warren is both metaphorically (by theme or juxtaposition) and literally (you can click on individual lines in gold to link to another poem) connected. Discerning connections among the linked poems will help you navigate the warren and, eventually, exit the rabbit hole.
The goal of the game is to feel your way through a series of poems in the dark and, at some point, to exit the warren. Of course, you may have goals of your own.
Do you want to navigate the warren without repeating any poems?
To exit as soon as possible?
To discover every poem the warren holds?
Whatever your goals, the warren awaits you. There are 55 poems and only one exit. Fall in.
[[enter the warren->And As in Alice]] ''Quiet Grass, Green Stone
''
I love when out of nowhere
[[I love when out of nowhere->Rain]]
my cat jumps on me
and my body isn’t even surprised.
Me who wants to be [[surprised by everything->A Blessing]]
like a dandelion
like a bottle cap
cricket cricket.
I keep waiting for the god under the anthill to speak up.
I keep waiting for the part of the myth
[[where everyone turns into a different bird->Litany for the Animals Who Run from Me]]
or the reeds start talking
or horses come out of the ocean
in their parliamentary regalia
and cities grow from their hoofprints.
I keep waiting for the bugle
and the jackal-headed god to [[weigh my heart across the river->Wood. Salt. Tin.]].
All this daylight in just a few moments
pours itself into darkness. More and more
I’m satisfied with partial explanations
like a fly with one wing, walking.
--Dean Young''To Kill a Deer
''
Into the changes of autumn brush
the doe walked, and the hide, head, and ears
were the tinsel browns. They made her.
I could not see her. She reappeared, stuffed with apples,
and I shot her. Into the pines she ran,
and I ran after. I might have lost her,
seeing no sign of blood or scuffle,
but felt [[myself part of the woods->Gretel from a Sudden Clearing]],
a woman with a doe’s ears, and heard her
dying, counted her last breaths like a song
of dying, and found her dying.
I shot her again because her lungs rattled like castanets,
then poked her with the gun barrel
because her eyes were dusty and unreal.
I opened her belly and pushed the insides
like rotted fruit [[into a rabbit hole->EXIT THE RABBIT HOLE]],
skinned her, broke her leg joints under my knee,
took the meat, smelled the half-digested smell
that was herself. Ah, I closed her eyes.
I left her refolded in some briars
with the last sun on her head
[[like a benediction->Happiness]], head tilted on its axis
of neck and barren bone; head bent
wordless over a death, though I heard
[[the night wind blowing through her fur->Scheherazade]],
heard riot in the emptied head.
--Carol Frost''Dead Doe
''
The doe lay dead on her back in a field of asters: no.
The doe lay dead on her back [[beside the school bus stop->I Lost My Horse]]: yes.
Where we waited.
[[Her belly white as a cut pear.->The River]] Where we waited: no: off
from where we waited: yes:
at a distance: making a distance
we kept,
as we kept her dead run in sight, that we might see if she chose
to go skyward;
[[that we might run, too, turn tail->And As in Alice]]
if she came near
and troubled our fear with presence: [[with ghostly blossoming->There Will Come Soft Rains]]: with the
fountain’s
unstoppable blossoming
and the black stain the algae makes when the water
stays near.
We can take the gilt-edged strolling of the clouds: yes.
But the risen from the dead: no!
The haloey trouble shooting of the goldfinches in the bush:
yes: but in season:
kept within bounds,
not in the pirated rows of corn,
not above winter’s pittance of river.
The doe lay dead: she lent
her deadness to the morning, that the morning might have weight, that
our waiting might matter: be upheld by significance: by light
on the rhododendron, by the ribbons the sucked mint loosed
on the air,
by the treasonous gold-leaved passage of season, and you
from me/child/from me/
from . . . not mother: no:
but the weather that would hold you: yes:
hothouse you to fattest blooms: keep you in mild unceasing rain, and the fixed
stations of heat: like a pedalled note: or the held
breath: sucked in, and stay: yes:
stay
but: no: not done: can’t be:
the doe lay dead: she could
do nothing:
the dead can mother nothing . . . nothing
but our sight: they mother that, whether they will or no:
they mother our looking, the gap the tongue prods when the tooth is missing, when
fancy seeks the space.
The doe lay dead: yes: and at a distance, with her legs up and frozen, she tricked
our vision: at a distance she was
for a moment no deer
at all
but two swans: we saw two swans
and they were fighting
or they were coupling
or they were stabbing the ground for some prize
worth nothing, but fought over, so worth that, worth
the fought-over glossiness: the morning’s fragile-tubed glory.
And [[this is the soul: like it or not->Hope]]. Yes: the soul comes down: yes: comes
into the deer: yes: who dies: yes: and in her death twins herself into swans:
fools us with mist and accident into believing her newfound finery
and we are not afraid
though we should be
and we are not afraid as we watch her soul fly on: paired
as the soul always is: with itself:
with others.
Two swans . . .
[[Child. We are done for
in the most remarkable ways.->EXIT THE RABBIT HOLE]]
--Brigit Pegeen Kelly''I Lost My Horse
''
[[I was looking for an animal->All Your Horses]], calf or lamb,
in the wire, metal and hair along the fence line.
Wire, metal and hair and there, in the gully, a man
I was pretending was dead. I pretended
to leave him where the woods met the meadow,
walking fast because I’d left my horse lashed
to a fence I lost track of two valleys
ago. Like a horse, I shied from the dead.
[[Here, calf. Here, lamb.->To Kill a Deer]] I listened, wanting
(without my horse, my calf or lamb) to be
whipsmart rather than wanted. I wore orange
on antelope season’s first afternoon
and waited for the click that means the safety is
off. When I spoke, my story was about picking
skulls clean. I wanted everything to be
afraid of me, the horseless girl who wanted
to kill a dead man again. The white bed
with a window behind its headboard became
ice on the meadow road and a tree to stop
a truck dead. I meant to trace my boot steps
[[back to the fence where things went wrong->The River]],
find my horse mouthing the bit, tied up by her
reins. [[I looked for the horse because she looked
safe enough to love->Hope]]. I looked for the calf
or lamb because there was no calf or lamb.
The man left before I could leave him, and I pretended
[[the world was afraid of me because I was alone->The Art of Disappearing]].
--Cecily Parks''Oh My God, I'll Never Get Home
''
[[A piece of a man had broken off in a road.->Scheherazade]] He picked it up and put it in his pocket.
As he stooped to pick up another piece he came apart at the waist.
His bottom half was still standing. He walked over on his elbows and grabbed the seat of his pants and said, [[legs go home->Moses]].
But as they were going along his head fell off. His head yelled, legs stop.
And then one of his knees came apart. But [[meanwhile his heart had dropped out of his trunk->Question]].
As his head screamed, legs turn around, his tongue fell out.
[[Oh my God, he thought, I’ll never get home.->The Thing Is]]
--Russell Edson''The Kingfisher
''
The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is
the prettiest world—so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?
[[There are more fish than there are leaves->A River]]
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn’t born to think about it, or anything else.
When the [[wave snaps shut->No. 656]] over his blue head, the water
remains water—hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.
I don’t say he’s right. Neither
do I say he’s wrong. Religiously [[he swallows the silver leaf->Kissing the Toad]]
with its broken red river, and with a rough and easy cry
I couldn’t rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
[[over the bright sea->Gift]] to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.
--Mary Oliver''Gift''
[[A day so happy->Happiness]].
Fog lifted early, [[I worked in the garden->Another Dream of Burial]].
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
[[In my body I felt no pain->Question]].
When straightening up, [[I saw the blue sea and sails->No. 656]].
--Czeslaw Milosz''Question''
Body my house
my horse my hound
[[what will I do->All Your Horses]]
when you are fallen
[[Where will I sleep->Snowdrops]]
How will I ride
What will I hunt
Where can I go
without my mount
[[all eager and quick->Calling Things What They Are]]
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
[[bright dog->No. 656]] is dead
How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
[[and wind for an eye->There Will Come Soft Rains]]
With cloud for shift
[[how will I hide->The Lull]]?
--May Swenson''Of the Dark Doves
''
In the branches of the laurel tree
I saw two dark doves
One was the sun
and one the moon
Little neighbors I said
[[where is my grave->Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.]] —
In my tail said the sun
On my throat said the moon
And I who was walking
with the land around my waist
saw two snow eagles
and [[a naked girl->Gretel from a Sudden Clearing]]
One was the other
and the girl was none
Little eagles I said
[[where is my grave->In This World]] —
In my tail said the sun
On my throat said the moon
In the branches of the laurel tree
I saw two naked doves
One was the other
and both were none
--Federico Garcia Lorca''No. 656
''
[[I started Early – Took my Dog –->The Morning]]
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –
And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground – upon the Sands –
But [[no Man moved Me->Family Ties]] – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Bodice – too –
And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion's Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –
And He – He followed – close behind –
I felt His Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle – Then My Shoes
[[Would overflow with Pearl->Full Moon]] –
Until We met the Solid Town –
[[No One->Not Waving But Drowning]] He seemed to know –
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –
--Emily Dickinson''There Will Come Soft Rains
''
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And [[swallows circling with their shimmering sound->Are We]];
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And [[wild plum trees in tremulous white->From Blossoms]],
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
[[And not one will know of the war, not one->The Art of Disappearing]]
Will care at last [[when it is done->There She Is]].
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
[[If mankind perished utterly->Hope]];
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
[[Would scarcely know that we were gone.->Calling Things What They Are]]
--Sara Teasdale''In This World
''
In this world
[[the living grow fewer->Taking Care]],
[[the dead increase->Are We]]
how much longer
[[must I carry this body->Question]] of grief?
--Ono no Komachigoodbye
[[Return to the entrance of the warren->THE RABBIT HOLE]]''From Blossoms
''
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from [[sweet fellowship in the bins->Gift]],
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
[[to carry within us an orchard->Wood. Salt. Tin.]], to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
[[the fruit in our hands->Kissing the Toad]], adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
[[There are days we live->Late Fragment]]
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to [[sweet impossible blossom->An Hour Is Not a House]].
--Li-Young Lee''She Had Some Horses
''
She had some horses.
She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
[[She had horses who were the blue air of sky->From Blossoms]].
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.
She had some horses.
She had horses with long, pointed breasts.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
[[She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.->The Colonel]]
She had horses who licked razor blades.
She had some horses.
She had horses who danced in their mothers' arms.
She had horses who thought they were the sun and their
bodies shone and burned like stars.
[[She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon->Full Moon]].
She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet
in stalls of their own making.
She had some horses.
She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.
She had horses who cried in their beer.
She had horses who spit at male queens who made them afraid of themselves.
She had horses who said they weren't afraid.
[[She had horses who lied->I Lost My Horse]].
She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped bare of their tongues.
She had some horses.
She had horses who called themselves, "horse."
She had horses who called themselves, "spirit." and kept their voices secret and to
themselves.
She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names.
She had some horses.
She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak.
She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who
carried knives [[to protect themselves from ghosts->telling our stories]].
She had horses who waited for destruction.
She had horses who waited for resurrection.
She had some horses.
She had horses who got down on their knees for any savior.
She had horses who thought their high price had saved them.
She had horses who tried to save her, who climbed in her
bed at night and prayed as they raped her.
She had some horses.
She had some horses she loved.
She had some horses she hated.
[[These were the same horses->Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.]].
--Joy Harjo''Snowdrops
''
[[Do you know what I was, how I lived?->Question]] You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.
I did not expect to survive,
[[earth suppressing me->She Had Some Horses]]. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
[[in the cold light->The Morning]]
of earliest spring--
afraid, yes, but among you again
[[crying yes risk joy->The Kingfisher]]
in the raw wind of the new world.
--Louise Gluck''An Hour Is Not a House
''
An hour is not a house,
a life is not a house,
[[you do not go through them->Moses]] as if
they were doors to another.
Yet [[an hour can have shape and proportion->Another Dream of Burial]]
four walls, a ceiling.
An hour can be [[dropped like a glass->Rain]].
Some want quiet as others want bread.
Some want sleep.
My eyes went
to the window, as [[a cat or dog->Quiet Grass, Green Stone]] left alone does.
--Jane Hirshfield''The Thing Is
''
to love life, to love it even
when [[you have no stomach for it->Gretel from a Sudden Clearing]]
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
[[When grief sits with you->Another Dream of Burial]], its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
[[when grief weights you down like your own flesh->Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.]]
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think,[[How can a body withstand this?->Oh My God, I'll Never Get Home]]
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, [[yes, I will take you->Late Fragment]]
I will love you, again.
--Ellen Bass''Family Ties
''
Gradually a girl’s innocence itself becomes her major crime
[[A doe and her two fawns->Dead Doe]] bent low in the sumac along the bank of a highway,
the pinched peach of their ears twitching in the heat
Into the disordered evening [[my brother cut out only his face->Late Speech with My Brother]] from every
photograph in the hall, carefully slipping each frame back into position
What good does it do?
Decades of [[no faces other than our own chipping faces->Are We]]
What good does it do, this resemblance to nothing we know of the dollhouse
New parents watch their newborn resting in a sunny patch of an empty
room, [[the newborn making sense of its container->Of the Dark Doves]]—
And from the road a deer ripened in death and a tuft of fur—or dandelion—
tumbled along, gently circled, driftwood, shaking loose, gathered,
dissolving into the mouths of jewelweed nearby
Earth is [[rife with iron and blood->There She Is]] is rich in stardust
[[Immediately I spotted one hoof print, then nothing->She Had Some Horses]], as if this was where she
dragged herself out of the body
Strips of tire torn from their orbit
[[Is it right then, that we are left to hurtle alone->There Will Come Soft Rains]]
--Diana Khoi Nguyen''Scheherazade''
Tell me about [[the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake->A River]]
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where [[the roots have to end somewhere->telling our stories]],
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at [[the light through the windowpane->Full Moon]]. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how [[all this, and love too, will ruin us->Are We]].
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.
--Richard Siken''The Art of Disappearing
''
When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.
[[When they invite you to the party->Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.]]
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone is telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
[[Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate->To Kill a Deer]].
Then reply.
If they say We should get together
say why?
It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. [[The monastery bell at twilight->Everyone Sang]].
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.
When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know [[you could tumble any second->Moses]].
Then decide what to do with your time.
--Naomi Shihab Nye''The Morning
''
Would I love it this way if it could last
would I love it this way if it
were the whole sky the one heaven
or [[if I could believe that it belonged to me->I Lost My Horse]]
a possession that was mine alone
or if I imagined that it noticed me
recognized me and may have come to see me
out of all the mornings that I never knew
and all those that I have forgotten
would I love it this way if I were somewhere else
or if I were younger for the first time
or [[if these very birds were not singing->Are We]]
or I could not hear them or see their trees
would I love it this way if I were in pain
red torment of body or gray void of grief
[[would I love it this way if I knew->From Blossoms]]
that I would remember anything that is
here now anything anything
--W. S. Merwin''Hope''
Sometimes [[when I’m lonely->Gretel from a Sudden Clearing]],
Don’t know why,
[[Keep thinkin’ I won’t be lonely->Calling Things What They Are]]
[[By and by->No. 656]].
--Langston Hughes''All Your Horses
''
Say when rain
cannot make
you more wet
or a certain
thought can’t
deepen and yet
you think it again:
[[you have lost
count->Another Dream of Burial]]. A larger
amount is
no longer a
larger amount.
There has been
[[a collapse; perhaps->Rain]]
in the night.
Like a rupture
in water (which
can’t rupture
of course). All
your horses
broken out with
[[all your horses->She Had Some Horses]].
--Kay Ryan''Calling Things What They Are
''
I pass the feeder and yell, [[Grackle party->Oh My God, I'll Never Get Home]]! And then an hour later I yell, Mourning dove afterparty! (I call the feeder the party and the seed on the ground the afterparty.) I am getting so good at watching that I’ve even dug out the binoculars an old poet gave me back when I was young and heading to the Cape with so much future ahead of me [[it was like my own ocean->Late Speech with My Brother]]. Tufted titmouse! I yell, and Lucas laughs and says, Thought so. But he is humoring me; he didn’t think so at all. My father does this same thing. Shouts out at the feeder announcing the party attendees. He throws out a whole peanut or two to the Stellar’s jay who visits on a low oak branch in the morning. To think [[there was a time I thought birds were kind of boring->Litany for the Animals Who Run from Me]]. Brown bird. Gray bird. Black bird. Blah blah blah bird. Then, I started to learn their names by the ocean, and the person I was dating said, That’s the problem with you, Limón, you’re all fauna and no flora. And [[I began to learn the names of trees->Of the Dark Doves]]. I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested in, but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that [[I called it love and the whole time it was pain->Question]].
--Ada Limon''And As In Alice
''
[[Alice cannot be in the poem->Family Ties]], she says, because
She's only a metaphor for childhood
And [[a poem is a metaphor already->Oh My God, I'll Never Get Home]]
So we'd only have a metaphor
Inside a metaphor. Do you see?
They all nod. They see. Except for the girl
With her head in the rabbit hole. From this vantage,
Her bum looks like the flattened backside
Of a black and white panda. She actually has one
In the crook of her arm.
Of course [[it's stuffed and not living->Taking Care]].
Who would dare hold a real bear so near the outer ear?
She's wondering [[what possible harm might come to her->All Your Horses]]
If she fell all the way down the dark she's looking through.
Would strange creatures sing songs
Where odd syllables came to a sibilant end at the end.
Perhaps the sounds would be [[a form of light hissing->Full Moon]].
Like when a walrus blows air
Through two fractured front teeth. Perhaps it would
Take the form of a snake. But if a snake, it would need a tree.
[[Could she grow one from seed? Could one make a cat?->Quiet Grass, Green Stone]]
Make it sit on a branch and fade away again
The moment you told it that the rude noise it was hearing was
rational thought
With [[an axe beating on the forest door->Gretel from a Sudden Clearing]].
--Mary Jo Bang''Gretel from a Sudden Clearing
''
No way back then, you remember, we decided,
but forward, deep into a wood
so darkly green, so deafening with birdsong
I stopped my ears.
And that high chime at night,
[[was it really the stars, or some music->Snowdrops]]
running inside our heads like a dream?
I think we must have been very tired.
I think it must have been a bad broken off
piece at the start that left us so hungry
[[we turned back to a path that was gone->Dead Doe]],
and lost each other, looking.
I called your name over and over again,
and still you did not come.
At night, I was afraid of the black dogs
and often I dreamed you next to me,
but even then, you were always turning
down the thick corridor of trees.
In daylight, every tree became you.
And [[pretending->This Beautiful Planet]], I kissed my way through
the forest, until I stopped pretending
and stumbled, finally, here.
Here too, there are step-parents, and bread
rising, and so many other people
you may not find me at first. They speak
[[your name, when I speak it->Rain]].
But I remember you before you became
a story. Sometimes, I feel a thorn in my foot
when there is no thorn. They tell me,
not unkindly, that I should imagine nothing here.
But I believe you are still alive.
I want to tell you about the size of the witch
and how beautiful she is. I want to tell you
the kitchen knives only look friendly,
they have a life of their own,
and that [[you shouldn’t be sorry->The Art of Disappearing]],
not for the bread we ate and thought
we wasted, not for turning back alone,
and that I remember how our shadows walked
always before us, and how that was a clue,
and how there are other clues
that seem like a dream but are not,
and that every day, I am less
and less afraid.
--Marie Howe''Another Dream of Burial
''
Sometimes it is [[a walled garden->Happiness]]
with the stone over the entrance
broken and inside it a few
silent dried-up weeds or it may
be [[a long pool perfectly still->Wood. Salt. Tin.]]
with the clear water revealing
no color but that of [[the gray
stone around it->Not Waving But Drowning]] and once there was
in a painting of a landscape
[[one torn place imperfectly mended->All Your Horses]]
that showed the darkness under it
but still I have set nothing down
and [[turned and walked away->The Thing Is]] from it
into the whole world
--W. S. Merwin''Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.
''
Do not care if you just arrive in your skeleton.
Would love to take a walk with you. Miss you.
Would love to make you shrimp saganaki.
Like you used to make me when you were alive.
[[Love to feed you->Taking Care]]. Sit over steaming
bowls of pilaf. Little roasted tomatoes
covered in pepper and nutmeg. Miss you.
Would love to walk to the post office with you.
[[Bring the ghost dog->No. 656]]. We’ll walk past the waterfall
and you can tell me about the after.
Wish you. Wish you would come back for a while.
Don’t even need to bring your skin sack. I’ll know
you. [[I know you will know me even though->Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately]]. I’m
bigger now. Grayer. I’ll show you my garden.
I’d like to hop in the leaf pile you raked but if you
want to jump in? I’ll rake it for you. Miss you
[[standing looking out at the river->A River]] with your rake
in your hand. Miss you in your puffy blue jacket.
They’re hip now. I can bring you a new one
if you’ll only come by. Know I told you
it was okay to go. Know I told you
it was okay to leave me. Why’d you believe me?
You always believed me. Wish you would
come back so we could talk about truth.
Miss you. [[Wish you would walk through->An Hour Is Not a House]] my
door. Stare out from the mirror. Come through
the pipes.
--Gabrielle Calvocoressi''A River
''
God knows [[the law of life is death->Another Dream of Burial]],
and you can feel it in your warbler neck,
your river-quick high stick wrist
at the end of day. But the trophies:
a goldfinch tearing up a pink thistle,
a magpie dipping her wing tips
in a white cloud, an ouzel barreling
hip-high upstream with a warning.
[[You wish you had a river->The Kingfisher]]. To make
a river, it takes some mountains.
Some rain to watershed. You wish
you had a steady meadow and pink thistles
bobbing at the border for your horizons,
pale robins bouncing their good postures
in the spruce shadows. Instead, the law
of [[life comes for you->An Hour Is Not a House]] like three men
and a car. In your dreams, you win them over
with your dreams: a goldfinch tearing up
a pink thistle. A magpie so slow
she knows [[how to keep death at bay->Moses]],
she takes her time with argument
and hides her royal blue in black.
[[Shy as a blue grouse, nevertheless->Quiet Grass, Green Stone]] God
doesn’t forget his green mountains.
[[You wish you had a river.->The River]]
--John Poch''Are We
''
extinct yet. Who owns
the map. May I
look. Where is my
claim. Is my history
verifiable. Have I
included the memory
of [[the animals. The animals->Litany for the Animals Who Run from Me]]’
memories. Are they
still here. Are we
alone. Look
the filaments
appear. [[Of memories. Whose?->Everyone Sang]] What was
land
like. Did it move
through us. Something says nonstop
are you here
are your ancestors
real do you have a
body do you have
yr self in
mind can you see yr
hands – have you broken it
the thread – try to feel the
pull of the other
end – make sure
both ends are
alive when u pull to
try to re-enter
here. A raven
has arrived while I
am taking all this
down. In-
corporate me it
squawks. It hops
closer along the low stone
wall. Do you remember
[[despair its coming->The Morning]]
closer says. I look
at him. Do not
[[hurry I say but->Rain]]
he’s tapping the stone
all over with his
beak. His coat is
sun. He looks
carefully at me bc
I’m so still &
eager. He sees my
loneliness. Cicadas
begin. Is this a real
encounter I ask. Of the old
kind. When there were
ravens. No
says the light. You
are barely here. The
raven left a
long time ago. It
is travelling its thread its
skyroad forever now, it knows
the current through the
cicadas, which you cannot hear
but which
close over u now. But is it not
here I ask looking up
through my stanzas.
Did it not reach me
as it came in. Did
it not enter here
at stanza eight – & where
does it go now
when it goes away
again, when I tell you [[the raven is golden->Gift]],
when I tell you it lifted &
went, & it went.
--Jorie Graham''Everyone Sang
''
[[Everyone suddenly burst out singing->The Lull]];
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
[[Winging wildly across the white->A River]]
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came [[like the setting sun->Snowdrops]]:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; [[the singing will never be done->To Kill a Deer]].
--Sigfried Sassoon''Taking Care
''
I sit with my grief. I mother it. [[I hold its small, hot hand->Late Fragment]]. I don’t say, shhh. I don’t say, its okay. I wait until it is done having feelings. Then we stand and we go wash the dishes. [[We crack open bedroom doors->An Hour Is Not a House]], step over the creaks, and kiss the children. We are sore from this grief, [[like we’ve returned from a run->Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.]], like we are training for a marathon. I’m with you all the way, says my grief, whispering, and then we splash our face with water and stretch, one big shadow and one small.
--Callista Buchen''Moses
''
Give me your hand. [[We have to cross the river->Taking Care]] and my strength fails me. Hold me as if I were an abandoned package in a wicker basket, a lump that moves and cries in the twilight.[[Cross the river with me->A River]]. Even if this time the waters don't part before us. Even if this time God doesn't come to our aid and a flurry of arrows riddles our backs. [[Even if there is no river->She Had Some Horses]].
--Luis Alberto de Cuenca''Late Fragment
''
And did you get what
you wanted from [[this life, even so->From Blossoms]]?
I did.
And [[what did you want->In This World]]?
[[To call myself beloved->Gift]], to feel myself beloved on the earth.
--Raymond Carver''Litany for the Animals Who Run from Me
''
[[Anything can be a bird if you’re not careful->Rain]].
I should [[say something nice about the weather->The Colonel]].
I should be in awe of the living, but the world dulls
when I step into it. The squirrels scatter, the branches
lift. Sure, [[I’ve hurt the ones I’ve loved->I Lost My Horse]]
by not paying attention. Not alone — never alone
is a lesson I need to understand. It was you who said that.
It’s you still. You who says, Look! You who points
to the sky. [[You who tilts my chin->The River]] toward the heron,
[[who cups the minnow in your hands->The Kingfisher]],
who spots the deer miles ahead, who dulls
the world with your absence. You who says, Look!
& when I look, you are gone, replaced
by [[the whitetail’s hind legs, fading into the bush->Dead Doe]].
--Hieu Minh Nguyen''Happiness
''
A state you must dare not enter
with hopes of staying,
[[quicksand in the marshes->Late Speech with My Brother]], and all
the [[roads leading to a castle->This Beautiful Planet]]
that doesn't exist.
But there it is, as promised,
with its perfect bridge above
the crocodiles,
and [[its doors forever open->Wood. Salt. Tin.]].
--Stephen Dunn''Night Light
''
The moon is not green cheese.
It is china and stands in this room.
It has a ten-watt bulb and a motto:
//Made in Japan//.
Whey-faced, doll-faced,
it’s closed as a tooth
and [[cold as the dead are cold->The Lull]]
till I touch the switch.
Then [[the moon performs
its one trick->Hope]]:
it turns into a banana.
It warms to its subjects,
it draws us into its light,
just as I knew it would
when I gave ten dollars
to the pale clerk
in the store that sold
everything.
She asked, did I have a car?
She shrouded the moon in tissue
and laid it to rest in a box.
The box did not say Moon.
It said This side up.
I tucked my moon into my basket
and bicycled into the world.
By the light of the sun
I could not see the
moon under my sack of apples,
moon under slab of salmon,
moon under clean laundry,
under milk its sister
and bread its brother,
moon under meat.
Now supper is eaten.
Now laundry is folded away.
I shake out the old comforters.
My nine cats find their places
and go on dreaming where they left off.
My son snuggles under the heap.
His father loses his way in a book.
It is time to turn on the moon.
[[It is time to live by a different light.->Contentment]]
--Nancy Willard
''Kissing the Toad
''
Somewhere this dusk
a girl puckers her mouth
and considers kissing
the toad a boy has plucked
from the cornfield and hands
her with both hands,
[[rough and lichenous->This Beautiful Planet]]
but for the immense ivory belly,
like those old fat cats
sprawling on Mediterranean beaches,
with popped eyes,
it watches [[the girl who might kiss it->Gretel from a Sudden Clearing]],
pisses, quakes, tries
to make its smile wider:
//to love on, oh yes, to love on
//
--Galway Kinnell''Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately
''
[[It is day infinity->Are We]]
of everyone wanting me dead. People are having fun
bringing lemon squares and automatic artillery to the anti-trans community meetings.
Divorced legislators harangue
about pedophile cults and surgeried infants and what ever happened to forever ago.
[[I am more beautiful than you and I would like to be loved.->A Blessing]]
I am getting concerned
about the monomaniacs who make their entire lives about deadnaming and transvestigations:
obviously it’s working but aren’t you exhausted, don’t you remember
when someone loved you without knowing what you were?
I am eating shortbread on a patio table overlooking the enormous green ocean.
Somewhere an octopus is being eaten by an octopus and not panicking.
Black dress to the floor, red acrylic nails, silver teardrop earrings, waterproof mascara.
I am excited to do this for the rest of my life and be terrified.
I hear a noise behind me and I don’t turn around.
--Jackie Sabbagh''The River
''
[[The lambs->Everyone Sang]] I curled like twins
and lay into their boats. I stuffed their ears
with the wooly sound of sleep.
The pigs I showered with white carnations.
The cows I placed cut branches over, green parasols
fluttering on the stems. All the dead
becalmed in their vessels, sent onto the river.
The river was [[a murmur of many boats drifting->Litany for the Animals Who Run from Me]].
Petals in the eddies, creak of prow against stern…
The parade grew large between the banks.
Then [[there were only boats->The Dead]], boats
and the sound of water beneath them.
--Jenny George''telling our stories
''
the fox came every evening to my door
asking for nothing. my fear
trapped me inside, hoping to dismiss her
but [[she sat till morning, waiting->Taking Care]].
at dawn we would, each of us,
rise from our haunches, look through the glass
then walk away.
did she gather her village around her
and sing of the hairless moon face,
the trembling snout, the ignorant eyes?
child, i tell you now [[it was not
the animal blood i was hiding from->The Colonel]],
it was the poet in her, the poet and
the terrible stories she could tell.
--Lucille Clifton
''The Colonel
''
[[What you have heard is true.->Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately]] I was in his house. His wife carried
a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went
out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the
cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over
the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English.
Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On
the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had
dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought [[green mangoes, salt, a type of
bread->Moses]]. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief
commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot
said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed
himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries
home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like
dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one
of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water
glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As
for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them-
selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last
of his wine in the air. [[Something for your poetry, no?->Everyone Sang]] he said. Some
of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the
ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.
--Carolyn Forche''The Dead
''
At night the dead come down to the river to drink.
[[They unburden themselves of their fears->A River]],
their worries for us. They take out the old photographs.
They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures,
which are cracked and yellow.
[[Some dead find their way to our houses.->There She Is]]
They go up to the attics.
They read the letters they sent us, insatiable
[[for signs of their love->This Beautiful Planet]].
They tell each other stories.
They make so much noise
they wake us
as they did when we were children and they stayed up
[[drinking all night in the kitchen->Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.]].
--Susan Mitchell''Late Speech with My Brother
''
[[I can see you now so vividly->Not Waving But Drowning]],
fine head tilted back,
bold Teutonic jaw stiff, the
bristle along it glistens and your blue
eyes glitter like glass. I have always
feared you would take your life, I have seen you
taking your life for thirty-five years,
taking it cell by cell. [[I can see you->There She Is]]
throw away your body as easily
as you thrust your whole thumb that time
into the moving machinery, so
gracefully, as if you understood
[[the union of science and the human->The Dead]]. I can see you
sending your body to hell as they sent us to
bed without supper, you're as big as them now
and as proud, you would die before you would break and say
Please, don't. Please, don't
do their work for them,
don't produce a stopped life like some
work of art, the bottle fallen
away from your open hand. It is not
too late, your life is shead of you, behind you
is your thirty-five years of
death---I have seen a man of eighty
drop his parents' hands and [[just walk the other way->Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately]].
--Sharon Olds''The Lull
''
The possum lay on the tracks fully dead.
[[I'm the kind of person who stops to look.->Dead Doe]]
It was big and white with flies on its head,
a thick healthy hairless tail, and strong, hooked
nails on its raccoon like feet. It was a full-
grown possum. It was sturdy and adult.
Only its head was smashed. In the lull
that it took to look, you took the time to insult
[[the corpse, the flies, the world,->The Body in the Forest]] the fact that we were
traipsing in our dress shoes down the railroad tracks.
"That's disgusting." You said that. [[Dreams, brains, fur,
and guts: what we are.->Not Waving But Drowning]] That's my bargain, the Pax
Peacock, with the world. Look hard, life's soft. Life's cache
is flesh, flesh, and flesh.
--Molly Peacock''There She Is
''
When I go into the garden, there she is.
The specter holds up her arms to show
that [[her hands are eaten off->The Colonel]].
She is silent because of the agony.
There is blood on her face.
I can see she has done this to herself.
So she would not feel the other pain.
And it is true, she does not feel it.
She does not even see me.
[[It is not she anymore, but the pain itself
that moves her.->Question]] I look and think
how to forget. How can I live while she
stands there? And if I take her life
what will that make of me? I cannot
touch her, make her conscious.
It would hurt her too much.
I hear the sound all through the air
that was her eating, but it is on its own now,
completely separate from her. I think
I am supposed to look. I am not supposed
to turn away. I am supposed to see each detail
and all expression gone. My God, I think,
[[if paradise is to be here
it will have to include her->She Had Some Horses]].
--Linda Gregg''Not Waving But Drowning
''
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
[[I was much further out than you thought->Late Speech with My Brother]]
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him [[his heart gave way->The River]],
They said.
Oh, no no no, [[it was too cold always->The Dead]]
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
--Stevie Smith''This Beautiful Planet
''
[[Please tell me that I was a good child->And As in Alice]]
And that I did everything right
And that the atmosphere was exactly certain
I want you to love me
In ways that you never have
So that I become a forgotten world
With rainbow sunrises over dark green trees
And the cooling of the day
Becomes normal again
We will sit and[[ watch the body of water
That we once called a sort of death->A River]]
You know even in my dreams
You say I’ll never get it right
This is not a dream
We are burning here with no escape
But no matter how many times
They talk about the moon
It does not take a poet
To know that the moon
Is still only an illusion
Only an illusion
The moon calls out to all of us
Come back, it says
But we don’t hear it
[[Already on our way
To somewhere->Oh My God, I'll Never Get Home]]
--Dorothea Lasky''A Blessing
''
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two ponies
Darken with kindness.
[[They have come gladly out of the willows->From Blossoms]]
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
[[There is no loneliness like theirs->I Lost My Horse]].
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That [[if I stepped out of my body I would break->The Body in the Forest]]
Into blossom.
--James Wright''Contentment''
No harm would I pose
To [[the bee->No. 656]] in its hive
To the bird in its nest;
I live in my own world
Under my hat.
It is my contentment that makes
Me smile without reason on the streets;
[[It is my heart->Not Waving But Drowning]],
The source of this raving frenzy.
I am not silent, I can’t keep quiet
Like [[the dead beneath the dirt->The Body in the Forest]]
In the midst of this sweet world.
--Rüstü Onur
''The Body in the Forest
''
The heart stops, [[then the lonely minutes begin->Late Speech with My Brother]]
until the brain follows, taking thought and memory
with it, and the loss of those ravens is the loss
that matters, for all we spend a lifetime guarding
our hearts. That thought is just a kenning
for carrion--what the scavenger memory feeds
on and cleans away--says everything of love.
I must tell you, I am with Odin: in fear of my thoughts
at their daily flights, yet more anxious for memories,
lest they leave me forever. [[For who can speak
of love, having forgotten?->Rain]] As the blood pools
where the body is lowest, as the muscles stiffen,
then relax, we eat our hearts out from the inside.
We have never known such stillness, will never
know it, knowing being a thing that vanishes
with [[the dark feathers of the mind->Of the Dark Doves]].
Every night [[the television glows->Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately]] and its citizens
discover another body in the forest. I love only mystery
but long to see it undone. As one does
in love. Let me know you, let nothing be hidden,
not the earth under the fingernails, not the breath
caught in heat. Let no tremor or gasp go unrecorded,
though the record one day come to naught.
--Jessamyn Birrer