Late Light

Gregg Chadwick
Jordaan Window (Coffee in Amsterdam)
25cm x 25cm oil on wood 2010

Late Light 

by Philip Levine

(January 10, 1928 - 2015)

Rain filled the streets

once a year, rising almost

to door and window sills,

battering walls and roofs

until it cleaned away the mess

we'd made. My father told

me this, he told me it ran

downtown and spilled into

the river, which in turn

emptied finally into the sea.

He said this only once

while I sat on the arm

of his chair and stared out

at the banks of gray snow

melting as the March rain

streaked past. All the rest

of that day passed on

into childhood, into nothing,

or perhaps some portion hung

on in a tiny corner of thought.

Perhaps a clot of cinders

that peppered the front yard

clung to a spar of old weed

or the concrete lip of the curb

and worked its way back under

the new growth spring brought

and is a part of that yard

still. Perhaps light falling

on distant houses becomes

those houses, hunching them

down at dusk like sheep

browsing on a far hillside,

or at daybreak gilds

the roofs until they groan

under the new weight, or

after rain lifts haloes

of steam from the rinsed,

white aluminum siding,

and those houses and all

they contain live that day

in the sight of heaven.

II

In the blue, winking light

of the International Institute

of Social Revolution

I fell asleep one afternoon

over a book of memoirs

of a Spanish priest who'd

served his own private faith

in a long forgotten war.

An Anarchist and a Catholic,

his remembrances moved

inexplicably from Castilian

to Catalan, a language I

couldn't follow. That dust,

fine and gray, peculiar

to libraries, slipped

between the glossy pages

and my sight, a slow darkness

calmed me, and I forgot

the agony of those men

I'd come to love, forgot

the battles lost and won,

forgot the final trek

over hopeless mountain roads,

defeat, surrender, the vows

to live on. I slept until

the lights came on and off.

A girl was prodding my arm,

for the place was closing.

A slender Indonesian girl

in sweater and American jeans,

her black hair falling

almost to my eyes, she told

me in perfect English

that I could come back,

and she swept up into a folder

the yellowing newspaper stories

and photos spilled out before

me on the desk, the little

chronicles of death themselves

curling and blurring

into death, and took away

the book still unfinished

of a man more confused

even than I, and switched off

the light, and left me alone.

III

In June of 1975 I wakened

one late afternoon in Amsterdam

in a dim corner of a library.

I had fallen asleep over a book

and was roused by a young girl

whose hand lay on my hand.

I turned my head up and stared

into her brown eyes, deep

and gleaming. She was crying.

For a second I was confused

and started to speak, to offer

some comfort or aid, but I

kept still, for she was crying

for me, for the knowledge

that I had wakened to a life

in which loss was final.

I closed my eyes a moment.

When I opened them she'd gone,

the place was dark. I went

out into the golden sunlight;

the cobbled streets gleamed

as after rain, the street cafes

crowded and alive. Not

far off the great bell

of the Westerkirk tolled

in the early evening. I thought

of my oldest son, who years

before had sailed from here

into an unknown life in Sweden,

a life which failed, of how

he'd gone alone to Copenhagen,

Bremen, where he'd loaded trains,

Hamburg, Munich, and finally

-- sick and weary -- he'd returned

to us. He slept in a corner

of the living room for days,

and woke gaunt and quiet,

still only seventeen, his face

in its own shadows. I thought

of my father on the run

from an older war, and wondered

had he passed through Amsterdam,

had he stood, as I did now,

gazing up at the pale sky,

distant and opaque, for the sign

that never comes. Had he drifted

in the same winds of doubt

and change to another continent,

another life, a family, some

years of peace, an early death.

I walked on by myself for miles

and still the light hung on

as though the day would

never end. The gray canals

darkened slowly, the sky

above the high, narrow houses

deepened into blue, and one

by one the stars began

their singular voyages.

  

Happy Birthday Walt Whitman

 by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick
The Wound-Dresser
(Walt Whitman, Washington D.C., US Civil War, 1865)
30” X 24” oil on linen 2011

"The eyes transcend the medium."-R.B. Morris (Poet, Musician, Songwriter)   

Walt Whitman's poetry is a continual source of inspiration for me. Whitman's life story is also deeply moving. In December 1862 Walt Whitman saw the name of his brother George, a Union soldier in the 51st New York Infantry, listed among the wounded from the battle of Fredericksburg. Whitman rushed from Brooklyn to the Washington D.C. area to search the hospitals and encampments for his brother. During this time Walt Whitman gave witness to the wounds of warfare by listening gently to the injured soldiers as they told their tales of battle.  Whitman often spent time with soldiers recovering from their injuries in the Patent Office Building (now home to the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum), which had been converted into a hospital for much of the Civil War. Walt Whitman's experiences in Washington deeply affected his life and work and informed the core of his writing. 

Robert Roper's Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and His Brothers in the Civil War is an indispensible account of Whitman's time in Washington during the war.  Roper's book examines the Civil War through the experiences of Walt Whitman and provides new findings on the care of wounded soldiers both on the battlefield and in large hospitals in the capital and its environs. Roper also focuses on Whitman's emotional relationships with the  wounded troops he nursed. Walt Whitman journeyed from New York to find his wounded brother George and in the process Walt became a brother to thousands of wounded comrades. Whitman's volunteer work as a nurse during the Civil War is a story that needs to be told in all mediums.

Video by Kenneth Chadwick

The Wound Dresser
by Walt Whitman

An old man bending I come among new faces,
Years looking backward resuming in answer to children,
Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me,
(Arous’d and angry, I’d thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d and I resign’d myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)
Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,
Of unsurpass’d heroes (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,
Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

O maidens and young men I love and that love me,
What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls,
Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover’d with sweat and dust,
In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the rush of successful charge,
Enter the captur’d works—yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade,
Pass and are gone they fade—I dwell not on soldiers’ perils or soldiers’ joys
(Both I remember well—many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content).

But in silence, in dreams’ projections,
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,
With hinged knees returning I enter the doors (while for you up there,
Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart).

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,
Straight and swift to my wounded I go,
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass, the ground,
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof’d hospital,
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,
Soon to be fill’d with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill’d again.

I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.

On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)
The crush’d head I dress (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away),
The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through I examine,
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!
In mercy come quickly).

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,
Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv’d neck and side-falling head,
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,
And has not yet look’d on it.

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,
But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,
And the yellow-blue countenance see.
I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive,
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out,
The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
These and more I dress with impassive hand (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame).

Thus in silence in dreams’ projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,
(Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested,
Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips).

Below is a rich description from Walt Whitman's Diaries that captures his experience as a nurse:

"DURING those three years in hospital, camp or field, I made over six hundred visits or tours, and went, as I estimate, counting all, among from eighty thousand to a hundred thousand of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need. These visits varied from an hour or two, to all day or night; for with dear or critical cases I generally watch’d all night. Sometimes I took up my quarters in the hospital, and slept or watch’d there several nights in succession. Those three years I consider the greatest privilege and satisfaction, (with all their feverish excitements and physical deprivations and lamentable sights) and, of course, the most profound lesson of my life. I can say that in my ministerings I comprehended all, whoever came in my way, northern or southern, and slighted none. It arous’d and brought out and decided undream’d-of depths of emotion. It has given me my most fervent views of the true ensemble and extent of the States. While I was with wounded and sick in thousands of cases from the New England States, and from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all the Western States, I was with more or less from all the States, North and South, without exception. I was with many from the border States, especially from Maryland and Virginia, and found, during those lurid years 1862–63, far more Union southerners, especially Tennesseans, than is supposed. I was with many rebel officers and men among our wounded, and gave them always what I had, and tried to cheer them the same as any. I was among the army teamsters considerably, and, indeed, always found myself drawn to them. Among the black soldiers, wounded or sick, and in the contraband camps, I also took my way whenever in their neighborhood, and did what I could for them."

More on Walt Whitman during the Civil War at:
Whitman's Drum Taps and
Washington's Civil War Hospitals


More on RB Morris at:
RB Morris.com

Note: Post is a lightly updated version of my May 31, 2012 essay on Walt Whitman. 

Ukrainian Born Poet Ilya Kaminsky reads “We Lived Happily During the War"

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government.

He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins) and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books).

His work won The Los Angeles Times Book Award, The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The National Jewish Book Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, The Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, Lannan Fellowship, Academy of American Poets’ Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize, and was also shortlisted for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, Neustadt International Literature Prize, and T.S. Eliot Prize (UK).

Deaf Republic was The New York Times’ Notable Book for 2019, and was also named Best Book of 2019 by dozens of other publications, including Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, The Telegraph, Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, Irish Times, Vanity Fair, Lithub, Library Journal, and New Statesman.

His poems have been translated into over twenty languages, and his books are published in many countries, including Turkey, Netherlands, Germany, Russia, France, Mexico, Macedonia, Romania, Spain and China, where his poetry was awarded the Yinchuan International Poetry Prize. In 2019, Kaminsky was selected by BBC as “one of the 12 artists that changed the world.”

Ilya Kaminsky has worked as a law clerk for San Francisco Legal Aid and the National Immigration Law Center. More recently, he worked pro-bono as the Court Appointed Special Advocate for Orphaned Children in Southern California. Currently, he holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Institute of Technology and lives in Atlanta.

Brought to you by Complexly, The Poetry Foundation, and poet Paige Lewis. Learn more: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ Ilya Kaminsky: https://www.ilyakaminsky.com/ https://twitter.com/ilya_poet

Seamus Heaney -- From "The Cure at Troy"

SEAMUS HEANEY

Reads “The Cure at Troy” “History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.”

Future US President Joe Biden often quotes these inspiring lines

from Seamus Heaney's "The Cure at Troy"

Hat Tip to

Paul Holdengraber

@holdengraber

RIP W.S. Merwin

Gregg Chadwick

The River Dreams

16"x11" oil on linen 2009

I learned tonight about the death of  W.S. Merwin. I had a chance to chat briefly with W.S. Merwin after his wonderful reading at the Hammer Museum on October 29, 2009. We spoke of elephants and mystery and nature. Inspiring memories.

The poems of W. S. Merwin’s mature career were often Delphic, haunted, and bleak. They seemed to have been delivered unto him, and he transcribed them by lightning flash. https://t.co/Z4biUog5VT

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) March 17, 2019

More on W.S. Merwin:
W.S. Merwin Profile
Paul Holdengraber In Conversation with W.S. Merwin
Poem for Merwin 

Between Worlds (Chicago)

by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick
Between Worlds (Chicago)
24"x24" oil on linen 2018

Sneak peek at new artwork to be featured at The Other Art Fair in Chicago - 

My oil on linen painting Between Worlds (Chicago) was inspired by the industrial design of Raymond Loewy and the spirit of adventure that lies at the heart of the United States. 

Two vehicles designed by Loewy stand side by side in a rail yard with the Chicago skyline behind. Glistening in black, the streamlined Pennsylvania Railroad “Broadway Limited” shares the scene with a gold 1938 Studebaker President.

Neruda's Path Through Silence

Gregg Chadwick
Still I Rise
40"x30" oil on linen 2017

"From all this, my friends, there arises an insight which the poet must learn through other people. There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song - but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny."
--Pablo Neruda

U2 Joshua Tree Tour 2017 at the Rose Bowl on May 20, 2017 - Thoughts and Pre-Concert Poetry

by Gregg Chadwick

I first heard U2's 1987 album The Joshua Tree in Western Australia. The album's Cinemascope sound provided the soundtrack for my next few months traveling the breadth of that expansive country from Perth, to Uluru (Ayers Rock), to Darwin, to Melbourne, to Sydney. Having spent a number of summers as a kid traveling across the grand deserts of the United States, I could hear the arid landscape in U2's songs. And while riding through the red deserts of Australia's outback I felt right at home. I gazed at Anton Corbijn's evocative black and white photography each time I pulled The Joshua Tree out of the cassette case and popped it into my Walkman. My brother Kent is a poet, and I thought of him often as I listened to the poetic, atmospheric wash opening the album. In those Australian months, I often peered out of a bus window as we careened through the desert dust with Bono's plaintive wail in my ear. From Bullet the Blue Sky, to Red Hill Mining Town, to Mothers of the Disappeared the songs on The Joshua Tree echoed and expanded a growing mistrust of the dangerous elements in Reagan era U.S. and Thatcher era U.K. policies. Thirty years later, in our even more dangerous era under Trump, the political and emotional concerns embedded in The Joshua Tree ring loudly. It is fitting that U2 is playing the entire album from start to finish on their most recent tour.

Last Saturday, May 20, 2017, I joined an enthusiastic throng at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena to listen to U2's 30th Anniversary take on their groundbreaking album. Before U2's set began, a series of powerful poems was scrolled across the screen behind the stage.

There were many beautiful musical moments at the Rose Bowl, from Edge's chiming guitar, to Adam Clayton's deep, fat bass, to Larry Mullin's powerful drumming, to an engaged Bono. For much of the evening, U2 performed in front of a giant video screen filled with Corbijn's evocative new imagery, and later filmed tributes to women's rights and the plight of Syrian refugees. As Bono says to Andy Greene in Rolling Stone:

"Let's meet one such immigrant who he wants to turn away from the shore. I commissioned french artist J.R. He didn't have much time to do it. Where are we going to find this girl? He finds her in Zaatari in a camp in Jordan, which I visited with my daughter and [my wife] Ali a year ago. He finds this incredible spirit, Omaima. She talks about America as a dreamland. She closes her eyes and J.R. asks her in another segment of the film we don't broadcast, 'What do you see when you think of America?' She goes, 'Oh, it is a civilized country and they are a good people.' It was just heartbreaking."

 A giant banner bearing a photo of Omaima, the young Syrian refugee featured on the large screen, was carried through the crowd during Miss Sarajevo. An almost punkishly exuberant version of  U2's first hit I Will Follow brought the house to their feet and the night to a close.



Note: The boorish Trump backers behind us, spitting and slurring drunken epithets towards Bono and the band whenever U2 ventured towards thoughts of social justice or civil rights provided proof that the world and the United States in particular needs this album and this band right now. Fortunately, the boors left early, leaving us more room to dream new dreams that night.

 --------------

Below I have posted many of the poems scrolled by U2 before the Joshua Tree 2017 concert at the Rose Bowl on May 20, 2017. I have also added poems shown on the massive video screens at earlier performances in Vancouver and Seattle.  Please click on the identifying links to find the poem sources. And please follow up to purchase some of these amazing poets' powerful work. Links to the author's works for sale are provided below before each poem.

Many thanks to the Poetry Foundation for their amazing archive of poetry. And much thanks to Aaron J. Sams who was the first to compile a list of screened poems on the U2songs.com site.

1. Margaret Avison – “Thaw”

Thaw 
by Margaret Avison 

Sticky inside their winter suits the Sunday children stare at pools in pavement and black ice where roots of sky in moodier sky dissolve. An empty coach train runs along the thin and sooty river flats and stick and straw and random stones steam faintly when its steam departs. Lime-water and licorice light wander the tumbled streets. A few sparrows gather. A dog barks out under the dogless pale pale blue. Move your tongue along a slat of a raspberry box from last year's crate. Smell a saucepantilt of water on the coal-ash in your grate. Think how the Black Death made men dance, and from the silt of centuries the proof is now scraped bare that once Troy fell and Pompeii scorched and froze. A boy alone out in the court whacks with his hockey stick, and whacks in the wet, and the pigeons flutter, and rise, and settle back.

-- From Winter Sun and The Dumbfounding, Poems 1940-66, by permission of McClelland & Stewart.

2. George Elliott Clarke – “Ain’t You Scared of the Sacred?: A Spiritual”

George Elliott Clarke – 
“Ain’t You Scared of the Sacred?: A Spiritual”

Ain’t You Scared of the Sacred?: A Spiritual
Ain’t you scared of the Sacred?
Ain’t you scared of the Sacred?
Divinity spies you naked.
Tremble or your heart breaketh.
Yes, I’s scared of the Sacred.
Yes, I’s scared of the Sacred.
So, I don’t fear anyone.
Love shakes me to the bone.
Adam and Eve weren’t angels—
Just apes with an alphabet.
Tremble before the Sacred!
Shake when you aim the bullet!
Best be scared of the Sacred!
Best be scared of the Sacred!
Divinity knows you naked.
Tremble or your house breaketh.
Believers can’t live forever;
And evil-doers gonna die.
Folks with religious Fever,
Burn hot with Hypocrisy.
Ain’t you scared of the Sacred?
Ain’t you scared of the Sacred?
I tremble like an angel
Fallen down, lone and naked.
Sinner, shout against the mosque?
Sinner, shout gainst the synagogue?
Sinner, your church is a kiosk,
And you’re struttin in a bog.
Best be scared of the Sacred!
Best tremble like an angel.
Better know you’re all naked:
Divinity sees every angle.
Best humble down and tremble.
Best humble down and tremble.
Shout proverbs at a mirror.
Condemn yourself for Error.
Best pray Mercy for your sins.
Your Pride is sham Innocence.
Best humble down, tremble well:
Only Love busts your jail cell.
Ain’t you scared of the Sacred?
Ain’t you scared of the Sacred?
Put down that gun and that bomb:
Make your heart a saintly home.
Mercy, Mercy, everyone:
Defuse that bomb! Drop that gun!
Ain’t you scared of the Sacred?
Ain’t you scared of the Sacred?
Divinity spies you naked.
Tremble or your heart breaketh.
Best be scared of the Sacred!
Best be scared of the Sacred!

George Elliott Clarke
7th Parliamentary Poet Laureate (2016-17)

3. George Elliott Clarke – 
“Untitled (Gender is not a Jail)”

 Male is partly female, because female
 Carries male. To whit, Gender’s not a jail


4. George Elliott Clarke – “Kaddish for Leonard Cohen (a la maniere d’Allan Ginsburg)”

Elegy for Leonard Cohen
(à la manière d'Allen Ginsberg)

George Elliott Clarke

This terrible, irritable dawn--
This morning of Mourning--
His obituary crowbars apart
Prophecy and Nostalgia....
Always native to Heaven,
Minting gleaming melodies,
Freeing a nailed-down Christ,
Obeying the mating-calls
Of mandolins and guitars, he
Never abstained from Liberty,
Never lost the Intelligence
Of Dylan-dark sunglasses
And light making masterpieces
Of shambles, or lighting up
Cages where lovers loll,
Lousy with tears and sighs....
Poet of Everything,
He transcended conclaves
Of critics, the murders
Of poets, all those copycats--
Sordid franchisees of blues--
Every presidency serving up
Immaculate Corruption, the stale,
white bread circulated with grease....
His insatiable suitcase,
Portaging Gog and Magog
(In eastern Quebec), Hydra,
Rue Main, Manhattan, Havana,
Pursued the ghosts of Glory--
Parliaments of movie screens--
Fiestas of butterflies, and secret
Eros, Eros, everywhere....
After auditing the News,
I suffered the insomnia
Of steel nails, heads battered
Until drowsy, woozy in wood.
Eternity expires as eyes close--
Or we succumb to sobbing....
But the honest poet voids
The dirty mind of Grief,
Knows the poet's grave
Is his deathless poems--
Dark, remorseless Beauty--
Light that scalpels eyes open.

© George Elliott Clarke
Parliamentary Poet Laureate
11 November 2016

5. Joan Crate – “I Am a Prophet”

I am a Prophet
By Joan Crate

These words I speak have been given
me by angels.  Moon-faced, they fall
into sight at night and spread wings
of pine needles through my skin.
Stories appear down my arms, across
my legs, they wind my waist in red haloes.

I have been chosen by Tyee
to tell of the beginning.  My flesh
is a series of writhing tablets.
Let me show it to you.
I will dance without veils.
My body is a voice.
Listen.
My feet tell the story of the lost tribes
who wandered in their own darkness.
When they reached the Promised Land
they did not know it, but fell
down its wet, green gullet,
emerged as ravens, whales, eagles.
You may see their names written across my toes
for just one dollar.

But wait!
There is more.  Here, along
my thighs are the virgin births.
Sand coloured maidens bathed
in mountain streams, were filled with salmon roe.
Smolts swam in their bellies.
Move closer, hear
the swell of secret waters.
The women married totem pole carvers
and  bore fishers who pulled in full nets.
Each night the mothers reconstructed
the bones, threw them back to the sea,
and the salmon lived again.
Stay,
I will let you touch their fins.

Here, on my breast, see this rusty wound?
A cross marks the time the stories
dulled and Tyee took a new name
and began to live somewhere else—
across the sea in a garden where the plants
grow at the feet of men and women
and not through the trunks of their bodies.
Yes, you may kiss it.
Our garden was cleared,
and spirits shrank, hid in glass cages,
their moon faces darting through golden
liquid to burn hotly behind stupid tongues.

They will speak to you from my mouth
if you will just buy me a drink.
No, don’t go yet!
You haven’t seen it all.
For ten bucks I will show you
every  scar on my body.
Another ten, you can make your own.
I will dance for you in a veil
of red waterfalls.
Stay, I am a prophet.
Angels visit me at night with pen knives.

6. Elizabeth Alexander – “Praise Song for the Day”

Praise Song for the Day

Related Poem Content Details

BY ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration

Each day we go about our business, 

walking past each other, catching each other’s 

eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. 

All about us is noise. All about us is 

noise and bramble, thorn and din, each 

one of our ancestors on our tongues. 

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning 

a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, 

repairing the things in need of repair. 

Someone is trying to make music somewhere, 

with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, 

with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice. 

A woman and her son wait for the bus. 

A farmer considers the changing sky. 

A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin. 

We encounter each other in words, words 

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, 

words to consider, reconsider. 

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark 

the will of some one and then others, who said 

I need to see what’s on the other side. 

I know there’s something better down the road. 

We need to find a place where we are safe. 

We walk into that which we cannot yet see. 

Say it plain: that many have died for this day. 

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, 

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, 

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built 

brick by brick the glittering edifices 

they would then keep clean and work inside of. 

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day. 

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign, 

the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables. 

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself, 

others by first do no harm or take no more 

than you need. What if the mightiest word is love? 

Love beyond marital, filial, national, 

love that casts a widening pool of light, 

love with no need to pre-empt grievance. 

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, 

any thing can be made, any sentence begun. 

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp, 

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Alexander. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. A chapbook edition of Praise Song for the Day will be published on February 6, 2009.

Source: Praise Song for the Day (Graywolf Press, 2009)

7. Carl Sandburg – “Prairie”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967).  Cornhuskers.  1918.

1. Prairie

I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan. Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam. Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches. Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home. Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.         5 The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart. .    .    .         After the sunburn of the day         handling a pitchfork at a hayrack,         after the eggs and biscuit and coffee,         the pearl-gray haystacks         10         in the gloaming         are cool prayers         to the harvest hands. In the city among the walls the overland passenger train is choked and the pistons hiss and the wheels curse. On the prairie the overland flits on phantom wheels and the sky and the soil between them muffle the pistons and cheer the wheels. .    .    .         15 I am here when the cities are gone. I am here before the cities come. I nourished the lonely men on horses. I will keep the laughing men who ride iron. I am dust of men.         20 The running water babbled to the deer, the cottontail, the gopher. You came in wagons, making streets and schools, Kin of the ax and rifle, kin of the plow and horse, Singing Yankee Doodle, Old Dan Tucker, Turkey in the Straw, You in the coonskin cap at a log house door hearing a lone wolf howl,         25 You at a sod house door reading the blizzards and chinooks let loose from Medicine Hat, I am dust of your dust, as I am brother and mother To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay, The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago Marching single file the timber and the plain.         30 I hold the dust of these amid changing stars. I last while old wars are fought, while peace broods mother-like, While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men. I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days. Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,         35 I who have seen the red births and the red deaths Of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait. Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley? Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons? .    .    .         Rivers cut a path on flat lands.         40         The mountains stand up.         The salt oceans press in         And push on the coast lines.         The sun, the wind, bring rain         And I know what the rainbow writes across the east or west in a half-circle:         45         A love-letter pledge to come again. .    .    .       Towns on the Soo Line,       Towns on the Big Muddy,       Laugh at each other for cubs       And tease as children.         50 Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up. Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up. .    .    . Out of prairie-brown grass crossed with a streamer of wigwam smoke—out of a smoke pillar, a blue promise—out of wild ducks woven in greens and purples— Here I saw a city rise and say to the peoples round world: Listen, I am strong, I know what I want. Out of log houses and stumps—canoes stripped from tree-sides—flatboats coaxed with an ax from the timber claims—in the years when the red and the white men met—the houses and streets rose.         55 A thousand red men cried and went away to new places for corn and women: a million white men came and put up skyscrapers, threw out rails and wires, feelers to the salt sea: now the smokestacks bite the skyline with stub teeth. In an early year the call of a wild duck woven in greens and purples: now the riveter’s chatter, the police patrol, the song-whistle of the steamboat. To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake. I say to him: Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short. .    .    . What brothers these in the dark?         60 What eaves of skyscrapers against a smoke moon? These chimneys shaking on the lumber shanties When the coal boats plow by on the river— The hunched shoulders of the grain elevators— The flame sprockets of the sheet steel mills         65 And the men in the rolling mills with their shirts off Playing their flesh arms against the twisting wrists of steel:         what brothers these         in the dark         of a thousand years? .    .    .         70 A headlight searches a snowstorm. A funnel of white light shoots from over the pilot of the Pioneer Limited crossing Wisconsin. In the morning hours, in the dawn, The sun puts out the stars of the sky And the headlight of the Limited train.         75 The fireman waves his hand to a country school teacher on a bobsled. A boy, yellow hair, red scarf and mittens, on the bobsled, in his lunch box a pork chop sandwich and a V of gooseberry pie. The horses fathom a snow to their knees. Snow hats are on the rolling prairie hills. The Mississippi bluffs wear snow hats. .    .    .         80 Keep your hogs on changing corn and mashes of grain,     O farmerman.     Cram their insides till they waddle on short legs     Under the drums of bellies, hams of fat.     Kill your hogs with a knife slit under the ear.         85     Hack them with cleavers.     Hang them with hooks in the hind legs. .    .    . A wagonload of radishes on a summer morning. Sprinkles of dew on the crimson-purple balls. The farmer on the seat dangles the reins on the rumps of dapple-gray horses.         90 The farmer’s daughter with a basket of eggs dreams of a new hat to wear to the county fair. .    .    . On the left-and right-hand side of the road,         Marching corn— I saw it knee high weeks ago—now it is head high—tassels of red silk creep at the ends of the ears. .    .    . I am the prairie, mother of men, waiting.         95 They are mine, the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens. They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges. They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market. They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire. .    .    . The cornhuskers wear leather on their hands.         100 There is no let-up to the wind. Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins. Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the five-o’clock November sunset: falltime, leaves, bonfires, stubble, the old things go, and the earth is grizzled. The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches—among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain—they keep old things that never grow old. The frost loosens corn husks.         105 The Sun, the rain, the wind         loosen corn husks. The men and women are helpers. They are all cornhuskers together. I see them late in the western evening         110         in a smoke-red dust. .    .    . The phantom of a yellow rooster flaunting a scarlet comb, on top of a dung pile crying hallelujah to the streaks of daylight, The phantom of an old hunting dog nosing in the underbrush for muskrats, barking at a coon in a treetop at midnight, chewing a bone, chasing his tail round a corncrib, The phantom of an old workhorse taking the steel point of a plow across a forty-acre field in spring, hitched to a harrow in summer, hitched to a wagon among cornshocks in fall, These phantoms come into the talk and wonder of people on the front porch of a farmhouse late summer nights.         115 “The shapes that are gone are here,” said an old man with a cob pipe in his teeth one night in Kansas with a hot wind on the alfalfa. .    .    . Look at six eggs In a mockingbird’s nest. Listen to six mockingbirds Flinging follies of O-be-joyful         120 Over the marshes and uplands. Look at songs Hidden in eggs. .    .    . When the morning sun is on the trumpet-vine blossoms, sing at the kitchen pans: Shout All Over God’s Heaven. When the rain slants on the potato hills and the sun plays a silver shaft on the last shower, sing to the bush at the backyard fence: Mighty Lak a Rose.         125 When the icy sleet pounds on the storm windows and the house lifts to a great breath, sing for the outside hills: The Ole Sheep Done Know the Road, the Young Lambs Must Find the Way. .    .    . Spring slips back with a girl face calling always: “Any new songs for me? Any new songs?” O prairie girl, be lonely, singing, dreaming, waiting—your lover comes—your child comes—the years creep with toes of April rain on new-turned sod. O prairie girl, whoever leaves you only crimson poppies to talk with, whoever puts a good-by kiss on your lips and never comes back— There is a song deep as the falltime redhaws, long as the layer of black loam we go to, the shine of the morning star over the corn belt, the wave line of dawn up a wheat valley. .    .    .         130 O prairie mother, I am one of your boys. I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love. Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water. .    .    . I speak of new cities and new people. I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.         135 I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,   a sun dropped in the west. I tell you there is nothing in the world   only an ocean of to-morrows,   a sky of to-morrows.         140 I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say   at sundown:         To-morrow is a day.

8. Naomi Shahib Nye – “Kindness”

Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye

 Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems.
Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.


9. Naomi Shahib Nye – “United”

United
Naomi Shihab Nye

When sleepless, it’s helpful to meditate on mottoes of the states.
South Carolina, “While I breathe I hope.”  Perhaps this could be
the new flag on the empty flagpole.
Or “I Direct” from Maine—why?
Because Maine gets the first sunrise?  How bossy, Maine!
Kansas, “To the Stars through Difficulties”—
clackety wagon wheels, long, long land
and the droning press of heat—cool stars, relief.
In Arkansas, “The People Rule”—lucky you.
Idaho, “Let It Be Perpetual”—now this is strange.
Idaho, what is your “it”?
Who chose these lines?
How many contenders?
What would my motto be tonight, in tangled sheets?
Texas—“Friendship”—now boasts the Open Carry law.
Wisconsin, where my mother’s parents are buried,
chose “Forward.”
New Mexico, “It Grows As It Goes”—now this is scary.
Two dangling its. This does not represent that glorious place.
West Virginia, “Mountaineers Are Always Free”—really?
Washington, you’re wise.
What could be better than “By and By”?
Oklahoma must be tired—“Labor Conquers all Things.”
Oklahoma, get together with Nevada, who chose only
“Industry” as motto. I think of Nevada as a playground
or mostly empty. How wrong we are about one another.
For Alaska to pick “North to the Future”
seems odd. Where else are they going?

Copyright © 2016 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used with permission by the author. 

Poets.org writes that "Naomi Shihab Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab-American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with a humanitarian spirit."

10. Lucille Clifton – “Let There Be New Flowering”

LET THERE BE NEW FLOWERING

Lucille Clifton

let there be new flowering
in the fields let the fields
turn mellow for the men
let the men keep tender
through the time let the time
be wrested from the war
let the war be won
let love be
at the end


* * *




"Let there be new flowering" from good woman: poems and a memoir 1969-1980 by Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 1987. Reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.

11. Walt Whitman – “I Hear America Singing”

I Hear America Singing

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BY WALT WHITMAN

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, 

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, 

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, 

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, 

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, 

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, 

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, 

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, 

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, 

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, 

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Source: Selected Poems (1991)

12. Jamila Woods (Collaboration with Chance the Rapper) – “Ghazal for White Hen Pantry”

Ghazal for White Hen Pantry

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BY JAMILA WOODS

beverly be the only south side you don’t fit in

everybody in your neighborhood color of white hen

brown bag tupperware lunch don’t fill you

after school cross the street, count quarters with white friends

you love 25¢ zebra cakes mom would never let you eat

you learn to white lie through white teeth at white hen

oreos in your palm, perm in your hair

everyone’s irish in beverly, you just missin’ the white skin

pray they don’t notice your burnt toast, unwondered bread

you be the brownest egg ever born from the white hen

pantry in your chest where you stuff all the Black in

distract from the syllables in your name with a white grin

keep your consonants crisp, coffee milked, hands visible

never touch the holiday-painted windows of white hen

you made that mistake, scratched your initials in the paint

an unmarked crown victoria pulled up, full of white men

they grabbed your wrist & wouldn’t show you a badge

the manager clucked behind the counter, thick as a white hen

they told your friends to run home, but called the principal on you

& you learned Black sins cost much more than white ones

Source: Poetry (December 2015)

13. Rita Dove – “Wingfoot Lake”

Wingfoot Lake
(Independence Day, 1964)

On her 36th birthday, Thomas had shown her
her first swimming pool. It had been
his favorite color, exactly—just
so much of it, the swimmers’ white arms jutting
into the chevrons of high society.
She had rolled up her window
and told him to drive on, fast.

Now this act of mercy: four daughters
dragging her to their husbands’ company picnic,
white families on one side and them
on the other, unpacking the same
squeeze bottles of Heinz, the same
waxy beef patties and Salem potato chip bags.
So he was dead for the first time
on Fourth of July—ten years ago

had been harder, waiting for something to happen,
and ten years before that, the girls
like young horses eyeing the track.
Last August she stood alone for hours
in front of the T.V. set
as a crow’s wing moved slowly through
the white streets of government.
That brave swimming

scared her, like Joanna saying
Mother, we’re Afro-Americans now!
What did she know about Africa?
Were there lakes like this one
with a rowboat pushed under the pier?
Or Thomas’ Great Mississippi
with its sullen silks? (There was
the Nile but the Nile belonged

to God.) Where she came from
was the past, 12 miles into town
where nobody had locked their back door,
and Goodyear hadn’t begun to dream of a park
under the company symbol, a white foot
sprouting two small wings.

Rita Dove, “Wingfoot Lake,” from Thomas and Beulah (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1986). Copyright © 1986 by Rita Dove.

14. Yusef Komunyakaa – “Facing It”

Facing It

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My black face fades,   

hiding inside the black granite.   

I said I wouldn't  

dammit: No tears.   

I'm stone. I'm flesh.   

My clouded reflection eyes me   

like a bird of prey, the profile of night   

slanted against morning. I turn   

this way—the stone lets me go.   

I turn that way—I'm inside   

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

again, depending on the light   

to make a difference.   

I go down the 58,022 names,   

half-expecting to find   

my own in letters like smoke.   

I touch the name Andrew Johnson;   

I see the booby trap's white flash.   

Names shimmer on a woman's blouse   

but when she walks away   

the names stay on the wall.   

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's   

wings cutting across my stare.   

The sky. A plane in the sky.   

A white vet's image floats   

closer to me, then his pale eyes   

look through mine. I'm a window.   

He's lost his right arm   

inside the stone. In the black mirror   

a woman’s trying to erase names:   

No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

Yusef Komunyakaa, “Facing It” from Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems. Copyright © 2001 by Yusef Komunyakaa. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Source: Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)

15. Alberto Rios – “The Border: A Double Sonnet”

The Border: A Double Sonnet
Alberto Ríos

The border is a line that birds cannot see.
The border is a beautiful piece of paper folded carelessly in half.
The border is where flint first met steel, starting a century of fires.
The border is a belt that is too tight, holding things up but making it hard to breathe.
The border is a rusted hinge that does not bend.
The border is the blood clot in the river’s vein.
The border says stop to the wind, but the wind speaks another language, and keeps going.
The border is a brand, the “Double-X” of barbed wire scarred into the skin of so many.
The border has always been a welcome stopping place but is now a stop sign, always red.
The border is a jump rope still there even after the game is finished.
The border is a real crack in an imaginary dam.
The border used to be an actual place, but now, it is the act of a thousand imaginations.
The border, the word border, sounds like order, but in this place they do not rhyme.
The border is a handshake that becomes a squeezing contest.

The border smells like cars at noon and wood smoke in the evening.
The border is the place between the two pages in a book where the spine is bent too far.
The border is two men in love with the same woman.
The border is an equation in search of an equals sign.
The border is the location of the factory where lightning and thunder are made.
The border is “NoNo” The Clown, who can’t make anyone laugh.
The border is a locked door that has been promoted.
The border is a moat but without a castle on either side.
The border has become Checkpoint Chale.
The border is a place of plans constantly broken and repaired and broken.
The border is mighty, but even the parting of the seas created a path, not a barrier.
The border is a big, neat, clean, clear black line on a map that does not exist.
The border is the line in new bifocals: below, small things get bigger; above, nothing changes.
The border is a skunk with a white line down its back.

Copyright © 2015 by Alberto Ríos. Used with permission of the author. 



16. Elizabeth Alexander – “Preliminary Sketches: Philadelphia”

Preliminary Sketches: Philadelphia

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BY ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

“I saw a friend from growing up who’s been
living in L.A. for about twenty years, and I
heard him say, ‘I’m from L.A.,’ and I said,
‘No, man, you from Philly. We don’t give
nobody up.’”
—Khan Jamal
jazz vibraphonist

Fish-man comes with trout and fresh crabs: 

“Live! They live crabs! They live crabs!” 

Bars called “Watutsi.” “Pony-Tail.” 

A dark green suit, a banded hat. 

The gentleman buys pig’s feet and 

papaya juice. He looks like church. 

Another man, down Spruce Street, says, 

“Yeah, California’s beautiful, 

but I ain’t got no people there, 

so I came back. I raised a racehorse. 

Trainer says he’s mean, but I say 

naw, naw. That horse just alive.” 

Which way to walk down these tree streets 

and find home cooking, boundless love? 

Double-dutching on front porches, 

men in sleeveless undershirts. 

I’m listening for the Philly sound— 

Brother            brother            brotherly love.

Elizabeth Alexander, "Preliminary Sketches: Philadelphia" from The Venus Hottentot. Copyright © 1990 by the Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press. Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: The Venus Hottentot (Graywolf Press, 2004)

17. William Matthews – “Why We Are Truly a Nation”

Why We Are Truly a Nation

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BY WILLIAM MATTHEWS

Because we rage inside 

the old boundaries, 

like a young girl leaving the Church, 

scared of her parents. 

Because we all dream of saving 

the shaggy, dung-caked buffalo, 

shielding the herd with our bodies. 

Because grief unites us, 

like the locked antlers of moose 

who die on their knees in pairs. 

William Matthews, “Why We Are Truly a Nation” from Selected Poems and Translations, 1969-1991. Copyright © 1992 by William Matthews. Reprinted with the permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved, www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.

Source: Selected Poems and Translations 1969-1991 (1992)

18. Lawrence Ferlinghetti – “The World is a Beautiful Place”

The World Is a Beautiful Place

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying
all the timeor maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn't half bad
if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey towith its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen

and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs
and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally'living it up'
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician

19. Robert Pinsky – “An Explanation of America: A Love of Death”

from An Explanation of America: A Love of Death

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BY ROBERT PINSKY

Imagine a child from Virginia or New Hampshire 

Alone on the prairie eighty years ago 

Or more, one afternoon—the shaggy pelt 

Of grasses, for the first time in that child’s life, 

Flowing for miles. Imagine the moving shadow 

Of a cloud far off across that shadeless ocean, 

The obliterating strangeness like a tide 

That pulls or empties the bubble of the child’s 

Imaginary heart. No hills, no trees. 

The child’s heart lightens, tending like a bubble 

Towards the currents of the grass and sky, 

The pure potential of the clear blank spaces. 

Or, imagine the child in a draw that holds a garden 

Cupped from the limitless motion of the prairie, 

Head resting against a pumpkin, in evening sun. 

Ground-cherry bushes grow along the furrows, 

The fruit red under its papery, moth-shaped sheath. 

Grasshoppers tumble among the vines, as large 

As dragons in the crumbs of pale dry earth. 

The ground is warm to the child’s cheek, and the wind 

Is a humming sound in the grass above the draw, 

Rippling the shadows of the red-green blades. 

The bubble of the child’s heart melts a little, 

Because the quiet of that air and earth 

Is like the shadow of a peaceful death— 

Limitless and potential; a kind of space 

Where one dissolves to become a part of something 

Entire ... whether of sun and air, or goodness 

And knowledge, it does not matter to the child. 

Dissolved among the particles of the garden 

Or into the motion of the grass and air, 

Imagine the child happy to be a thing. 

Imagine, then, that on that same wide prairie 

Some people are threshing in the terrible heat 

With horses and machines, cutting bands 

And shoveling amid the clatter of the threshers, 

The chaff in prickly clouds and the naked sun 

Burning as if it could set the chaff on fire. 

Imagine that the people are Swedes or Germans, 

Some of them resting pressed against the strawstacks, 

Trying to get the meager shade. 

                                                A man, 

A tramp, comes laboring across the stubble 

Like a mirage against that blank horizon, 

Laboring in his torn shoes toward the tall 

Mirage-like images of the tilted threshers 

Clattering in the heat. Because the Swedes 

Or Germans have no beer, or else because 

They cannot speak his language properly, 

Or for some reason one cannot imagine, 

The man climbs up on a thresher and cuts bands 

A minute or two, then waves to one of the people, 

A young girl or a child, and jumps head-first 

Into the sucking mouth of the machine, 

Where he is wedged and beat and cut to pieces— 

While the people shout and run in the clouds of chaff, 

Like lost mirages on the pelt of prairie. 

The obliterating strangeness and the spaces 

Are as hard to imagine as the love of death ... 

Which is the love of an entire strangeness, 

The contagious blankness of a quiet plain. 

Imagine that a man, who had seen a prairie, 

Should write a poem about a Dark or Shadow 

That seemed to be both his, and the prairie’s—as if 

The shadow proved that he was not a man, 

But something that lived in quiet, like the grass. 

Imagine that the man who writes that poem, 

Stunned by the loneliness of that wide pelt, 

Should prove to himself that he was like a shadow 

Or like an animal living in the dark. 

In the dark proof he finds in his poem, the man 

Might come to think of himself as the very prairie, 

The sod itself, not lonely, and immune to death. 

None of this happens precisely as I try 

To imagine that it does, in the empty plains, 

And yet it happens in the imagination 

Of part of the country: not in any place 

More than another, on the map, but rather 

Like a place, where you and I have never been 

And need to try to imagine—place like a prairie 

Where immigrants, in the obliterating strangeness, 

Thirst for the wide contagion of the shadow 

Or prairie—where you and I, with our other ways, 

More like the cities or the hills or trees, 

Less like the clear blank spaces with their potential, 

Are like strangers in a place we must imagine.

Robert Pinsky, “A Love of Death,” from An Explanation of America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). Copyright © 1979 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Source: The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996 (Princeton University Press, 1996)

20.

Sherman Alexis – “Powwow at the End of the World”

The Powwow at the End of the World

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BY SHERMAN ALEXIE

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam   

and topples it. I am told by many of you that I must forgive   

and so I shall after the floodwaters burst each successive dam   

downriver from the Grand Coulee. I am told by many of you   

that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters find   

their way to the mouth of the Columbia River as it enters the Pacific   

and causes all of it to rise. I am told by many of you that I must forgive   

and so I shall after the first drop of floodwater is swallowed by that salmon   

waiting in the Pacific. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia   

and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors   

of Hanford. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after that salmon swims through the mouth of the Spokane River   

as it meets the Columbia, then upstream, until it arrives   

in the shallows of a secret bay on the reservation where I wait alone.   

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after   

that salmon leaps into the night air above the water, throws   

a lightning bolt at the brush near my feet, and starts the fire   

which will lead all of the lost Indians home. I am told   

by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   

after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon   

who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us   

how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours;   

the third story will give us reason to dance. I am told by many   

of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing   

with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world.

Sherman Alexie, “The Powwow at the End of the World” from The Summer of Black Widows. Copyright © 1996 by Sherman Alexie. Used by permission of Hanging Loose Press.

21. James Dickey – “The Strength of Fields”

The Strength of Fields

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BY JAMES L. DICKEY

... a separation from the world,
a penetration to some source of power
and a life-enhancing return ...
              Van Gennep: Rites de Passage 

Moth-force a small town always has,   

          Given the night. 

                                                What field-forms can be, 

         Outlying the small civic light-decisions over 

               A man walking near home? 

                                                                         Men are not where he is   

      Exactly now, but they are around him    around him like the strength 

Of fields.    The solar system floats on 

    Above him in town-moths. 

                                                         Tell me, train-sound, 

    With all your long-lost grief, 

                                                         what I can give.   

    Dear Lord of all the fields 

                                                         what am I going to do? 

                                        Street-lights, blue-force and frail 

As the homes of men, tell me how to do it    how 

    To withdraw    how to penetrate and find the source   

      Of the power you always had 

                                                            light as a moth, and rising 

       With the level and moonlit expansion 

    Of the fields around, and the sleep of hoping men. 

       You?    I?    What difference is there?    We can all be saved 

       By a secret blooming. Now as I walk 

The night    and you walk with me    we know simplicity   

   Is close to the source that sleeping men 

       Search for in their home-deep beds. 

       We know that the sun is away    we know that the sun can be conquered   

   By moths, in blue home-town air. 

          The stars splinter, pointed and wild. The dead lie under 

The pastures.    They look on and help.    Tell me, freight-train, 

                            When there is no one else 

   To hear. Tell me in a voice the sea 

         Would have, if it had not a better one: as it lifts, 

          Hundreds of miles away, its fumbling, deep-structured roar 

               Like the profound, unstoppable craving 

            Of nations for their wish. 

                                                                    Hunger, time and the moon: 

         The moon lying on the brain 

                                                                    as on the excited sea    as on 

          The strength of fields. Lord, let me shake   

         With purpose.    Wild hope can always spring   

         From tended strength.    Everything is in that. 

            That and nothing but kindness.    More kindness, dear Lord 

Of the renewing green.    That is where it all has to start: 

         With the simplest things. More kindness will do nothing less 

             Than save every sleeping one 

             And night-walking one 

         Of us. 

                         My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can.

James Dickey, “The Strength of Fields” from The Whole Motion: Collected Poems 1945-1992. Copyright © 1992 by James Dickey. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press, www.wesleyan.edu/wespress.

Source: James Dickey: The Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1998)

22. Shirley Geok-Lin-Lim – “Learning to Love”

Learning to love America

Related Poem Content Details

BY SHIRLEY GEOK-LIN LIM

because it has no pure products

because the Pacific Ocean sweeps along the coastline

because the water of the ocean is cold

and because land is better than ocean

because I say we rather than they

because I live in California

I have eaten fresh artichokes

and jacaranda bloom in April and May

because my senses have caught up with my body

my breath with the air it swallows

my hunger with my mouth

because I walk barefoot in my house

because I have nursed my son at my breast

because he is a strong American boy

because I have seen his eyes redden when he is asked who he is

because he answers I don’t know

because to have a son is to have a country

because my son will bury me here

because countries are in our blood and we bleed them

because it is late and too late to change my mind

because it is time.

Shirley Geok-lin Lim, “Learning to love America” from What the Fortune Teller Didn’t Say. Copyright © 1998 by Shirley Geok-lin Lim. Reprinted with the permission of West End Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Source: What the Fortune Teller Didn’t Say (West End Press, 1998)

23. Pedro Pietri – “Puerto Rican Obituary”

Puerto Rican Obituary

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BY PEDRO PIETRI

They worked

They were always on time

They were never late

They never spoke back

when they were insulted

They worked

They never took days off

that were not on the calendar

They never went on strike

without permission

They worked

ten days a week

and were only paid for five

They worked

They worked

They worked

and they died

They died broke

They died owing

They died never knowing

what the front entrance

of the first national city bank looks like

Juan

Miguel

Milagros

Olga

Manuel

All died yesterday today

and will die again tomorrow

passing their bill collectors

on to the next of kin

All died

waiting for the garden of eden

to open up again

under a new management

All died

dreaming about america

waking them up in the middle of the night

screaming: Mira Mira

your name is on the winning lottery ticket

for one hundred thousand dollars

All died

hating the grocery stores

that sold them make-believe steak

and bullet-proof rice and beans

All died waiting dreaming and hating

Dead Puerto Ricans

Who never knew they were Puerto Ricans

Who never took a coffee break

from the ten commandments

to KILL KILL KILL

the landlords of their cracked skulls

and communicate with their latino souls

Juan

Miguel

Milagros

Olga

Manuel

From the nervous breakdown streets

where the mice live like millionaires

and the people do not live at all

are dead and were never alive

Juan

died waiting for his number to hit

Miguel

died waiting for the welfare check

to come and go and come again

Milagros

died waiting for her ten children

to grow up and work

so she could quit working

Olga

died waiting for a five dollar raise

Manuel

died waiting for his supervisor to drop dead

so he could get a promotion

Is a long ride

from Spanish Harlem

to long island cemetery

where they were buried

First the train

and then the bus

and the cold cuts for lunch

and the flowers

that will be stolen

when visiting hours are over

Is very expensive

Is very expensive

But they understand

Their parents understood

Is a long non-profit ride

from Spanish Harlem

to long island cemetery

Juan

Miguel

Milagros

Olga

Manuel

All died yesterday today

and will die again tomorrow

Dreaming

Dreaming about queens

Clean-cut lily-white neighborhood

Puerto Ricanless scene

Thirty-thousand-dollar home

The first spics on the block

Proud to belong to a community

of gringos who want them lynched

Proud to be a long distance away

from the sacred phrase: Que Pasa

These dreams

These empty dreams

from the make-believe bedrooms

their parents left them

are the after-effects

of television programs

about the ideal

white american family

with black maids

and latino janitors

who are well train—

to make everyone

and their bill collectors

laugh at them

and the people they represent

Juan

died dreaming about a new car

Miguel

died dreaming about new anti-poverty programs

Milagros

died dreaming about a trip to Puerto Rico

Olga

died dreaming about real jewelry

Manuel

died dreaming about the irish sweepstakes

They all died

like a hero sandwich dies

in the garment district

at twelve o’clock in the afternoon

social security number to ashes

union dues to dust

They knew

they were born to weep

and keep the morticians employed

as long as they pledge allegiance

to the flag that wants them destroyed

They saw their names listed

in the telephone directory of destruction

They were train to turn

the other cheek by newspapers

that mispelled mispronounced

and misunderstood their names

and celebrated when death came

and stole their final laundry ticket

They were born dead

and they died dead

Is time

to visit sister lopez again

the number one healer

and fortune card dealer

in Spanish Harlem

She can communicate

with your late relatives

for a reasonable fee

Good news is guaranteed

Rise Table Rise Table

death is not dumb and disable—

Those who love you want to know

the correct number to play

Let them know this right away

Rise Table Rise Table

death is not dumb and disable

Now that your problems are over

and the world is off your shoulders

help those who you left behind

find financial peace of mind

Rise Table Rise Table

death is not dumb and disable

If the right number we hit

all our problems will split

and we will visit your grave

on every legal holiday

Those who love you want to know

the correct number to play

let them know this right away

We know your spirit is able

Death is not dumb and disable

RISE TABLE RISE TABLE

Juan

Miguel

Milagros

Olga

Manuel

All died yesterday today

and will die again tomorrow

Hating fighting and stealing

broken windows from each other

Practicing a religion without a roof

The old testament

The new testament

according to me gospel

of the internal revenue

the judge and jury and executioner

protector and eternal bill collector

Secondhand shit for sale

learn how to say Como Esta Usted

and you will make a fortune

They are dead

They are dead

and will not return from the dead

until they stop neglecting

the art of their dialogue—

for broken english lessons

to impress the mister goldsteins—

who keep them employed

as lavaplatos

porters messenger boys

factory workers maids stock clerks

shipping clerks assistant mailroom

assistant, assistant assistant

to the assistant’s assistant

assistant lavaplatos and automatic

artificial smiling doormen

for the lowest wages of the ages

and rages when you demand a raise

because is against the company policy

to promote SPICS SPICS SPICS

Juan

died hating Miguel because Miguel’s

used car was in better running condition

than his used car

Miguel

died hating Milagros because Milagros

had a color television set

and he could not afford one yet

Milagros

died hating Olga because Olga

made five dollars more on the same job

Olga

died hating Manuel because Manuel

had hit the numbers more times

than she had hit the numbers

Manuel

died hating all of them

Juan

Miguel

Milagros

and Olga

because they all spoke broken english

more fluently than he did

And now they are together

in the main lobby of the void

Addicted to silence

Off limits to the wind

Confine to worm supremacy

in long island cemetery

This is the groovy hereafter

the protestant collection box

was talking so loud and proud about

Here lies Juan

Here lies Miguel

Here lies Milagros

Here lies Olga

Here lies Manuel

who died yesterday today

and will die again tomorrow

Always broke

Always owing

Never knowing

that they are beautiful people

Never knowing

the geography of their complexion

PUERTO RICO IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE

PUERTORRIQUENOS ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE

If only they

had turned off the television

and tune into their own imaginations

If only they

had used the white supremacy bibles

for toilet paper purpose

and make their latino souls

the only religion of their race

If only they

had return to the definition of the sun

after the first mental snowstorm

on the summer of their senses

If only they

had kept their eyes open

at the funeral of their fellow employees

who came to this country to make a fortune

and were buried without underwears

Juan

Miguel

Milagros

Olga

Manuel

will right now be doing their own thing

where beautiful people sing

and dance and work together

where the wind is a stranger

to miserable weather conditions

where you do not need a dictionary

to communicate with your people

Aqui 

Se Habla Espanol 

all the time

Aqui you salute your flag first

Aqui there are no dial soap commercials

Aqui everybody smells good

Aqui tv dinners do not have a future

Aqui the men and women admire desire

and never get tired of each other

Aqui Que Pasa Power is what’s happening

Aqui to be called negrito

means to be called LOVE

Pedro Pietri, "Puerto Rican Obituary" from Selected Poetry. Copyright © 2015 by Pedro Pietri.  Reprinted by permission of City Lights Books.

Source: Selected Poetry (City Lights Books, 2015)

24. Robinson Jeffers – “Juan Higera Creek”

Juan Higera Creek
Robinson Jeffers, 1887 - 1962

Neither your face, Higera, nor your deeds
Are known to me; and death these many years
Retains you, under grass or forest-mould.
Only a rivulet bears your name: it runs
Deep-hidden in undeciduous redwood shade
And trunks by age made holy, streaming down
A valley of the Santa Lucian hills.
There have I stopped, and though the unclouded sun
Flew high in loftiest heaven, no dapple of light
Flecked the large trunks below the leaves intense,
Nor flickered on your creek: murmuring it sought
The River of the South, which oceanward
Would sweep it down. I drank sweet water there,
And blessed your immortality. Not bronze,
Higera, nor yet marble cool the thirst;
Let bronze and marble of the rich and proud
Secure the names; your monument will last
Longer, of living water forest-pure.

“Juan Higera Creek” was first published in Californians (Macmillan, 1916).

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