crossroads

 

 

 

My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer
I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar,
like what I remember of love when I was young —

love that was so often foolish in its objectives
but never in its choices, its intensities
Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised —

My soul has been so fearful, so violent;
forgive its brutality.
As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously,

not wishing to give offense
but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance:

it is not the earth I will miss,
it is you I will miss.

 

 

 

 

~  Louise Glück

 from A Village Life

with thanks to brain pickings

 

 

the wild iris

.

At the end of my suffering 

there was a door.

 

Hear me out: that which you call death 

I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting. 

Then nothing. The weak sun 

flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive 

as consciousness 

buried in the dark earth. 

Then it was over: that which you fear, being 

a soul and unable 

 to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth 

bending a little. And what I took to be 

birds darting in low shrubs. 

You who do not remember 

passage from the other world 

I tell you I could speak again: whatever 

returns 

from oblivion returns to find a voice: 

from the center of my life came 

a great fountain, deep blue 

shadows on azure sea water.

~ Louise Glück

witchgrass

 

Something

comes into the world unwelcome

calling disorder, disorder -

If you hate me so much don't bother to give me

a name: do you need

one more slur

in your language, another

way to blame

one tribe for everything -

as we both know, if you worship

one god, you only need 

one enemy -

I'm not the enemy.

Only a ruse to ignore 

what you see happening

right here in this bed,

a little paradigm

of failure.  One of your precious flowers

dies here almost every day

and you can't rest until

you attack the cause,

meaning

whatever is left, whatever

happens to be sturdier

than your personal passion -

It was not meant 

to last forever in the real world.

But why admit that, when you can go on

doing what you always do,

mourning and laying blame,

always the two together.

I don't need your praise

to survive.  I was here first,

before you were here, before

you ever planted a garden.

And I'll be here when only the sun and moon 

are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.

~ Louise Gluck

from The Wild Iris