by Pattiann Rogers

[mery-bast.livejournal.com]

DATA FROM THIS LINE OF LIGHT LABORATORY


This particular line of light
is the angle of the black mare's
neck as she bends to the evening
grasses. It is the same angle
composing the history
of the trajectory remaining
in the comet's wake, the same
angle inherent to the salt curve
of the wave falling into its fall.

The jiggling gold ball on the jester's
pointed hat is the shaking line
of circular light that occurs
whenever the king sits crying.
This line is similar to the sunside
circle of the orange tossed up
by the juggler so high its only being
is its fire shaking against the sky.
It is akin also to the trembling
the light makes in the tears
of the childless at night.

One certain light of line-clarity
is a single strand of cobweb
floating as its own sun across
the lawn. Another is the crack
in a cut crystal vase so fine
it is seen only when held
to the sky, which fine clarity
sounds like a violin replicating
the liquid line left by the sea's
advance on the moonlit sand.

This line of illumination was created
when thieves first forced the sealed
entrance to a desert tomb and starlight
fell at once straight to its stone floor.

Light lines of double vision
imply either parallel light
off the tines of silver pickle forks
or off the steel of railroad tracks
empty at high noon on the prairie,
or the sun divided in the vision
of the surface-floating whirligig
beetle, or the day divided
by the separately rotating eyes
of the vine green chameleon.

Two lines of light bisecting
at right angles can signify either
two search beams crossing at sea,
or a collision of sincerity and ruse
at the subatomic level, or hope,
or an apparition of hope created
by those investigating every sign
of light at any level.


-Pattiann Rogers

(no subject)

[ex-macsuibhn666.livejournal.com]

The Urge to Write

The urge to write
to squeeze your child until she breathes
The urge to write
to take the cut head down from the tree

The urge to rain dance, rain dance
pour the teardrops on the tongues
cool the fevers
hock for grain the guns
Pour the sweat from spas
into the dying fields
Take the stream from worry greed
into village kitchens, warm the frozen bodies
give them meals

Sundance kiss the stiffened lids of corpses
open eyes from death and hate
pump the hearts with open palms
bow to nature breath and reins

The urge to sieve the rivers
red with blood
return the hearts to lovers praying
To rebuild, clay by clay, with sun,
with water, food, and touch, the human form
To peel off finecloth uniforms
and turn them to the bandage
To touch the skin until it shivers warm

The urge to take the huddled bodies
out of tunnels, trunks -- Beknight
with life and freedom
and with right

The urge to
Breathe

The urge to shout
Do not die
alone

Carmen Tafolla

(no subject)

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

Late Ripeness

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.

For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Milosz, Czeslaw. New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001.
(HarperCollins Publishers - 2001).