This Happened

[howitaddsup.livejournal.com]

This Happened

A student, a young woman, in a fourth-floor hallway of her lycée,
perched on the ledge of an open window chatting with friends between classes;
a teacher passes and chides her, Be careful, you might fall,
almost banteringly chides her, You might fall,
and the young woman, eighteen, a girl really, though she wouldn't think that,
as brilliant as she is, first in her class, and beautiful, too, she's often told,
smiles back, and leans into the open window, which wouldn't even be open if it were winter,
if it were winter someone would have closed it (Close it!),
leans into the window, farther, still smiling, farther and farther,
though it takes less time than this, really an instant, and lets herself fall. Herself fall.

A casual impulse, a fancy, never thought of until now, hardly thought of even now . . .
No, more than impulse or fancy, the girl knows what she's doing,
the girl means something, the girl means to mean,
because, it occurs to her in that instant, that beautiful or not, bright yes or no,
she's not who she is, she's not the person she is, and the reason, she suddenly knows,
is that there's been so much premeditation where she is, so much plotting and planning,
there's hardly a person where she is, or if there is, it's not her, or not wholly her,
it's a self inhabited, lived in by her, and seemingly even as she thinks it
she knows what's been missing: grace, not premeditation but grace,
a kind of being in the world spontaneously, with grace.

Weightfully upon me was the world.
Weightfully this self which graced the world yet never wholly itself.
Weightfully this self which weighed upon me,
the release from which is what I desire and what I achieve.
And the girl remembers, in this infinite instant already so many times divided,
the sadness she felt once, hardly knowing she felt it, merely to inhabit herself.
Yes, the girl falls, absurd to fall, even the earth with its compulsion to take unto itself all that falls
must know that falling is absurd, yet the falling girl isn't myself,
or she is myself, but a self I took of my own volition unto myself.
Forever. With grace. This happened.

C.K. Williams

(no subject)

[bitsofbeauty.livejournal.com]

Hello, I'm looking for some poems about humanity (peace, war, hunger, the environment...etc). I've been feeling (shamefully) uninspired.
Thanks everyone!
And now, here's one of my personal favorites:


The Mist 

As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you, nor ever will

When wind and hawk encounter
What remains to keep?

So you and I encounter
Then turn then fall to sleep

As many nights endure
Without a moon or star
So will we endure
When one is gone and far

-Leonard Cohen

When Spring Returns

[tenaciousdin.livejournal.com]

When Spring returns
Perhaps I will no longer be in the world.
Today I wish I could think of Spring as a person
So that I could imagine her crying for me
When she sees that she's lost her only friend.
But Spring isn't even a thing:
It's a manner of speaking.
Not even the flowers or green leaves return.
There are new flowers, new green leaves.
There are new balmy days.
Nothing returns, nothing repeats, because everything is real.

-Fernando Pessoa, When Spring Returns

Paul Kelly: Summer Rain

[brendanobrien.livejournal.com]

SUMMER RAIN

She comes and goes, like summer rain.
I wait all day for summer rain.
And when she comes, I smile again.
She cools my brain, like summer rain.

She'll change your plans like summer rain.
I raise my arms to summer rain.
I lift my head and taste again.
The sweet, sweet drops of summer rain.

She's warm, she's fresh like summer rain.
She comes in a rush, like summer rain.
And when she comes she makes a change.
I'll wait all day for summer rain.

.....Paul Kelly