William Stafford, 'Two Times'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Two Times

I

Years later, neglected, you are forgotten.
They try to recall you, but they can't be sure:
"Wasn't there someone . . . ?" You lie very still.
Nobody cares anymore. It is better
when winter comes to find a place
deep in the ground. The more it storms
the quieter your house finds the world.
Finally, you never existed. A wind
goes back and forth whimpering. In the mountains
quiet rocks deny everything.

II

From this cave where they found the skeletons, you
can see the sky: a pool reflects a hole in the
ceiling. The figures died huddled together, some
thousands of years ago. You can lay your
head on the stone where a skull was, and
still hear the crying when the entrance closed:
never to answer, only to die suddenly and get away.

by William Stafford

Jane Hirshfield, 'Not Yet'

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Not Yet

Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out of the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch –
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned,
not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured, not-yet-

Not-yet-not.

I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay.

By Jane Hirshfield

Faith vs Reason

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

Which is not to say that one cannot have reasonable faith, or for that matter faithful reason.. psp


( On Reason and Passion Kahlil Gibran )

; )

.