once again
change rears its head
as the horizon shifts
as I shift
my gaze here there
Month: March 2018
poem from the Man’yoshü by Lady Ötomo of Sakanoé
My heart, thinking
“How beautiful he is”
Is like a swift river
Which though one dams it and dams it
Will still break through.
translated by Arthur Waley
from Douglas Moore’s blog Moorezart
from The Diary of the Waning Moon by The Nun Abutsu
Between the pines of the shore hills on the eastern road,
Even the waves rise in the image of flowers.
translated by Edwin O. Reischauer
“In a life properly lived, you’re a river”
from Douglas Moore’s blog Art of Quotation
from A Dedication by Karin Boye
I feel your steps in the hall
I feel in every nerve your hurried steps
that go unnoticed otherwise.
A wind of fire sweeps around me.
I feel your steps, your beloved steps,
and my heart aches.
Though you pace far down the hall
the air surges with your steps
and sings like the sea.
I listen, prisoned in gnawing restraint.
My hungry pulse beats to the rhythm of your rhythm,
to the tempo of your gait.
translated by Nadia Christensen
from The Hug by Tess Gallagher
Clearly, a little permission is a dangerous thing.
But when you hug someone you want it
to be a masterpiece of connection, the way the button
on his coat will leave the imprint of
a planet on my cheek
when I walk away. When I try to find some place
to go back to.
new passport
it’s not the picture
of that old guy
with a smile
bordering on sadness
but the clean look feel
of something begging
to be used
which should methinks
change that smile
to one more accustomed
to hope
of finding that
which one seeks
from Love Poem to Be Read to an Illiterate Friend by Tess Gallagher
Forgive it then
that so much of after
depends on these, the words
which must find you
off the page.
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden… for any one else.”
from Douglas Moore’s blog Art of Quotation
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for any one else.”
Charles Dickens, writer, from Our Mutual Friend
Leonard Durso 