Of larger darknesses

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S t o n y   G a z e

Old Gray Cemetery

Knoxville, Tennessee

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We grow accustomed to the Dark --

When Light is put away --

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye --

A Moment -- We uncertain step

For newness of the night --

Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --

And meet the Road -- erect --

And so of larger -- Darknesses --

Those Evenings of the Brain --

When not a Moon disclose a sign --

Or Star -- come out -- within --

The Bravest -- grope a little --

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead --

But as they learn to see --

Either the Darkness alters --

Or something in the sight

Adjust itself to Midnight --

And Life steps almost straight.

= Emily Dickinson =

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Happy Saturday

And you are mine

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K r e s s   T o   S y l v a n

Neverbust  :: Blue Sky

Columbia, South Carolina

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In the evening, love returns,

Like a wand’rer ’cross the sea;

In the evening, love returns

With a violet for me;

In the evening, life’s a song,

And the fields are full of green;

All the stars are golden crowns,

And the eye of God is keen.

 

In the evening, sorrow dies

With the setting of the sun;

In the evening, joy begins,

When the course of mirth is done;

In the evening, kisses sweet

Droop upon the passion vine;

In the evening comes your voice:

“I am yours, and you are mine.”

= Fenton Johnson =

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Happy Friday

The sense of plenty

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A r m s   O f   T h e   A n g e l

Laurel Grove Cemetery

Savannah, Georgia

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I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition --
add two cups of milk and stir --
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.

And multiplication’s school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else’s
garden now.

There’s an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mothers’ call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn’t anywhere you look.

= Mary Cornish =

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Happy Thursday

Broken the rose stem

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T   I s   F o r   T i m e   ::   U n d e f e a t e d

Glenwood Cemetery

Tupelo, Mississippi

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WHAT'S BROKEN

The slate black sky. The middle step
of the back porch. And long ago

my mother’s necklace, the beads
rolling north and south. Broken

the rose stem, water into drops, glass
knobs on the bedroom door. Last summer’s

pot of parsley and mint, white roots
shooting like streamers through the cracks.

Years ago the cat’s tail, the bird bath,
the car hood’s rusted latch. Broken

little finger on my right hand at birth --
I was pulled out too fast. What hasn’t

been rent, divided, split? Broken
the days into nights, the night sky

into stars, the stars into patterns
I make up as I trace them

with a broken-off blade
of grass. Possible, unthinkable,

the cricket’s tiny back as I lie
on the lawn in the dark, my heart

a blue cup fallen from someone’s hands.

= Dorianne Laux =

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Happy Wednesday

From the hand unbidden

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T h e r e ' s   A   B o x   F o r   T h a t

Bush River Memorial Gardens

Columbia, South Carolina

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How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart;
the sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

= Derek Mahon =

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Happy Tuesday