W. S. Merwin (1927- ) : "Rain Light"

All day the stars watch from long ago

my mother said I am going now

when you are alone you will be all right

whether or not you know you will know

look at the old house in the dawn rain

all the flowers are forms of water

the sun reminds them through a white cloud

touches the patchwork spread on the hill

the washed colors of the afterlife

that lived there long before you were born

see how they wake without a question

even though the whole world is burning



From "The Shadow of Sirius"
Copper Canyon Press 2009
The Shadow of Sirius

Holding The Sun

For Moms



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Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593) : from "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love"

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dale and field,

And all the craggy mountains yield.


There we will sit upon the rocks,

And see the shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.


There I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;


A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;


The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my love.





From  A Victorian Flower Dictionary by Mandy Kirkby
Published by Ballentine Books, 2011

With The Poet

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Sweet Pearls Find

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Rolf Jacobsen (1907 - 1994) : "Cobalt"

Colors are words' little sisters. They can't become soldiers.

I've loved them secretly for a long time.

They have to stay home and hang up the sheer curtains

in our ordinary bedroom, kitchen and alcove.


I'm very close to young Crimson, and brown Sienna

but even closer to thoughtful Cobalt with her distant eyes and

         untrampled spirit.

She walk in dew.

The night sky and the southern oceans

are her possessions

and a tear-shaped pendant on her forehead:

the pearls of Cassiopeia.

We walk in dew on late nights.


But the others.

Meet them on a June morning at four o'clock

when they come rushing toward you,

on your way to a morning swim in the green cove's spray.

When you can sunbathe with them on the smooth rocks.

              -Which one will you make yours?






From: Czeslaw Milosz - A Book of Luminous Things
           An International Anthology of Poetry

Translated from the Norwegian by Roger Greenwald
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996

Fallen Stars

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