Bare Ruined Choirs

Niagara in Winter
 Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

THAT TIME OF YEAR

—William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by-and-by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

     This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

     To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

_______________________

STAYING AT ED'S PLACE
—May Swenson

I like being in your apartment, and not disturbing anything

As in the woods I wouldn't want to move a tree,

or change the play of sun and shadow on the ground.

The yellow kitchen stool belongs right there

against white plaster. I haven't used your purple towel

because I like the accidental cleft of shade you left in it.

At your small six-sided table, covered with mysterious

dents in the wood like a dartboard, I drink my coffee

from your brown mug. I look into the clearing

of your high front room, where sunlight slopes through bare

window squares. Your Afghanistan hammock,
     a man-sized cocoon

slung from wall to wall, your narrow desk and typewriter

are the only furniture. Each morning your light from the east

douses me where, with folded legs, I sit in your meadow,

a casual spread of brilliant carpets. Like a cat or dog

I take a roll, then, stretched out flat

in the center of color and pattern, I listen

to the remote growl of trucks over cobbles on

     Bethune Street below.

When I open my eyes I discover the peaceful blank

of the ceiling. Its old paint-layered surface is moonwhite

and trackless, like the Sea—of Tranquillity.

________________________

COMPLAINT
—James Wright

She's gone. She was my love, my moon or more.
She chased the chickens out and swept the floor,
Emptied the bones and nutshells after feasts,
And smacked the kids for leaping up like beasts.
Now morbid boys have grown past awkwardness;
The girls let stitches out, dress after dress,
To free some swinging body's riding space
And form the new child's unimagined face.
Yet, while vague nephews, spitting on their curls,
Amble to pester winds and blowsy girls,
What arm will sweep the room, what hand will hold
New snow against the mild to keep it cold?
And who will dump the garbage, feed the hogs,
And pitch the chickens' heads to hungry dogs?
Not my lost hag who dumbly bore such pain:
Childbirth and midnight sassafras and rain.
New snow against her face and hands she bore,
And now lies down, who was my moon or more.

_______________________

TIME DOES NOT BRING RELIEF
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountainside,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

________________________

SEEING YOU STAND ONCE MORE BEFORE MY EYES
—Amy Lowell

Seeing you stand once more before my eyes
In your pall dignity and tenderness,
Wearing your frailty like a misty dress
Draped over the great glamour which denies
To years their domination, all disguise
Time can achieve is but to add a stress,
A finer fineness, as though some caress
Touched you a moment to a strange surprise.
Seeing you after these long lengths of years,
I only know the glory come again,
A majesty bewildered by my tears,
A golden sun spangling slant shafts of rain,
Moonlight delaying by a sick man's bed,
A rush of daffodils where wastes of dried leaves spread.

________________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

—W.S. Merwin

_______________________

—Medusa

White Mums

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis