THE WHOLE PLACE GOES UP
—Rumi
Today with Spring here finally we ought to be living
outdoors with our friends.
Let's go to those strangers in the field
and dance around them like bees from flower to flower,
building in the beehive air
our true hexagonal homes.
Someone comes in from outside saying,
Don't play music just for yourselves.
Now we're tearing up the house like a drum,
collapsing walls with our pounding.
We hear a voice from the sky calling the lovers
and the odd, lost people. We scatter lives.
We break what holds us, each one a blacksmith
heating iron and walking to the anvil.
We blow on the inner fire.
With each striking we change.
The whole place goes up, all stability gone to smoke.
Sometimes high, sometimes low, we begin anywhere,
we have no method.
We're the bat swung by powerful arms.
Balls keep rolling from us, thousands of them underfoot.
Now we're still. Silence also is wisdom, a flame
hiding in cotton wool.
(translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne)
_______________________
On this day of new beginnings, may you (and your poetry) tear up the house, collapsing walls, and break what holds you.
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:
Journals: Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; next deadline is May 15. The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) will be out April 11. Snakelets 10 (for kids-12) is available; next deadline is May 1.
Books/broadsides: Current releases are Skin Stretched Around the Hollow by Steve Williams and littlesnake broadside #32 by Brad Buchanan: Ultrasound. Next release: April 11, 7:30 PM, at the Snake’s Third Annual Birthday Bash and Buffet at The Book Collector: SnakeRings SpiralChap #7 from D.R. Wagner: Where The Stars Are Kept, and littlesnake broadside #33: Swallowed By This Whale Of Time by Ann Menebroker.
Something new: Rattlesnake Interview Series with B.L. Kennedy also premieres April 11; #1 is Ann Menebroker.