A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE Jack Gilbert Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants. Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women at the fountain are laughing together between the suffering they have known and the awfulness in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody in the village is very sick. There is laughter every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta, and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay. If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction, we lessen the importance of their deprivation. We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil. If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down, we should give thanks that the end had magnitude. We must admit there will be music despite everything. We stand at the prow again of a small ship anchored late at night in the tiny port looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning. To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth all the years of sorrow that are to come. MINDFUL Mary Oliver Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in a haystack of light. It is what I was born for-- to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world-- to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant-- but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations. Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these-- the untrimmable light of the world, the ocean's shine, the prayers that are made out of grass? HAPPINESS Stephen Dunn A state you dare not enter with hopes of staying, quicksand in the marshes, and all the roads leading to a castle that doesn't exist. But there it is, as promised, with its perfect bridge above the crocodiles, and its doors forever open. GRAMMAR Tony Hoagland Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend, smiles like a big cat and says that she's a conjugated verb. She's been doing the direct object with a second person pronoun named Phil, and when she walks into the room, everybody turns: some kind of light is coming from her head. Even the geraniums look curious, and the bees, if they were here, would buzz suspiciously around her hair, looking for the door in her corona. We're all attracted to the perfume of fermenting joy, we've all tried to start a fire, and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own. In the meantime, she is the one today among us most able to bear the idea of her own beauty, and when we see it, what we do is natural: we take our burned hands out of our pockets, and clap. GOOD GOD, WHAT A NIGHT THAT WAS Petronius Arbiter Good God, what a night that was, The bed was so soft, and how we clung, Burning together, lying this way and that, Our uncontrollable passions Flowing through our mouths. If only I could die that way, I'd say goodbye to the business of living. Translated by Kenneth Rexroth ECSTASY Hayden Carruth For years it was in sex and I thought This was the most of it so brief a moment or two of transport out of oneself or in music which lasted longer and filled me with the exquisite wrenching agony of the blues and now it is equally transitory and obscure as I sit in my broken chair that cats have shredded by the stove on a winter night with wind and snow howling outside and I imagine the whole world at peace at peace and everyone comfortable and warm the great pain assuaged a moment of the most shining and singular gratification. YOUR LAUGHTER Pablo Neruda Take bread away from me, if you wish, take air away, but do not take from me your laughter. Do not take away the rose, the lanceflower that you pluck, the water that suddenly bursts forth in your joy, the sudden wave of silver born in you. My struggle is harsh and I come back with eyes tired at times from having seen the unchanging earth, but when your laughter enters it rises to the sky seeking me and it opens for me all the doors of life. My love, in the darkest hour your laughter opens, and if suddenly you see my blood staining the stones of the street, laugh, because your laughter will be for my hands like a fresh sword. Next to the sea in the autumn, your laughter must raise its foamy cascade, and in the spring, love, I want your laughter like the flower I was waiting for, the blue flower, the rose of my echoing country. Laugh at the night, at the day, at the moon, laugh at the twisted streets of the island, laugh at this clumsy boy who loves you, but when I open my eyes and close them, when my steps go, when my steps return, deny me bread, air, light, spring, but never your laughter for I would die. Translated by Donald Walsh WHAT DO WOMEN WANT? Kim Addonizio I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me. I want it sleeveless and backless, this dress, so no one has to guess what's underneath. I want to walk down the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store with all those keys glittering in the window, past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old donuts in their cafe, past the Guerra brothers slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly, hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders. I want to walk like I'm the only woman on earth and I can have my pick. I want that red dress bad. I want it to confirm your worst fears about me, to show you how little I care about you or anything except what I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment from its hanger like I'm choosing a body to carry me into this world, through the birth-cries and the love-cries too, and I'll wear it like bones, like skin, it'll be the goddamned dress they bury me in. FROM BLOSSOMS Li-Young Lee From blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches we bought from the boy at the bend in the road where we turned toward signs painted Peaches. From laden boughs, from hands, from sweet fellowship in the bins, comes nectar at the roadside, succulent peaches we devour, dusty skin and all, comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat. O, to take what we love inside, to carry within us an orchard, to eat not only the skin, but the shade, not only the sugar, but the days, to hold the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach. There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. PHOTOGRAPH Lucille Clifton my grandsons spinning in their joy universe keep them turning turning black blurs against the window of the world for they are beautiful and there is trouble coming round and round and round THE BEST CIGARETTE Billy Collins There are many that I miss, having sent my last one out of a car window sparking along the road one night, years ago. The heralded ones, of course: after sex, the two glowing tips now the lights of a single ship; at the end of a long dinner with more wine to come and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier; or on a white beach, holding one with fingers still wet from a swim. How bittersweet these punctuations of flame and gesture; but the best were on those mornings when I would have a little something going in the typewriter, the sun bright in the windows, maybe some Berlioz on in the background. I would go into the kitchen for coffee and on the way back to the page, curled in its roller, I would light one up and feel its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee. Then I would be my own locomotive, trailing behind me as I returned to work little puffs of smoke, indicators of progress, signs of industry and thought, the signal that told the nineteenth century it was moving forward. That was the best cigarette, when I would steam into the study full of vaporous hope and stand there, the big headlamp of my face pointed down at all the words in parallel lines. SONNETS TO ORPHEUS IX Rainer Maria Rilke Only the man who has raised his strings among the dark ghosts also should feel his way toward the endless praise. Only he who has eaten poppy with the dead, from their poppy, will never lose even his most delicate sound. Even though images in the pool seem so blurry: grasp the main thing. Only in the double kingdom, there alone, will voices become undying and tender. Translated by Robert Bly THE SUMMER DAY Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? WHY I AM HAPPY William Stafford Now has come, an easy time. I let it roll. There is a lake somewhere so blue and far nobody owns it. A wind comes by and a willow listens gracefully. I hear all this, every summer. I laugh and cry for every turn of the world, its terribly cold, innocent spin. That lake stays blue and free; it goes on and on. And I know where it is. OUR HEARTS SHOULD DO THIS MORE Hafiz I sit in the streets with the homeless My clothes stained with the wine From the vineyards the saints tend. Light has painted all acts The same color So I sit around and laugh all day With my friends. At night if I feel a divine loneliness I tear the doors off Love's mansion And wrestle God onto the floor. He becomes so pleased with Hafiz And says, "Our hearts should do this more." Translated by Daniel Ladinsky THE SWAN Kabir Swan, I'd like you to tell me your whole story! Where you first appeared, and what dark sand you are going toward, and where you sleep at night, and what you are looking for. . . . It's morning, swan, wake up, climb in the air, follow me! I know of a country that spiritual flatness does not control, nor constant depression, and those alive are not afraid to die. There wildflowers come up through the leafy floor, and the fragrance of "I am he" floats on the wind. There the bee of the heart stays deep inside the flower, and cares for no other thing. Translated by Robert Bly ADAM AND EVE IN THE GARDEN John Milton Both turned, and under the open sky adored The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven, Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, And starry pole: "Thou also mad'st the night, Maker Omnipotent, and thou the day Which we, in our appointed work employed, Have finished, happy in our mutual help And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss." . . . . This said unanimous, and other rites Observing none, but adoration pure, Which God likes best, into their inmost bower Handed they went: and, eased the putting off These troublesome disguises which we wear, Straight side by side were laid: nor turned, I ween, Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites Mysterious of connubial love refused. . . . . Hail, wedded Love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety In Paradise of all things common else! By thee adulterous Lust was driven from men Among the bestial herds to range; by thee, Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure, Relations dear, and all the charities Of father, son, and brother, first were known. Far be it that I should write thee sin or blame, Or think thee unbefitting holiest place, Perpetual fountain of domestick sweets, Whose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced, Present, or past, as saints and patriarchs used. Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings. . . . . These, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept, And on their naked limbs the flowery roof Showered roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on, Blest pair, and O! yet happiest, if ye seek No happier state, and know to know no more. From Paradise Lost Book IV SABBATHS 2004 IV Wendell Berry (Jayber Crow in old age) To think of gathering all the sorrows of Port William into myself, and so sparing the others: What freedom! What joy! THE DANCING Gerald Stern In all these rotten shops, in all this broken furniture and wrinkled ties and baseball trophies and coffee pots I have never seen a postwar Philco with the automatic eye nor heard Ravel's "Bolero" the way I did in 1945 in that tiny living room on Beechwood Boulevard, nor danced as I did then, my knives all flashing, my hair all streaming, my mother red with laughter, my father cupping his left hand under his armpit, doing the dance of old Ukraine, the sound of his skin half drum Excerpted from Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems by Roger Housden All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
