An Inspiration, A Reminder

How To Be A Poet
by Wendell Berry

      (to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

(text from poetryfoundation.org)

Moon Full-bright

Tonight, your eyes shine in the
glimmer of a moon full-bright,
as under its watchful gaze we sit, and
somehow the darkness becomes alive
with fire.

A night after midnight and long in the making;
years gone by with friendly gestures and
at times tensions almost unbearable,
yet years numbered nine in which life indeed
was still lived.

Tonight, my heart is not moved by loneliness;
it leaps from my chest to my throat to my mouth
with more than the courage that comes by whiskey;
it is passion and longing and romance by which it moves
and is freed.

A night where the rain from early evening
still lingers in tears on blades of grass,
and has given to the air a coolness unexpected,
an appreciated reprieve from the usual August heat.
Yet there is heat.

For tonight, through long years, is when we kiss again,
unburdened by time and perhaps led by it to this holy moment;
rambling words from my mouth put furiously to halt by
your lips come to mine, where we make peace and rest and laughter,
a feeling right, a sensation euphoric.

Your familiar lips and taste I
remember from long ago,
and by them I am taken from myself once again,
and more than I remember.

By them I hope one day for more;
by them I feel walls around our hearts have crumbled.
What will be is known only by the moon full-bright;
what will be will, by God, travel far beyond tonight.

Written August 17, 2011

Friends

written to the melody of "Million Dollar Bill" by Dawes

I'm sorry if my words
weren't clear enough for understanding,
sometimes I think I'm just scared of the truth.
Of how I feel each and every
time that you're around me;
what runs through my head is all I've got to lose.

I will bring the beer and
you'll line up the shots of bourbon,
we won't think about the things that hold us back.
By the end of the night we will
sing sweet songs together
and kiss so you forget the things I lack.

I will let you cook me dinner
like you did that time before,
what now seems like it was so long ago.
And that thing we had between us,
call it light or call it love,
before you walked away, might come back full aglow.

I'd be lying if I said
it didn't hurt to see you with him,
he could never know you like you know I do.
Guess I'll be waiting 'round forever
if forever is a door that
when you turn around will gently close on you.

I must say I ain't there yet,
I'm just doomed to live and pine
for a girl who may not come again to me.
'Cause I'd drive 64 each and every
night to see you even
if when I arrived you made me leave.

See the thing is that you fear
anything you feel that's real,
deep in your bones and in your soul and in your heart.
But if you choose to deny me
for one reason or another,
we can't be friends 'cause I can't play that part.

Originally written and posted 9/28/11

A Cynical Hope

I hope for a reciprocal love,
once ancient, once divine,
like midnight for the moon.

Can such love be in modern times,
so hurried, so insincere,
and burnt out by noon.

This love for which I hope I know must exist,
for I persist to seek it out;
or perhaps it is childish to maintain such a hope
in so cynical an age.


The games we play have become commonplace;
we use, tease, take advantage of grace,
until we, each other, are full bitter with hate,
and the heart of the entire human race breaks.

Oh, I know it is folly to hope for love perfect,
but folly not to hope for love perfect in pieces;
moments of transcendence that soar like eagles through clouds,
like pillows laid soft on a bed made with creases.
Neither form nor formula is capable of such creation,
of duel hearts that beat like sun for blue sky.
I know not if it is all in my imagination,
I know not if hope can maintain you and I.

What I know is of old, that beauty is truth,
that flesh came from flesh best bestowed by youth;
and though cynical as the spirit of the age,
I long to touch it again.

Originally written and posted 8/11/11

Too often, my dear

Too often, my dear, I look to you for inspiration;
for completeness, satisfaction, healing.
And I find it for a moment at the start;
the pure joy of a new beginning,
the insatiable need to touch, to feel, to protect,
the irrepressible want to lose yourself: to have the world
outside your door, not wanting to be in it.
To want a different kind of food,
and enjoy knots in the stomach.

And then the past rises up to haunt the present,
and promises that this time will be different
made in vain. Romance crushed
by the reality of this world and the
fallibility of all who dwell here; where rain is
not a baptism but a cold dose of the truth.
You, my dear, can never fulfill me but I will always
come back for more, doomed
in a cycle of ups and downs,
yet somehow blessed by the experience
that can never not be a part of me;
Though dead, in me it lives forever.

The knots of desire come untwined;
they twist up again with the fire of resentment and doubt,
a sign of the end of something not meant to last, something
felt in the stomach and the heart; two hearts
afraid and unable to wrap it aloud in words.
It just dies, as all things must.
Too often, my dear, I have looked to you and made myself a burden.
Too often, I look back and feel pain and blessing.

The pure joy of a new beginning -- that it could only be beginning forever.

Originally written and posted 8/8/11