Wooes

(photo from last year - the Aspens are nearly in season this year already)

And the wind, full of wantonness,
wooes like lover
The young aspen-trees till they
tremble all over.

- Thomas Moore (From Trees of America) via Design Squish blog

The Storialist

I just got an interesting email from Hannah Stephenson of the Storialist blog - she wrote a poem inspired by my "Kairos" painting, called "Timing is Everything, Nearly". Thanks Hannah!

"Timing is Everything, Nearly"

When to
make a thing
of an idea,
to manifest
what your
mind has
until now
only murmured.

When to
pounce.

When to
trust the
thickness
of ice
to hold
you, when
to give your
weight
and when to
move.

When to
reveal
the four
of diamonds,
the duplicate
of the card
the girl
had chosen.

When to
pause
in order
to notice.

When to
sew your life
to another
person.

When to
pause
for effect.

When to
go to
the doctor,
a cough
crouched
in your
throat.

When
to rush.

When to
drive home,
and when
to wait
for the sky
to empty itself.

What do we know

Pine tree tops

In the blue night
frost haze, the sky glows
with the moon
pine tree tops
bend snow-blue, fade
into sky, frost, starlight.
The creak of boots.
Rabbit tracks, deer tracks,
what do we know.

-Gary Snyder

An Island for Everything Left

Photo of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone by Nathan Abels

Where We Are

Fog in the morning here
will make some of the world far away
and the near only a hint. But rain
will feel its blind progress along the valley,
tapping to convert one boulder at a time
into a glistening fact. Daylight will
love what came.
Whatever fits will be welcome, whatever
steps back in the fog will disappear
and hardly exist. You hear the river
saying a prayer for all that's gone.

Far over the valley there is an island
for everything left; and our own island
will drift there too, unless we hold on,
unless we tap like this: "Friend,
are you there? Will you touch when
you pass, like the rain?"

William Stafford

John Tranter: A selection of poems

Full books in pdf format here - free to read. Well written, approachable poems/prose without an air of pretension. Take a break. Read a poem.

Lorine Niedecker

Photo by Nathan Abels

"Along the river
wild sunflowers
over my head
the dead
who gave me life
give me this
our relative the air
floods
our rich friend
silt"

- Lorine Niedecker

I've been enjoying Neidecker's poems lately. They evoke the midwestern landscape with few words.

Melancholy Morning

Vic Vicini

"Melancholy Breakfast", by Frank O'Hara

"Melancholy breakfast

blue overhead blue underneath

the silent egg thinks
and the toaster's electrical
ear waits

the stars are in
"that cloud is hid"

the elements of disbelief are
very strong in the morning"