When I read this slowly, I get shivers.
After Twelve Days of Rain
( Read more... )I don't remember when I began
to call everyone "sweetie,"
as if they were my daughters,
my darlings, my little birds.
I have always loved too much,
or not enough. Last night
I read a poem about God and almost
believed it--God sipping coffee,
smoking cherry tobacco. I've arrived
at a time in my life when I could believe
almost anything.
( Read more... )And I saw it didn't matter
who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone.
The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty
of the Iranian attendant, the thickening
clouds--nothing was mine. And I understood
finally, after a semester of philosophy,
a thousand books of poetry, after death
and childbirth and the startled cries of men
who called out my name as they entered me,
I finally believed I was alone, felt it
in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo
like a thin bell.
( Read more... )~ Dorianne Laux***When I read *this* for the first time, I didn't think it worth anything. Then I went through one of 'em again, and laughed at myself. That boy, indeed. I think I'm out of the worst of it now. :)
Mother dear, I
can't finish my weaving
You may
blame Aphrodite
soft as she is
she has almost
killed me with
love for that boy.
~ Sappho
(Translated by Mary Barnard)