April 25, 2021: "The Churn" by Jelaluddin Rumi in "This Longing", page 73. (Mathnawi, IV, 3028-3050)

The Churn

The forms and the creatures have a purpose.
God said, I was a Hidden Treasure,
and I desired to be known.

Manifestation contains that Desire
to be known.  Like a deep truth
inside a lie, like the taste of butter
in buttermilk, that's how Spirit
is held in form.
                            For a long time butter stays
invisibly present in the churn mixture.
Then a Prophet comes with a dasher, or it might be
just someone who has heard the words of a saint
and is connected to that one as an infant is
when it hears its mother.  The baby doesn't understand 
language, but it knows the voice-sound,
and gradually learns what the talking means.

We're all born dumb.  Only God
did not have to be taught to speak,
though Adam learned without a nurse or a mother,
and Jesus came articulate into the world.  But most of us
need a lot of attention, much shaking by the Sheikh,
much turning and paddling.  Slowly the butter
emerges.  Don't throw away buttermilk too soon!
Wait.  Keep churning!

Do that work, and you'll begin to hear inside
the maundering drunktalk of drunkards
the Presence of the Winemaker, the Host
who served this wine to us.
 

April 24, 2021: Hiking on Snow

                Hiking on Snow

One thing I’ve learned

Is that hiking on snow;

Especially wet snow,

Isn’t really what I like.

I used to do that

When I was a paper boy,

And I couldn’t ride my bike.

Oh, I remember getting cold,

But one thing I forget

Is how you fall through a drift,

And your shoes and socks get wet

 

How the snow can be hard,

Or fine and flaky,

Or soft and slushy,

And then it can turn very slick,

And staying on your feet

Can sometimes be a trick.

 

Now, there are other substances

That are murder on your feet.

Things can be sharp or crumbly,

Or just hot like a city street.

Sometimes you’ve got to be careful,

Lest something stub your toe.

Some trails are rough,

But I like ’em less

When they’re covered up with snow.

April 24, 2021: Good-bye And Keep Cold in New Enlarged Pocket Book of Robert Frost's Poems, page 258

 Good-bye And Keep Cold

This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark
And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard away at the end of the farm
All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,
I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.
(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call
I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)
I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
(We made it secure against being, I hope,
By setting it out on a northerly slope.)
No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm'
But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
"How often already you've had to be told,
Keep cold, young orchard.  Good-bye and keep cold.
Dread fifty above more than fifty below,"
I have to be gone for a season or so.
My business awhile is with different trees,
Less carefully nurtured, less fruitful than these,
And such as is done in their wood with an axe --
Maples and birches and tamaracks.
I wish I could promise to lie in the night
And think of an orchard's arboreal plight
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
Its heart sinks lower under the sod.
But something has to be left to God.

April 23, 2021: Dealing with Disconnection

               Dealing with Disconnection

 I feel quite a sense of disconnect

Since my neighborhood has changed.

I wonder what it is that I need to protect

When I act like I need to pretend

That everything’s cool, and I know where it’s at,

Although prices are out of my range,

And the music is raunchy, and the beer is flat,

And there’s lingo I don’t comprehend;

And nobody looks like a friend.

 

In the morning, I’m already out of phase

When I cannot remember my dreams.

My blacks and whites turn to faded grays,

Grown blurry through the smudging of time.

When there’s too many details that living requires

And my pockets have broken their seams,

And I’m trapped in the angst of unmet desires

Like keys that I can’t seem to find.

Why can’t my experience rhyme?!

 

I work too many hours on “creative”  endeavors:

On conflicting feelings, and honest confessions.

Do I say it directly or try to be clever?

How much do I need to explain?

I’ve been tracing the patterns I see in my bubble,

But is that an authentic expression?

Is my purpose to project this endless struggle

I don’t always know how to contain?

Is my purpose to entertain?

 

Sometimes, frankly, I just feel pathetic

In my every-day interactions;

Amongst worldly people, so spry and athletic,

Or so irreverently involved,

While I pass my days, never quite knowing

How to show my romantic attractions,

But life keeps on going, and going, and going.

My goals remain unresolved,

And around them my lifetimes revolve, and evolve, and dissolve,

 

And reach out endlessly for something that’s real;

Take the trouble where my help might is needed.

I never forget what I hold ideal,

But I deal with what’s happening now!

It may not be simple but I seek for the center,

And I don’t want to be conceited,

But since I have to be -- I will be my own mentor.

While truth is something that must be allowed,

I’ll take my stand, though I might not know how!

 

Still, I feel an estrangement that’s so profound

That I no longer feel estranged!

I’m just glad I’ve still got my feet on the ground

While untangling the spells I’ve been under;

I find that it’s work to follow my bliss,

And it’s struggle to roll with the strangeness;

To move beyond all the chances I’ve missed;

Building, as I can, on my blunders,

And . . . . I wonder, when I can,

Upon wonder!

April 23, 2021: Pity This Busy Monster,Manunkind by E. E. Cummings, in The Mentor Book of Major American Poets, pg. 461

Pity This Busy Monster,Manunkind,

pity this busy monster,manunkind,

not.  Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim(death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange:lenses extend

unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself,
                                    A world of made
is not a world of born--pity poor flesh

and trees,poor stars and stones,but never this
fine spwecimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence.  We doctors know

a hopeless case if--listen:there's a hell
of a good universe next door;let's go

April 22, 2021: I Deal

               I Deal

Every movement a dance

Every word, a poem and a song.

Every being, a work of art.

Every moment, communion.

I am love itself,

Flowing and flowering

In endless creation.

I am the high ideal,

For nothing is a limitation.

I don’t stand apart from anything,

But embrace all

With the love of God!

April 22, 2021: Epistle to James Craggs, Esq; Secretary of State in "The Poems of Alexander Pope", pg. 465

Epistle to James Craggs, Esq; Secretary of State

A soul as full of Worth, as void of Pride,
Which nothing seeks to show, or needs to hide,
Which nor to Guilt, nor Fear its Caution owes,
And boasts a Warmth that from no Passion flows;
A Face untaught to feign! a judging Eye,
That darts severe upon a rising Lye,
And strikes a blush thro frontless Flattery.
All this thou wert; and being this before,
Know, Kings and Fortune cannot make thee more.
Then scorn to gain a Friend by servile ways,
Nor wish to lose a Foe these Virtues raise;
But candid, free, sincere, as you began,
proceed -- a Minister, but still a Man;
Be not (exalted to whate'er degree)
Asham'd of any Friend, not ev'n of Me.
The Patriot's plain, but untrod path pursue;
If not, 'tis I must be ashamed of You.