April 4, 2021: Trouble Returning to Camp

               Trouble Returning to Camp

 

The rocks have changed

From orange to brown to gray.

I’m still unable to find my way.

It’s as though somehow they’ve re-arranged.

No matter how I’ve looked and looked,

I can’t find the place where I crossed the brook.

 

And the hills – not so far,

Changed from yellow and green to sultry black.

It’s useless anymore to try to go back.

The sky is opening, star by star.

I look for my flashlight in the base of my pack.

It has so many pockets.  Hard to keep track.

 

I’ll build me a fire.

Dry wood is abundant and I find it in piles.

But also, so are the reptiles!

Seeking my comfort is my present desire.

I haven't the heart to hike -- how many miles?

My friends will be worried.  I'll bring them a smile.

 

All I have is right here:

Here, in this clearing, where the stream takes a bend.

I am alone with my instincts, on which I depend.

I have little to fear:

No cause to explain what I didn't intend:

I may be lost, but this isn’t the end.

April 4, 2021: Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden in The United States in Lit., page 545

 Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters:  how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance:  how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

April 3, 2021 -- Rising Stream

               Rising Stream

 

Every day,

Just going along.

We deal with stuff,

Or we figure wrong,

And we sing our songs.

 

We go through our changes.

We remember our dreams,

And we turn the pages,

Or we blow off steam,

While life seems to flow like a stream.

 

Except now, the stream is rising,

And the height it reaches might be surprising,

And at a certain point there’ll be no disguising

That hell’s breaking loose and it’s time to get ready!

 

The rain keeps on falling,

And it’s going to flood.

Don’t know what’ll happen, but you got to keep steady:

Pile up the sand bags to keep out the mud,

And feel your love as it pumps in your blood.

April 3, 2021: The Bath by Jose-Maria de Heredia, "Adventures in World Lit.", page 766

 The Bath

As might a centaur, man and beast in one,
  Into the surf they plunge, naked and free;
  Powdered with golden mist, they seem to be
Athletes of bronze aglow beneath the sun.
The rustic rider and wild stallion
  Breathe in the briny odor thirstily,
  And as they meet the chill surge of the sea
Through flesh and mane delicious shivers run.
The wave swells, rushes, rises like a wall,
  Then breaks in foam.  The bathers shout and neigh
  And from the stallion's tail blue showers fly;
Mane streaming wild, he rears against the sky,
Then dark breasts cleave the billows as they fall
  Whipped into frothing cataracts of spray.

April 2, 2021: How to Relate

               How to Relate?

 

I say in poems

What’s on my mind,

But I can’t show them;

They’re not yet refined.

It’s got to congeal,

Or it just isn’t smart –

When I choose to reveal

What I hold in my heart.

 

I am confused!

I have nothing to show.

My life’s been diffused.

I don’t know where to go.

I haven’t begun!

I’m not very strong.

I’m not very fun,

But I tag along.

 

I’m afraid of the beaches;

Afraid of the bars;

The girls’ out of reach.

I don’t know about cars,

And the stereo’s music

Just drowns my guitar.

 

April 2, 2021: "Changing the Wheel" by Bertolt Brecht in "Teutonic Lit. in English Translation, page 55

 Changing the Wheel

I sit on the roadside bank.
The driver changes a wheel.
I do not like the place I have come from.
I do not like the place I am going to.
Why do I watch him changing the wheel
With Impatience?

April 1, 2021: "Poem" by Izzi Charik (In "A Treasury of Yiddish Poetry, page 191)

POEM

Who cares if eternity won't know me,
if no one ever watches my footsteps --
but now, right now, when hearts are burning,
I come with fists in my song. 

Of course, I'd like to sing myself away,
to cry out all my hurting with the wind --
but, though I would not find that hard, I cannot,
when life bears down too much on everyone.

The stars are not -- till now -- my enemies,
and I can keep my peace with all the winds,
but when I am ablaze I must not listen
to the air that, rustling, lingers over me.

Who cares if eternity won't know me,
if no one ever watches my footsteps --
but now, right now, when hearts are burning,
I must come with my song!