There was the bang
and then this 

bloom. Long falling action.
Each beginning—lip to lip, 

slick birth, blue-red, momentous—
gave way to a succession of meals, hours

at the desk. Only a few 
like this one 

on an evening beach. 
My mother and I 

each hold one of my daughter’s hands.
I don’t touch my mother now,

only the brief embrace upon arrival 
or departure. Not like once. 

But if the years unspool 
in a common pattern I will 

hold her hand again. Sometime 
I’ll cradle her elbow 

steady down a stair.
This year I watched her 

speak slowly and set cut food 
before her own mother. I thought

what wild reversals time makes, 
how we sail out on the far 

sling of orbit, then come close 
again. A red sun

pillows on the surf
that pulls away from us, and

even on a cut stem, 
buds keep opening.

Today like yesterday
Tomorrow like today;
The drip, drip, drip,
        Of monotony
Is wearing my life away;
Today like yesterday,
Today like today. 

Work in the early morning but at 3 A.M.
when I’m wide awake, holding you in my arms,
time is a debt that will never be forgiven us.
For whatever night is left, our bodies draping
the peeled leather couch, your head tilts up toward
mine in still sleep & I tuck in my ear to bridge
the farness of your breathing, faint & steady,
as if you were giving me flashes of your life
without words. I want there to be nothing
which exists beyond this room, save the thrush
obligato at dawn & the past that has made me
fragile enough to feel the time bend in your hold
but once my eyes map the ceiling there’s no hope
for desire to remake life in our light-shorn image.
I begin to think about all those ancient epics
where the heroes rather become infinite than fall in love,
narrowly conquering death at the expense of glimpsing
any heaven worth living for, betraying wind, staking
silver through their own humanity. For a moment I find myself
bent on one of us becoming exactly like that—undying
& indeterminate, god-renowned & never gaining, never
losing—but something pulls me back when your hand,
even in sleep, reaches a part of my neck which has a pulse
I’ve almost forgotten, lingers as if you were making
an afterlife with your touch, says we are here even
where we are gone, going, & the world means nothing.
Who cares what I have failed to become.
I will die knowing that
we lived forever.

It happens to me all the time--business
Goes up and down but I'm the yo-yo spun
Into the high speed trick called sleeping
Such as I am fast standing in this line now.

Maybe I am also a top; they too sleep
While standing, tightly twirling in place.
I wish I could step out and listen for
The sort of music that I must make.

But this is where the state celebrates its sport.
From cushioned chairs the agents turn your ample
Time against you through a box of lines.
Your string is both your leash and lash.

	The faster you spin, the stiller you look.
	There's something to learn in that, but what?

And they will gather by the well,
its dark water a mirror to catch whatever
stars slide by in the slow precession of
the skies, the tilting dome of time, 
over all, a light mist like a scrim,
and here and there some clouds
that will open at the last and let
the moon shine through; it will be 
at the wheel’s turning, when
three zeros stand like paw-prints
in the snow; it will be a crescent
moon, and it will shine up from
the dark water like a silver hook
without a fish—until, as we lean closer, 
swimming up from the well, something
dark but glowing, animate, like live coals—
it is our own eyes staring up at us,
as the moon sets its hook;
and they, whose dim shapes are no more
than what we will become, take up
their long-handled dippers
of brass, and one by one, they catch
the moon in the cup-shaped bowls,
and they raise its floating light
to their lips, and with it, they drink back
our eyes, burning with desire to see
into the gullet of night: each one
dips and drinks, and dips, and drinks, 
until there is only dark water,
until there is only the dark.

^{(From N. Y. Independent)}

Oh, it’s good to be a-livin’  
   W’en Thanksgivin’s ’bout to come,   
An’ ol’ mammy’s in de kitchen   
   Jes’ a-mekin’ dishes hum!   
See dat tu’key in de cupboard,  
   An’ dem pies all in a row,   
An’ dem cakes wid all deir icin’––  
   Why dey looks lak dey was snow!

Uncle Eph’s done wash’d de winders,   
   An’ li’ l’ Topsy’s scrubb’d de flo’;  
Mammy’s sent me once fur cidah,   
   But she ’lowes she wants some mo’;  
And she ’lows she wants a ’possum,  
   An’ she’ll have one––I’ll be boun,––  
’Cause it won’t be no Thanksgivin’  
   Dout a ’possum’s somewhar roun’

You kin have yo’ merry Chris’mas,   
   An’ yo’ Fo’th Day uv July,   
An’ dat sad, sad day what teks us  
   Whar de Union so’jers lie;  
But I’s one dat hyeah to tell you:  
   Ef I had a right to speak,   
We’d jes’ celerbrate Thanksgivin’  
   ’Mos nigh evah othah week.

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

Forever is composed of Nows —
’Tis not a different time,
Except for infiniteness
And latitude of home.

From this, experienced here,
Remove the dates to these,
Let months dissolve in further months,
And years exhale in years.

Without certificate or pause
Or celebrated days,

As infinite our years would be
As Anno Domini’s.

Winter is good - his Hoar Delights
Italic flavor yield -
To Intellects inebriate
With Summer, or the World -

Generic as a Quarry
And hearty - as a Rose -
Invited with asperity
But welcome when he goes.

^{translated from the Turkish by Nell Wright}

My mother dries figs
with her blue-veined hands.
My mother smiles at walnuts
as though time in the heart never started.

SANKİ

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