I

Living is no laughing matter:
	you must live with great seriousness
		like a squirrel, for example—
   I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
		I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
	you must take it seriously,
	so much so and to such a degree
   that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
                                            your back to the wall,
   or else in a laboratory
	in your white coat and safety glasses,
	you can die for people—
   even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,
   even though you know living
	is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
   that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees—
   and not for your children, either,
   but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
   because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

II

Let’s say we’re seriously ill, need surgery—
which is to say we might not get up
			from the white table.
Even though it’s impossible not to feel sad
			about going a little too soon,
we’ll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we’ll look out the window to see if it’s raining,
or still wait anxiously
		for the latest newscast. . . 
Let’s say we’re at the front—
	for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
	we might fall on our face, dead.
We’ll know this with a curious anger,
        but we’ll still worry ourselves to death
        about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let’s say we’re in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
                        before the iron doors will open.
We’ll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind—
                                I  mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
        we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
               and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet—
	  I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even 
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
	  in pitch-black space . . . 
You must grieve for this right now
—you have to feel this sorrow now—
for the world must be loved this much
                               if you’re going to say “I lived”. . .

O May I join the choir invisible  

Of those immortal dead who live again  

In minds made better by their presence: live  

In pulses stirr'd to generosity,  

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 

For miserable aims that end with self,  

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,  

And with their mild persistence urge man's search  

To vaster issues.  

        So to live is heaven:  

To make undying music in the world,  

Breathing as beauteous order that controls  

With growing sway the growing life of man.  

So we inherit that sweet purity  

For which we struggled, fail'd, and agoniz'd 

With widening retrospect that bred despair.  

Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,  

A vicious parent shaming still its child,  

Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolv'd;  

Its discords, quench'd by meeting harmonies,   

Die in the large and charitable air.  

And all our rarer, better, truer self,  

That sobb'd religiously in yearning song,  

That watch'd to ease the burthen of the world,  

Laboriously tracing what must be,      

And what may yet be better,—saw within  

A worthier image for the sanctuary,  

And shap'd it forth before the multitude,  

Divinely human, raising worship so  

To higher reverence more mix'd with love,—    

That better self shall live till human Time  

Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky  

Be gather'd like a scroll within the tomb Unread forever.  

        This is life to come,  

Which martyr'd men have made more glorious       

For us who strive to follow. May I reach  

That purest heaven, be to other souls  

The cup of strength in some great agony,  

Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,  

Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,

Be the sweet presence of a good diffus'd,  

And in diffusion ever more intense!  

So shall I join the choir invisible  

Whose music is the gladness of the world.

Past the strip malls and the power plants, 
out of the holler, past Gun Bottom Road
and Brassfield and before Red Lick Creek, 
there’s a stream called Drowning Creek where 
I saw the prettiest bird I’d seen all year, 
the belted kingfisher, crested in its Aegean 
blue plumage, perched not on a high snag
but on a transmission wire, eyeing the creek 
for crayfish, tadpoles, and minnows. We were 
driving fast toward home and already our minds
were pulled taut like a high black wire latched 
to a utility pole. I wanted to stop, stop the car
to take a closer look at the solitary, stocky water
bird with its blue crown and its blue chest
and its uncommonness. But already we were
a blur and miles beyond the flying fisher
by the time I had realized what I’d witnessed. 
People were nothing to that bird, hovering over 
the creek. I was nothing to that bird, which wasn’t 
concerned with history’s bloody battles or why 
this creek was called Drowning Creek, a name 
I love though it gives me shivers, because 
it sounds like an order, a place where one 
goes to drown. The bird doesn’t call it anything. 
I’m almost certain, though I am certain 
of nothing. There is a solitude in this world
I cannot pierce. I would die for it. 

When tears wash tears and soul upon soul leaps,
    When clasped in arms of anguish and of pain,
When love beneath the feet of passion creeps,
    Ah me, what do we gain?

When we our rosy bower to demons lease,
    When Life’s most tender strains by shrieks are slain,
When strife invades our quietude and peace,
    Ah me, what do we gain?

When we allow the herbs of hate to sprout,
    When weeds of jealousy the lily stain,
When pearls of faith are crushed by stones of doubt,
    Ah me, what do we gain?

When night creeps on us in the light of day,
    When we nepenthes of good cheer disdain,
When on the throne of courage sits dismay,
    Ah me, what do we gain?

When sweetness, goodness, kindness all have died,
    When naught but broken, bleeding hearts remain,
When rough- shod o’er our better self we ride,
    Ah me, what do we gain?

^{translated from the Farsi by Haleh Liza Gafori}

Your laughter turns the world to paradise.
It tears through me like fire.
It teaches me.

Reborn in emptiness,
I emerge laughing,
here to learn from Love
new depths of laughter.

I’ve been short on courage,
but I have a heart of sunlight,
straight from the king’s hand.
I stir up laughter even in those who fear joy.

Crack open my shell. Steal the pearl.
I’ll still be laughing.
It’s the rookies who laugh only when they win.

Last night, the spirit of dawn came to my room
and gave me a lesson in laughter.
Our blazing roars lit the morning sky.

When I brood like a rain cloud,
laughter flashes through me.
It’s the habit of lightning to laugh through a storm.

Look at the furnace. Look at the stones.
See the glowing red veins?
Gold—laughing in fire, daring you,

“Prove you’re no fake!
Laugh even when you lose.”

We’re fodder for death so learn to laugh
from the angel of death.
He laughs at the jeweled belts and crowns of kings—
all that splendor’s just on loan.

Treetop blossoms erupt in laughter.
Petals rain down.

Laugh like the bud of a flower,
hugging the ground.
Its hidden smile opens to a laugh that lasts a lifetime.