^{to a young child}

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Not as the white nations
    know thee
        O Mother!

But swarthy of cheek
    and full-lipped as the
        child races are.

Yet thou art she,
    the Immaculate Maid,
        and none other,

Crowned in the stable
    at Bethlehem,
        hailed of the star.

See where they come,
    thy people,
        so humbly appealing,

From the ancient lands
    where the olden faiths
        had birth.

Tired dusky hands
    uplifted for thy
        healing.

Pity them, Mother,
    the untaught
        of earth.

Growin’ by de corner-stone,
    See de pretty flow’r-tree blows,
Sendin’ from de prickly branch
    A lubly bunch o’ red dog-rose.

An’ de bunch o’ crimson red,
    Boastin’ on de dark blue tree,
Meks it pretty, prettier yet
    Jes’ as dat dog-rose can be.

Young Miss Sal jes’ come from school:
    Freddy, fresh from groun’ an’ grub,
Pick de dog-rose off de tree,
    Gib Miss Sal to prove his lub.

Then I watch on as dem kiss
    Right aroun’ de corner-stone,
An’ my heart grow vex’ fe see
    How dem foolish when alone.

An’ I listen to deir talk,
    As dey say dey will be true;
"Eber true" I hear dem pledge,
    An’ dat naught can part dem two.

De petchary laugh an’ jig,
    Sittin’ on a bamboo low;
Seems him guess, jes’ like mese’f
    How de whole t’ing gwin’ fe go.

Time gwon, an’ de rose is not:
    I see Fred, wi’ eyes all dim,
Huggin’ up de corner-stone,
    For his love has jilted him;

Left him for anedder man
    Wid a pile o’ money,
Dat he carried from his land
    O’ de Injin coney.

Wonder whe’ de petchary?
    De rose-tree is dead an’ gone;
Sal sit in de big great-house,
    Cooin’ to her baby son.

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

Sometimes saying things helps
me see them    The memory
of a sacred so and so    Commands
written into the code    My hair
is a joke       There was an error
creating the error message,
says the computer    We will win
and publish our enemies,
says a friend    A book and a gun
prefaced by love    It’s 9am and already
I’m thinking about lunch    White noise
rumbling in my loins     The end
of brilliance and fame    A reinvented
kiss    Magnificent decomposition

“Oh no, not with your syntax,” said H.V. to her daughter-in-law, a Chinese writing poetry in English

She walk to table
She walks to a table

She walk to table now
She is walking to a table now

What difference it make
What difference does it make

In Nature, no completeness
No sentence really complete thought

Language, our birthright & curse
Pay no mind to immigrant syntax

Poetry, born as beast
Move best when free, undressed

Dog around the block, sniff,
Hydrant sniffing, corner, grating,
Sniffing, always, starting forward,
Backward, dragging, sniffing backward,
Leash at taut, leash at dangle,
Leash in people’s feet entangle—
Sniffing dog, apprised of smellings,
Love of life, and fronts of dwellings,
Meeting enemies,
Loving old acquaintance, sniff,
Sniffing hydrant for reminders,
Leg against the wall, raise,
Leaving grating, corner greeting,
Chance for meeting, sniff, meeting,
Meeting, telling, news of smelling,
Nose to tail, tail to nose,
Rigid, careful, pose,
Liking, partly liking, hating,
Then another hydrant, grating,
Leash at taut, leash at dangle,
Tangle, sniff, untangle,
Dog around the block, sniff.

Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,
       Dear little friend of mine, I never knew.
All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.
       (For heaven’s sake, stop worrying that shoe!)
You look about, and all you see is fair;
       This mighty globe was made for you alone.
Of all the thunderous ages, you’re the heir.
       (Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!)

A skeptic world you face with steady gaze;
       High in young pride you hold your noble head;
Gayly you meet the rush of roaring days.
       (Must you eat puppy biscuit on the bed?)
Lancelike your courage, gleaming swift and strong,
       Yours the white rapture of a wingèd soul,
Yours is a spirit like a May-day song.
       (God help you, if you break the goldfish bowl!)

“Whatever is, is good,” your gracious creed.
       You wear your joy of living like a crown.
Love lights your simplest act, your every deed.
       (Drop it, I tell you—put that kitten down!)
You are God’s kindliest gift of all,—a friend.
       Your shining loyalty unflecked by doubt,
You ask but leave to follow to the end.
       (Couldn’t you wait until I took you out?)

once again i’ve brought my dead dog to the party.
not the box of ashes, but the pen-drawn sketch
my friend lenny made six days after she died.

or five. i saw it coming, the way mimsy went. 
the hard part was saying it, so i wrote it down: 
something small i love is leaving me.

now it’s late morning in abiquiu & i’m alone 
in the courtyard, rolling around on the flagstone
breathing, a drawing of mimsy in the shade,

a mug cooling at her side. i said i don’t drink coffee
or need a week to myself but look at me now, trying 
not to lie. so i listen: a shrill of pinyon jays

in a juniper trills me from ghost to cobalt sky. all winter 
i didn’t see them, not a single thrill of murmuration 
& though it’s a hideous sound—a jay’s call, like a

small computer dying slow—to live, to move like that:
seven siblings at my side, six at each of theirs, my god! 
not thinking where’s the threat but being

more than one, not less than any . . .
the nearly-noon shadows recede & soon 
mimsy’s in full sun, where i leave her, the light

too bright to stay, the shrill too clear. i say yes,
i’ve seen a rock wren & no, that is a fishless osprey circling
the steppe & tomorrow i might make a cairn of quartz

just to knock it down, slip a stone into my pocket, 
put nine postcards in the mail, or begin another poem 
for lenny i’ll try to finish when i’m home—

                         you had a friend once.
                         now she’s different.
                         we remember what we need.

If you can keep your head when all about you

   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

   But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

   Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

   And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

   And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

   And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

   To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

   Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

   Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

   If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—

   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

It’s October. War has only just begun and you are
still alive, fixing us shabbat dinner out of 
leftovers in your dead grandmother’s apartment while 
 
I sit at a typewriter:  The 1st love poem by Morgan Parker,
prominent author and single person,  because in this 
thin slice of universe, I see how it could be. 
 
You let me pick music. I choose Freddie Hubbard’s  First Light.
 
Beyond the balcony: ball field, marina, low tide, fear of God.
It’s the worst kind of closeness, the most foreboding,
to sit down to dinner with you, our private dusk, lavender
 
and dragonfruit, with nothing to report. I clear the table
of my paper and your pills, then place a black shell 
and spent blue votive on the center doily. 
 
You serve me whatever you have left.

^{translated from the Spanish by Carmen Giménez and Dean Rader} 

The rage that shatters a man into children,
that shatters the child into identical birds,
and the bird, eventually, into tiny eggs;
the rage of the poor
bears one oil against two vinegars.

The rage that shatters the tree into leaves,
the leaf, into disparate buds,
and the bud, into telescopic folds;
the rage of the poor
holds two rivers against many seas.

The rage that shatters the good into doubts,
doubt, into three kindred arcs,
and then the arc into unexpected tombs;
the rage of the poor
wields one sword against two daggers.

The rage that shatters the soul into bodies,
the body, into dissimilar organs,
and the organ into eight-note thoughts
the rage of the poor
carries a core fire against two craters.

[La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños,]

La cólera que quiebra al hombre en niños,
que quiebra al niño en pájaros iguales,
y al pájaro, después, en huevecillos;
la cólera del pobre
tiene un aceite contra dos vinagres.

La cólera que al árbol quiebra en hojas,
a la hoja, en botones desiguales,
y al botón, en ranuras telescópicas;
la cólera del pobre
tiene dos ríos contra muchos mares.

La cólera que quiebra al bien en dudas,
a la duda, en tres arcos semejantes,
y al arco, luego, en tumbas imprevistas;
la cólera del pobre
tiene un acero contra dos puñales.

La cólera que quiebra al alma en cuerpos,
al cuerpo, en órganos desemejantes,
y al órgano, en octavos pensamientos;
la cólera del pobre
tiene un fuego central contra dos cráteres.