(Olivier Theatre, South Bank)
I was his favorite, simply that.
And you can see
for yourself why it might have been so:
the lushest, least
likely to weary the eyes of all
the serried wavelengths.
Never obvious.
My bit
of the spectrum unstable somehow,
in a way that kept
bringing him back. Search
image
on your browser and you’ll see
what I mean.
I’ve never had the advantage of
sculptural
beauty, as the lily has, I haven’t
been able to boast
that stricture of line. That making-
no-mistakes. God
knows I’ve wished for it, beggars
can dream.
But no. Some neither-this-nor
that turns out to be
my sphere. Some manyness rather
than singular
perfection. Which I like to think
he thought about.
He made this place.
They named it
for him. And upholstered the seats
in heliotrope,
whose cluster of vowels and con-
sonants
he loved like my blue-going-violet-
with-touches-of-
gray. The vocal colors. Warm-up,
nightly, before
the play. So you see, they were
wrong, the ones
who called me unrequited. I
was in his throat,
among the folds and ridges and
beyond them to
the very dome upon whose curve
the heart resides.
Just think what it used to be then,
in the hour before
they’d let the rest of you in:
my many faces toward
the sun who spoke—no, sang—
my name.
Copyright © 2015 by Linda Gregerson. Used with permission of the author.
There are baby thoughts in the shape of seaweed & pirate knives they float over strips of shores & curl into a rainy parasol where a laboring red papaya truck awaits & there are the thoughts of Staff Sergeant Melanie Lippman—she's back from Afghanistan & cheers as a rhomboid ball burns through the flags of space— but she notices distant jagged zones on fire where the Company battles & there are the thoughts of a father Don Jose Emiliano in plaid with water on his face—his only son on the wet field for the first time—he is a man now how his fury tumbles & finds a route to launch & spin his body toward a shifting goal—is that my son he says.
Copyright © 2015 by Juan Felipe Herrera. Used with permission of the author.
One ran,
her nose to the ground,
a rusty shadow
neither hunting nor playing.
One stood; sat; lay down; stood again.
One never moved,
except to turn her head a little as we walked.
Finally we drew too close,
and they vanished.
The woods took them back as if they had never been.
I wish I had thought to put my face to the grass.
But we kept walking,
speaking as strangers do when becoming friends.
There is more and more I tell no one,
strangers nor loves.
This slips into the heart
without hurry, as if it had never been.
And yet, among the trees, something has changed.
Something looks back from the trees,
and knows me for who I am.
—1995
Originally published in The Lives of the Heart (HarperCollins, 1997); all rights reserved. Copyright © by Jane Hirshfield. Used by permission of the author, all rights reserved.
As if there could be a world
Of absolute innocence
In which we forget ourselves
The owners throw sticks
And half-bald tennis balls
Toward the surf
And the happy dogs leap after them
As if catapulted—
Black dogs, tan dogs,
Tubes of glorious muscle—
Pursuing pleasure
More than obedience
They race, skid to a halt in the wet sand,
Sometimes they'll plunge straight into
The foaming breakers
Like diving birds, letting the green turbulence
Toss them, until they snap and sink
Teeth into floating wood
Then bound back to their owners
Shining wet, with passionate speed
For nothing,
For absolutely nothing but joy.
Copyright © 1998 by Alicia Ostriker. Used with permission of the author.
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.
We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—
Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.
Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:
Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.
You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me
What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made
Something greater from the difference.
Copyright © 2014 by Alberto Ríos. Used with permission of the author.
I’m a rock woman
I’m a horse woman
I’m a monkey woman
I’m a chipmunk woman
I’m a mountain woman
I’m a blue mountain woman
I’m a marsh woman
I’m a jungle woman
I’m a tundra woman
I’m the lady in the lake
I’m the lady in the sand
water that cleans
flowers that clean
water that cleans as I go
I’m a bird woman
I’m a book woman
I’m a devilish clown woman
I’m a holy-clown woman
I’m a whirling-dervish woman
I’m a whirling-foam woman
I’m a playful-light woman
I’m a tidal-pool woman
I’m a fast speaking woman
Copyright © 1996 by Anne Waldman. Used with permission of the author.