The Octopus offers me one of his three hearts,

briar and holly for friendship the second and third

saved for times of longing, times of loss.

A strange romance, I admit—

Friends would never approve or believe,

yet he was untouched by human hands.

How can we say this is not a source of wonder—

“Who will sing my song, if not you?”  he asked.

“Who will dream of me, as I lay under the stillness of water?”

Even an Octopus can be eloquent, and then again,

as we know, enormous need can become power.

What am I supposed to do now?

I stand by the water,

my woolen dress unraveling in the waves.

I’d lean close, my ear
to her whisper and roar,
her tongue scattered
with stars.
 
She’d belt her brassy voice
over the waves’ backbeat.
No one sings better than her.
 
Would she ever bite
the inside of her cheek?
 
Would she yell at the moon
to quit tugging at her hem,
or would she whistle, drop
her blue dress and shimmy
through space to cleave
to that shimmer?
 
What did she mean to say
that morning she spit out
the emaciated whale
wearing a net for a corset?
 
All this emptying
on the sand. Eyeless
shrimp. Oiled pelicans.
 
Within her jaws the coral forests,
glittering fish, waves like teeth,
her hungry mortal brine.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are Thy returns! ev’n as the flow’rs in Spring,
    	To which, besides their own demean
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring;
                	   Grief melts away
         	           Like snow in May,
    	As if there were no such cold thing.
 
    	Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart
Could have recover’d greennesse? It was gone
    	Quite under ground; as flow’rs depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown,
                	Where they together
                	All the hard weather,
    	Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
 
    	These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quickning, bringing down to Hell
    	And up to Heaven in an houre;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell.
                	We say amisse
                	This or that is;
    	Thy word is all, if we could spell.
 
    	O that I once past changing were,
Fast in Thy Paradise, where no flower can wither;
 	   Many a Spring I shoot up fair,
Offring at Heav’n, growing and groning thither,
                	Nor doth my flower
                	Want a Spring-showre,
    	My sinnes and I joyning together.
 
    	But while I grow in a straight line,
Still upwards bent, as if Heav’n were mine own,
    	Thy anger comes, and I decline:
What frost to that? what pole is not the zone
                	Where all things burn,
                	When Thou dost turn,
    	And the least frown of Thine is shown?
 
    	And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
    	I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O, my onely Light,
                	It cannot be
                	That I am he
    	On whom Thy tempests fell all night.
 
    	These are Thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flow’rs that glide;
    	Which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where to bide.
                	Who would be more,
               	Swelling through store,
    	Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

There are many types of trees
the dragon tree
the weeping willow
the cocoa tree
with strong roots and thick branches
the sugar maple
the eucalyptus.

All different species that grow robustly
to compete for sunlight.

The white oak
the silver birch
the tree of heaven

Some die of old age
or deforestation
or uprooted by a hurricane.
Infestations and diseases vary
from place to place.

Our family tree
has stopped growing.
No one waters it
no one visits it
it no longer bears fruit
no one asks why
but we all know.

El árbol

Hay muchos tipos de árboles
el drago
el sauce llorón
el árbol de cacao
de fuertes raíces y gruesas ramas
el arce de azúcar
el eucalipto.

Todos de diferentes especies que crecen robustos
para competir por la luz del sol.

El roble blanco
el abedul plateado
el árbol del cielo.

Algunos mueren de viejos
por deforestación
o arrancados por un huracán
las infestaciones y las enfermedades varían
de un lugar a otro.

Nuestro árbol genealógico
ha dejado de crecer
nadie lo riega
nadie visita
ya no da frutos
nadie pregunta por qué
pero todos sabemos.

The wind was a care-free soul 
    That broke the chains of earth, 
And strode for a moment across the land
    With the wild halloo of his mirth.
He little cared that he ripped up trees, 
    That houses fell at his hand, 
That his step broke calm on the breast of seas, 
    That his feet stirred clouds of sand. 

But when he had had his little joke, 
    Had shouted and laughed and sung, 
When the trees were scarred, their branches broke, 
    And their foliage aching hung, 
He crept to his cave with a stealthy tread, 
    With rain-filled eyes and low-bowed head.

Slanting, driving, Summer rain
How you wash my heart of pain!
How you make me think of trees,
Ships and gulls and flashing seas!
In your furious, tearing wind,
Swells a chant that heals my mind;
And your passion high and proud,
Makes me shout and laugh aloud!

Autumn rains that start at dawn,
“Dropping veils of thinnest lawn,”
Soaking sod between dank grasses,
Sweeping golden leaves in masses,—
Blotting, blurring out the Past,
In a dream you hold me fast;
Calling, coaxing to forget
Things that are, for things not yet.

Winter tempest, winter rain,
Hurtling down with might and main,
You but make me hug my hearth,
Laughing, sheltered from your wrath.
Now I woo my dancing fire,
Piling, piling drift-wood higher.
Books and friends and pictures old,
Hearten while you pound and scold!

Pattering, wistful showers of Spring
Set me to remembering
Far-off times and lovers too,
Gentle joys and heart-break rue,—
Memories I’d as lief forget,
Were not oblivion sadder yet.
Ah! you twist my mind with pain,
Wistful, whispering April rain!

Summer, Autumn, Winter rain,
How you ease my heart of pain!
Whispering, wistful showers of Spring,
How I love the hurt you bring!

the atmosphere makes earth look blue. life started with one cell that somehow split in two. who wrote what to whom. the universe contains the universe. a faint milky circle, a blank field. one lie leads to the next. the comfort of something complex that connects us. do you feel this. yes. I could tell you everything but then what would be left. there is a thing that needs to be built (the name for it). how do I say this (imperfectly). the difference between the microscope, telescope, and pen suspended by a single thread—pull and then it ends

Please tell me that I was a good child
And that I did everything right
And that the atmosphere was exactly certain
I want you to love me
In ways that you never have
So that I become a forgotten world
With rainbow sunrises over dark green trees
And the cooling of the day
Becomes normal again
We will sit and watch the body of water
That we once called a sort of death
You know even in my dreams
You say I’ll never get it right
This is not a dream
We are burning here with no escape
But no matter how many times
They talk about the moon
It does not take a poet
To know that the moon
Is still only an illusion
Only an illusion
The moon calls out to all of us
Come back, it says
But we don’t hear it
Already on our way
To somewhere

O! Blest art thou whose steps may rove
Through the green paths of vale and grove
Or, leaving all their charms below,
Climb the wild mountain’s airy brow!

And gaze afar o’er cultur’d plains,
And cities with their stately fanes,
And forests, that beneath thee lie,
And ocean mingling with the sky.

For man can show thee nought so fair,
As Nature’s varied marvels there;
And if thy pure and artless breast
Can feel their grandeur, thou art blest!

For thee the stream in beauty flows,
For thee the gale of summer blows;
And, in deep glen and wood-walk free,
Voices of joy still breathe for thee.

But happier far, if then thy soul
Can soar to Him who made the whole,
If to thine eye the simplest flower
Portray His bounty and His power:

If, in whate’er is bright or grand,
Thy mind can trace His viewless hand,
If Nature’s music bid thee raise
Thy song of gratitude and praise;

If heaven and earth with beauty fraught,
Lead to His throne thy raptured thought;
If there thou lovest His love to read;
Then, wand’rer, thou art blest indeed!

Black clouds, lion-shaped,
White clouds, elephant-like, yonder. 
Crash! Crash! Thundering as if breaking the sky into two pieces. 
Slash! Slash! Lightening to cut the mountain top off. 
The Storm extends from sky to earth,
Youth’s vigour, love’s passion, beauty’s rapture.
Then Pearl-drops of hail – hundreds of jade-pieces,
Tok-tok-tok-tok-tok, monastery jingling bell.
Again soft slender rain.
Sh! Sh! Sh! Sh! Sh! whispering to the lover’s ear alone: 
“I love you, I love you, ever, ever, ever, ever.”

There is snow, now—
A thing of silent creeping—
And day is strange half-night . . .
And the mountains have gone, softly murmuring something . . .

And I remember pale days, 
Pale as the half-night . . . and as strange and sad.

I remember times in this room
When but to glance thru an opened window
Was to be filled with an ageless crying wonder:
The grand slope of the meadows,
The green rising of the hills,
And then far-away slumbering mountains—
Dark, fearful, old—
Older than old, rusted, crumbling rock,
Those mountains . . .
But sometimes came a strange thing
And theirs was the youth of a cloudlet flying,
Sunwise, flashing . . .

                  And such is the wisdom of the mountains!
                  Knowing it nothing to be old,
                  And nothing to be young!

There is snow, now—
A silent creeping . . .

And I have walked into the mountains,
Into canyons that gave back my laughter,
And the lover-girl’s laughter . . .
And at dark,
When our skin twinged to the night-wind,
Built us a great marvelous fire
And sat in quiet,
Carefully sipping at scorching coffee . . .

But when a coyote gave to the night
A wail of all the bleeding sorrow,
All the dismal, grey-eyed pain
That those slumbering mountains had ever known—
Crept close to each other
And close to the fire—
Listening—
Then hastily doused the fire
And fled (giving many excuses)
With tightly-clasping hands.

Snow, snow, snow—
A thing of silent creeping

And once,
On a night of screaming chill,
I went to climb a mountain’s cold, cold body
With a boy whose eyes had the ancient look of the mountains,
And whose heart the swinging dance of a laughter-child . . .
Our thighs ached
And lungs were fired with frost and heaving breath—
The long, long slope—
A wind mad and raging . . .
Then—the top!

                  There should have been . . . something . . .
                  But there was silence, only—
                  Quiet after the wind’s frenzy,
                  Quiet after all frenzy—
                  And more mountains,
                  Endlessly into the night . . .

                  And such is the wisdom of mountains!
                  Knowing how great is silence,
                  How nothing is greater than silence!

And so they are gone, now,
And they murmured something as they went—
Something in the strange half-night . . .

It could’ve been the stiff crack

of bone or rapid gunfire

exploding bits of red in the air.

Because only for animals is it

natural to marinate for hours

in postmortem under sun.

The lions rip the gazelles

of themselves. They know

how sweet, the blood is.