The sunflowers, as they do, bow before their maestro 
appears, composing green in a field-length huddle, 

happy green and sad green, green with no emotion, 
green that will turn, as it does, into a symphony 

of light, a mass of faces flagging the earth, a protest 
of sweeping unity under the sun, rinsing the air

with their fragrant ways. Sunflower, the windows 
are down the breeze is cooling the engine of the mind,

what can you teach me before there’s no turning 
around, your consummate faith not a tent I can pitch,  

the sky a horizon I turn to in disbelief, in anger, in quiet 
retreat from my fellow citizens, an infinite blueness

that fails to hold final jurisdiction on my stand, 
sunflower, we are at odds, you turn in joy and I in 

thunder, so tell me please what it is I am missing from 
this exchange, this dance, our shared release? Jew, 

you have turned the Talmudic page well into the night, 
centuries now, in the darkness of this pogrom and 

that pogrom, in heated debate whether the pit’s removal 
from the plum is work on the Sabbath, the sanctity

of the flesh a sanctuary of the divine, the washing 
of hands before meals the tearing of garments upon

the death of a parent, a lifelong list of this rule here 
that rule there, Jew, lay your head down, lay it down  

lay it down, listen to the soil as it surrenders, surrenders, 
surrenders, season to season, generation to generation,

whatever is in the rains is in my face as I’m talking 
to you, green with wonder, green with innocence of what

comes next, without scripture full of script, my mates 
one house, one house, one house; a roof over our heads.

Hear me: Sometimes thunder is just thunder.
The dog barking is only a dog. Leaves fall
from the trees because the days are getting shorter,
by which I mean, not the days we have left,
but the actual length of time, given the tilt of earth
and distance from the sun. My nephew used to see
a therapist who mentioned that, at play,
he sank a toy ship and tried to save the captain.
Not,  he said, that we want to read anything into that.
Who can read the world? It’s paragraphs
of cloud, and alphabets of dust. Just now
a night bird outside my window made a single
plaintive cry that wafted up between the trees.
Not, I’m sure, that it was meant for me.

^{translated from the Chinese by Marilyn Chin}

In the eighth month of autumn high angry winds howl   
Blowing three layers of thatch off my humble house   
The thatch fly over the river, scattering shards
Some pieces soar so high they hang on treetops
Some plummet down to earth covering ditches and pools      
A gang of hoodlums from the southern village appear
They bully me ruthlessly, but I’m too old and weak to fight    
They dare to rob me in front of my face          
Then grab the spoils and run into the bamboo wilds
Mouth parched, lips burning, I shout after them in vain  
I feel defeated, slump against my cane, and heave a deep sigh       
The winds finally calm down, the clouds turn dark as ink
The autumn sky is hovering ominously, slowly turning black
My old worn cotton quilt feels as cold as iron
My dear children sleep poorly, thrashing and ripping the covers 
Bed after bed is soaked, the roof is dripping, no room is dry 
The rain batters us endlessly, falling as heavy as hemp    
I am lost in chaos and misery and can barely sleep a wink
Such a damn long night—I am soaked and exhausted, I cry out, “Why?”
If I could build a grand palace with a thousand, ten-thousand rooms
   A safe-house standing on a hill so strong that violent storms can’t destroy
   If I could shelter all the impoverished poets and scholars under heaven    
   Offer them a gathering place of peace and joy—
If I could hold this spectacular vision in my eyes
Then I would gladly freeze to death in my lonely broken home   

茅屋為秋風所破歌

八月秋高風怒號
卷我屋上三重茅
茅飛度江灑江郊
高者掛罥長林梢
下者飄轉沉塘坳
南村群童欺我老無力
忍能對面為盜賊
公然抱茅入竹去
唇焦口燥呼不得
歸來倚杖自嘆息
俄頃風定雲墨色
秋天漠漠曏昏黑
布衾多年冷似鐵
驕兒惡臥踏裏裂
床床屋漏無干處
雨腳如麻未斷絕
自經喪亂少睡眠
長夜沾濕何由徹
安得廣廈千萬間
大庇天下寒士俱歡顏
風雨不動安如山
嗚呼何時眼前突兀見此屋
吾廬獨破受凍死亦足

^{translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid}

I said these words weren’t needed
as I was sitting there,
where the road veered sharply,
without thinking for a moment
that it might only be a gentle winding.
Yet here I am, new,
like I always was.
Why should I care
if it’s the beating of tambourines
or the striking of tablas
or the madness of zurnas
that’s happening here?
I’m made of earth,
so why should I care
if I’m crumbled
or scattered on the land?

It was in this labyrinth,
in it alone,
that I found my way.

في هذه المتاهة

وكنتُ أجلس في المنعطفات  
وأقول هذا كلامٌ نافِل  
دون أن أُفكّر للحظةٍ بأنّها منحنَيات  
وها أنا أكون جديداً  
كما دوماً كنتُ  
وما هَمَّني ضَربُ دفوفٍ أم قرع طبولٍ أم جنون مزامير  
ما همّني ما همّني  
أنا من ترابٍ  
وما همّني أذبلُ أو أُحطَّم بأرضي  
وفي هذه المتاهة 
فيها وحدها 
وجدتُ طريقي.  

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” . . .

                The world is a beautiful place 
                                                           to be born into 
if you don’t mind happiness 
                                             not always being 
                                                                        so very much fun 
       if you don’t mind a touch of hell
                                                       now and then
                just when everything is fine
                                                             because even in heaven
                                they don’t sing 
                                                        all the time

             The world is a beautiful place
                                                           to be born into
       if you don’t mind some people dying
                                                                  all the time
                        or maybe only starving
                                                           some of the time
                 which isn’t half so bad
                                                      if it isn’t you

      Oh the world is a beautiful place
                                                          to be born into
               if you don’t much mind
                                                   a few dead minds
                    in the higher places
                                                    or a bomb or two
                            now and then
                                                  in your upturned faces
         or such other improprieties
                                                    as our Name Brand society
                                  is prey to
                                              with its men of distinction
             and its men of extinction
                                                   and its priests
                         and other patrolmen
                                                         and its various segregations
         and congressional investigations
                                                             and other constipations
                        that our fool flesh
                                                     is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
                                                           for a lot of such things as
         making the fun scene
                                                and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
                                         and singing low songs of having 
                                                                                      inspirations
and walking around 
                                looking at everything
                                                                  and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
                              and even thinking 
                                                         and kissing people and
     making babies and wearing pants
                                                         and waving hats and
                                     dancing
                                                and going swimming in rivers
                              on picnics
                                       in the middle of the summer
and just generally
                            ‘living it up’

Yes
   but then right in the middle of it
                                                    comes the smiling
                                                                                 mortician

                                           

It would be easy to forgive,
If I could but remember;
If I could hear, lost love of mine,
The music of your cruelties,
Shaking to sound the silent skies,
Could voice with them their song divine,
Red with pain’s leaping ember:
It would be easy to forgive,
If I could but remember.

It would be easy to forget,
If I could find lost Sorrow;
If I could kiss her plaintive face,
And break with her her bitter bread,
Could share again her woeful bed,
And know with tears her pale embrace.
Make yesterday, to-morrow:
It would be easy to forget,
If I could find lost Sorrow.

^{An original poem written for the inaugural reading of Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith at the Library of Congress.}

There’s a poem in this place—

in the footfalls in the halls

in the quiet beat of the seats.

It is here, at the curtain of day,

where America writes a lyric

you must whisper to say.

There’s a poem in this place—

in the heavy grace,

the lined face of this noble building,

collections burned and reborn twice.

There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square

where protest chants

tear through the air

like sheets of rain,

where love of the many

swallows hatred of the few.

There’s a poem in Charlottesville

where tiki torches string a ring of flame

tight round the wrist of night

where men so white they gleam blue—

seem like statues

where men heap that long wax burning

ever higher

where Heather Heyer

blooms forever in a meadow of resistance.

There’s a poem in the great sleeping giant

of Lake Michigan, defiantly raising

its big blue head to Milwaukee and Chicago—

a poem begun long ago, blazed into frozen soil,

strutting upward and aglow.

There’s a poem in Florida, in East Texas

where streets swell into a nexus

of rivers, cows afloat like mottled buoys in the brown,

where courage is now so common

that 23-year-old Jesus Contreras rescues people from floodwaters.

There’s a poem in Los Angeles

yawning wide as the Pacific tide

where a single mother swelters

in a windowless classroom, teaching

black and brown students in Watts

to spell out their thoughts

so her daughter might write

this poem for you.             

There's a lyric in California

where thousands of students march for blocks,

undocumented and unafraid;

where my friend Rosa finds the power to blossom

in deadlock, her spirit the bedrock of her community.

She knows hope is like a stubborn

ship gripping a dock,

a truth: that you can’t stop a dreamer

or knock down a dream.

How could this not be her city

su nación

our country

our America,

our American lyric to write—

a poem by the people, the poor,

the Protestant, the Muslim, the Jew,

the native, the immigrant,

the black, the brown, the blind, the brave,

the undocumented and undeterred,

the woman, the man, the nonbinary,

the white, the trans,

the ally to all of the above

and more?

Tyrants fear the poet.

Now that we know it

we can’t blow it.

We owe it

to show it

not slow it

although it

hurts to sew it

when the world

skirts below it.       

Hope—

we must bestow it

like a wick in the poet

so it can grow, lit,

bringing with it

stories to rewrite—

the story of a Texas city depleted but not defeated

a history written that need not be repeated

a nation composed but not yet completed.

There’s a poem in this place—

a poem in America

a poet in every American

who rewrites this nation, who tells

a story worthy of being told on this minnow of an earth

to breathe hope into a palimpsest of time—

a poet in every American

who sees that our poem penned

doesn’t mean our poem’s end.

There’s a place where this poem dwells—

it is here, it is now, in the yellow song of dawn’s bell

where we write an American lyric

we are just beginning to tell.

Once loyal to a cruel master,
the dog moves like a man who
not so long ago weighed a lot less
and is still figuring the difference,
what if anything to make of it.
It doesn’t matter, whatever
tenderness she’s known since;
the dog, I mean. They’re called
hesitation wounds, the marks
left where the hand, having meant 
to do harm, started to, then 
reconsidered. As if a hand
could reconsider. The dog 
wants to trust, you can see it 
in her eyes, like that part in the music 
where it still sounds like snow 
used to. There were orchards, still;
meadows. She’ll never be free.

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.