I am yours as the summer air at evening is
Possessed by the scent of linden blossoms,

As the snowcap gleams with light
Lent it by the brimming moon.

Without you I'd be an unleafed tree
Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.

Your love is the weather of my being.
What is an island without the sea?

Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncertain window and the bare floor
Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.

I want to slay all the things just things

That they tell me I must do.

I would drown them all in the tears I weep

When each breathless day is through.

I want to flee to a cool sand dune

On a wind-swept beach where the humming tune

Of the wind, and the waves, and the heart of me

Drams in my ears, and my lips are wet with the tang of the sea.

I want to feel the rain on my cheek,

The thrill that comes from a lark’s long note,

I want to see the sky at dawn thru the lacy green of a willow tree.

I want to look deep in a pool at night, and see the stars

Flash flame like the fire in black opals.

Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was just a road, wine merely wine.

Now everything is like my heart,
a color at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.

Don’t leave now that you’re here—
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

There ain’t
gonna be
any more
mad parties
between
you and me
and it ain’t
gonna be
because I
love you less
but love you more.
And there ain’t
gonna be
any more
sad parties
between us two
because I’m
gonna forget
what I want
till I see
what I want
is you.
And I ain’t
gonna find
what you are
till I find
what it is
that you want
of me
and how
am I
gonna see
what it is
till all
of myself
loves you.
And I don’t
really love
you though I
love you more
than the world
till I learn
to swallow
whatever
you’d like
me to do.
And I ain’t
gonna down
whatever
that little
may be
till I love
me less and
love you more
and love you
for yourself
alone.
If there ain’t
gonna be
any loving
just you
alone
then it’s up
to me to
be taking
myself and
moving myself
off home.
And I’ll
be dragging
what’s left of me
to my lonely
room in the blue
and never
come back
and never
crawl back
till I’m through
just hugging
me.
And I ain’t
no I ain’t
gonna stop
doing that as
I ought to do
till I’m ab-
solutely and
positively
in love and
in love with
you.
And when I’ve
done that and
done only that
and done all of that
for you
you’ll hear me
on the doorstep
ringing at the
doorbell
for one more
party for two.
With nothing
mad in it
nothing sad
in it but
a long glad
lifelong spree
with me myself
loving you yourself
and you
loving me
for me.

^{translated from the German by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky}

Put out my eyes: and I shall see you, too,
seal up my ears: and I shall hear you still,
and without feet I yet can go to you, 
and with no mouth, adjure you and I will. 
Break off my arms, and I shall hold you fast
even with my heart, as though it were a hand; 
arrest my heart, my brain to throb is sworn, 
and if into my brain you fling a brand, 
yet on my very blood you will be borne.

Lösch mir die Augen aus

Lösch mir die Augen aus: ich kann dich sehn,
wirf mir die Ohren zu: ich kann dich hören, 
und ohne Füße kann ich zu dir gehn, 
und ohne Mund noch kann ich dich beschwören.
Brich mir die Arme ab, ich fasse dich 
mit meinem Herzen wie mit einer Hand,
halt mir das Herz zu, und mein Hirn wird schlagen, 
und wirfst du in mein Hirn den Brand, 
so werd ich dich auf meinem Blute tragen.

What summons do I hear?

The morning peal, departure's knell;

My eyes let fall a friendly tear,

And bid this place farewell.



Attending servants come,

The carriage wheels like thunders roar,

To bear the pensive seniors home,

Here to be seen no more.



Pass one more transient night,

The morning sweeps the college clean;

The graduate takes his last long flight,

No more in college seen.



The bee, which courts the flower,

Must with some pain itself employ,

And then fly, at the day's last hour,

Home to its hive with joy.

I lov'd thee from the earliest dawn,
   When first I saw thy beauty's ray,
And will, until life's eve comes on,
   And beauty's blossom fades away;
And when all things go well with thee,
With smiles and tears remember me.

I'll love thee when thy morn is past,
   And wheedling gallantry is o'er,
When youth is lost in ages blast,
   And beauty can ascend no more,
And when life's journey ends with thee,
O, then look back and think of me.

I'll love thee with a smile or frown,
   'Mid sorrow's gloom or pleasure's light,
And when the chain of life runs down,
   Pursue thy last eternal flight,
When thou hast spread thy wing to flee,
Still, still, a moment wait for me.

I'll love thee for those sparkling eyes,
   To which my fondness was betray'd,
Bearing the tincture of the skies,
   To glow when other beauties fade,
And when they sink too low to see,
Reflect an azure beam on me.

Alas! and am I born for this,
   To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
   Through hardship, toil, and pain!
   
How long have I in bondage lain,
   And languished to be free!
Alas! and must I still complain--
   Deprived of liberty.

Oh, Heaven! and is there no relief
   This side the silent grave--
To soothe the pain--to quell the grief
   And anguish of a slave?
   
Come, Liberty, thou cheerful sound,
   Roll through my ravished ears!
Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,
   And drive away my fears.
   
Say unto foul oppression, Cease:
   Ye tyrants rage no more,
And let the joyful trump of peace,
   Now bid the vassal soar.
   
Soar on the pinions of that dove
   Which long has cooed for thee,
And breathed her notes from Afric's grove,
   The sound of Liberty.
   
Oh, Liberty! thou golden prize,
   So often sought by blood--
We crave thy sacred sun to rise,
   The gift of nature's God!
   
Bid Slavery hide her haggard face,
   And barbarism fly:
I scorn to see the sad disgrace
   In which enslaved I lie.
   
Dear Liberty! upon thy breast,
   I languish to respire;
And like the Swan upon her nest,
   I'd to thy smiles retire.
   
Oh, blest asylum--heavenly balm!
   Unto thy boughs I flee--
And in thy shades the storm shall calm,
   With songs of Liberty!

Going home the longest way around,

we tell stories, build

from fragments of our lives

maps to guide us to each other.

We make collages of the way

it might have been

had it been as we remembered,

as we think perhaps it was,

tallying in our middle age

diminishing returns.



Last night the lake was still;

all along the shoreline

bright pencil marks of light, and

children in the dark canoe pleading,

“Tell us scary stories.”

Fingers trailing in the water,

I said someone I loved who died

told me in a dream

to not be lonely, told me

not to ever be afraid.



And they were silent, the children,

Listening to the water

Lick the sides of the canoe.



It’s what we love the most

can make us most afraid, can make us

for the first time understand

how we are rocking in a dark boat on the water,

taking the long way home.

I met and then forgot her
With unremembered things,
And thought if love could utter
Once more its murmurings,
Another one and not her
Could pluck the muted strings.

The years had passed long after
That sweet romance and free––
Kind years that seemed to waft her
From painful memory,
For she brought tears and laughter
And sorrow, too, for me.

I thought the pain and yearning
Had gone away from mind,
And cold the bosom burning
With passion unresigned,
Till I saw her returning
With Love and Spring behind.

Full-on, no bullshit, no irony, yes Taco Bell 
where I can almost always pull together the 
cash to get dinner, at my brokest 
scrounging up enough change  
for the pillowy warmth of a bean burrito,  
extra red sauce, meant to be eaten  
behind the steering wheel in a parking lot 
or while driving, the wrapper crumpled up  
and thrown on the passenger side floor, 
leftover napkins stashed in the glovebox.  
In high school we’d ditch seventh period  
and drive 10 miles down I-5 to the closest town  
big enough to have a Taco Bell,  
where we’d house as much food as we could 
pay for, lounging in the pinkpurplegreen vinyl  
or the metal swivel chairs we’d knock knees under,  
giving each other dares around fire sauce,  
hoarding packets of mild sauce to douse everything.  
And forever, my love to the Taco Bell employees,  
who took my order when I was drunk or high or crying,  
who listened and fed me without too much judgment  
through high school and college and my thirties,  
and a special love for the two who pushed my car  
through the drive-thru, once, when it broke down  
mid-order. I couldn’t afford a tow until payday.  
They let me leave it in the lot. 
This is how I know labor is entitled to all it creates,  
and that given a chance most of us are helpers, 
we want to help people and to be helped  
by people, amidst the absolute and delicious  
loveliness of ordinary things. 

^{translated from the Spanish by William George Williams}

When I met her I loved myself.
It was she who had my best singing,
she who set flame to my obscure youth,
she who raised my eyes toward heaven.

Her love moistened me, it was an essence.
I folded my heart like a handkerchief 
and after I turned the key on my existence.

And thus it perfumes my soul
with a distant and subtle poetry.

Mi vida es un recuerdo 

Cuando la conocí me amé á mí mismo.
Fué la que tuvo mi mejor lirismo,
la que encendió mi obscura adolescencia,
la que mis ojos levantó hacia el cielo.

     Me humedeció su amor, que era una esencia,
doblé mi corazón como un pañuelo
y después le eché llave á mi existencia.

     Y por eso perfuma el alma mía
con lejana y diluida poesía.

You are enough

Divinity flows in your fingertips
        with light so radiant
        every beat of your heart
a victory march
made of whole universes
        stitched by the hands of creation
        with flawless design
a prophecy You fulfill perfectly with every breath

        You

The sun wouldn’t shine the same without it
Creation is only waiting for You
                to smile back at it

Do you see it yet?

You are enough
        For the birds to sing about
        For the seeds to sprout about
        For the stars to shoot about

        Do you see it yet?

        Gardens in your speech
Fields of wildflowers in your prayers
        Lighthouses in your eyes
    No one else can see it for you

You have always been enough
You will always be enough

Your simple act of being is enough

            Do you see it yet?