… nothing can
stop the truth of it art is all we
can say to reverse
the chain of events and make a pileup
of passion to match the stars
No choice but between
a certain variation
hard to perceive in a shade of blue
— by William Carlos Williams
Green was the forest drenched
with shadows
the roads were serpentine
A redwood tree stood
alone
with its lean and lit body
unable to follow the
cars that went by with
frenzy
a tree is always an immutable
traveller.
— by Etel Annan
Color is new upon each sunlit surface;
lifting lines are reimbursed with flight;
cool and level lie the planes of morning
covered with light.
— by Edith Henrich
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, Verne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is, and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
— W.B. Yeats
I’ll twine white violets and the myrtle green;
Narcissus will I twine and lilies sheen;
I’ll twine sweet crocus and the hyacinth blue;
And last I twine the rose, love’s token true:
That all may form a wreath of beauty, meet
To deck my Heliodora’s tresses sweet.
— Meleager, ca. 90 BC (Translated from Greek by Goldwin Smith)
One evening in winter
when nothing has been enough,
when the days are too short,
the nights too long
and cheerless, the secret
and docile buds of the apple
blossoms begin their quick
ascent to light. Night
after interminable night
the sugars pucker and swell
into green slips, green
silks. And just as you find
yourself at the end
of winter’s long, cold
rope, the blossoms open
like pink thimbles
and that black dollop
of shine called
bumblebee stumbles in.
— Susan Kelly-Dewitt
If we watch the trail
And listen to the trees;
Squirrels chatter
In ancient languages,
A moon can rise
From behind a flower,
You will capture
The wind with your hair,
The sun with your eyes,
And balance your burden
So it is light.
— J. W. Rivers
Upon the hard crest of a snow-drift
We tread, and grown quiet, we walk
On towards my house, white, enchanted;
Our mood is too tender for talk.
— ANNA AKHMATOVA
天涯也有江南信,
梅破知春近。
夜阑风细得香迟,
不道晓来开遍、向南枝。
– 黄庭坚《虞美人·宜州見梅作》
Even at the edge of the world, whispers of Jiangnan unfold,
Plum blossoms burst, proclaiming spring’s approach.
Late in the night, their fragrance drifts on a tender breeze.
Unaware that by dawn, blooms full on south-facing branches.
— Huang Tingjian (1045-1105)
I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.
Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.
— Mary Oliver
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