Poem Column

Poem Column

From you have I been absent in the spring... (Sonnet 98) by William Shakespeare

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

                                                                                
A Thank-You Note By Michael Ryan

For John Skoyles

My daughter made drawings with the pens you sent,

line drawings that suggest the things they represent,

different from any drawings she — at ten — had done,

closer to real art, implying what the mind fills in.

For her mother she made a flower fragile on its stem;

for me, a lion, calm, contained, but not a handsome one.

She drew a lion for me once before, on a get-well card,

and wrote I must be brave even when it’s hard.

Such love is healing — as you know, my friend,

especially when it comes unbidden from our children

despite the flaws they see so vividly in us.

Who can love you as your child does?

Your son so ill, the brutal chemo, his looming loss

owning you now — yet you would be this generous

to think of my child. With the pens you sent

she has made I hope a healing instrument.

Poem By Muriel Rukeyser

I lived in the first century of world wars.

Most mornings I would be more or less insane,

The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,

The news would pour out of various devices

Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.

I would call my friends on other devices;

They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

Slowly I would get to pen and paper,

Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.

In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,

Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,

Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.

As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,

We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,

To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile

Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,

Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means

To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,

To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.

The Goddess Who Created This Passing World 

By Alice Notley

The Goddess who created this passing world
Said Let there be lightbulbs & liquefaction
Life spilled out onto the street, colors whirled
Cars & the variously shod feet were born
And the past & future & I born too  
Light as airmail paper away she flew  
To Annapurna or Mt. McKinley  
Or both but instantly
Clarified, composed, forever was I  
Meant by her to recognize a painting  
As beautiful or a movie stunning  
And to adore the finitude of words  
And understand as surfaces my dreams  
Know the eye the organ of affection  
And depths to be inflections  
Of her voice & wrist & smile