and to shine

Mary Oliver died in January, so I always knew that I was going to close out the month with her—although she is also the poet I've concluded poetry month with the most frequently (in 2007, 2012, 2015, and this year, making for an impressive 4/13). Choosing the poem was much more difficult, because I've posted a lot of Mary Oliver over the years, and I've already posted most of my favorites. Of those, "Wild Geese" remains one of the most perfect poems in existence, and "In Blackwater Woods" and "When Death Comes" are not only two of my favorite poems in the world, they're also both about loss and grief and death in ways that really matter to me, and obviously mattered to Oliver. She was also very prolific, and wrote so many wonderful poems that it's easy to get lost in reading them, and harder, sometimes, to come up for air. This is not a bad thing. 

Eventually, though, I stopped overthinking it quite so much (would it even be possible to encapsulate all my Mary Oliver feelings in one Mary Oliver poem?) and went with this one. 

When I am among the trees, 

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

    but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, "Stay awhile."

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It’s simple," they say,

"and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine."

—Mary Oliver (1935-2019), "When I Am Among The Trees," from Thirst, 2006. 

Thanks for reading, friends. Happy Poetry Month 2019! See you next year. ♥

to rain falling on the open sea

There's just no accounting for happiness,

or the way it turns up like a prodigal

who comes back to the dust at your feet

having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,

and to the clerk stocking cans of carrots

in the night.

            It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

—Jane Kenyon (1947-1995), "Happiness," from Otherwise: New and Selected Poems, originally published posthumously in 1996. This whole poem is wonderful, but the last line fucking kills; I love a poem that sticks the landing the way this one does.

achieved flight

We were dancing—it must have

been a foxtrot or a waltz,

something romantic but

requiring restraint,

rise and fall, precise

execution as we moved

into the next song without

stopping, two chests heaving

above a seven-league

stride—such perfect agony,

one learns to smile through,

ecstatic mimicry

being the sine qua non

of American Smooth.

And because I was distracted

by the effort of

keeping my frame

(the leftward lean, head turned

just enough to gaze out

past your ear and always

smiling, smiling),

I didn't notice

how still you’d become until

we had done it

(for two measures?

four?)—achieved flight,

that swift and serene

magnificence,

before the earth

remembered who we were

and brought us down. 

—Rita Dove, "American Smooth," from American Smooth, 2004. Sometimes you just have to post a poem about dancing.

possibility

In thirteen years of posting poems, I have posted very little famous Emily Dickinson. She wrote so many poems that it's not actually that hard to post non-famous ones, but the truth is that the famous ones are sometimes famous for good reasons. I really love this poem. 

I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise –

—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), "I dwell in Possibility," #466, in this case from the R. W. Franklin edition of The Poems of Emily Dickinson, via Poetry Foundation. Emily Dickinson is a metaphysical poet; fight me.

like sky-written letters on a windy day

I'm counting this poem for yesterday (there will be another poem later today), but it's also sort of a first: this is the first year in poetry month history where I don't have a John Donne poem on my schedule. But I do have this one, which isn't exactly not a John Donne poem. 

Every reader loves the way he tells off

the sun, shouting busy old fool

into the English skies even though they

were likely cloudy on that seventeenth-century morning. 

And it's a pleasure to spend this sunny day

pacing the carpet and repeating the words, 

feeling the syllables lock into rows

until I can stand and declare, 

the book held closed by my side, 

that hours, days, and months are but the rags of time. 

But after a few steps into stanza number two, 

wherein the sun is blinded by his mistress's eyes, 

I can feel the first one begin to fade

like sky-written letters on a windy day. 

And by the time I have taken in the third, 

the second is likewise gone, a blown-out candle now, 

a wavering line of acrid smoke. 

So it's not until I leave the house

and walk three times around this hidden lake

that the poem begins to show

any interest in walking by my side. 

Then, after my circling, 

better than the courteous dominion

of her being all states and him all princes, 

better than love's power to shrink 

the wide world to the size of a bedchamber, 

and better even than the compression 

of all that into the rooms of these three stanzas

is how, after hours stepping up and down the poem, 

testing the plank of every line, 

it goes with me now, contracted into a little spot within. 

—Billy Collins, "Memorizing 'The Sun Rising' by John Donne," from Horoscopes for the Dead, 2011. I posted "The Sun Rising" back in 2008.

our bodies, possessed by light

I missed yesterday for migraine reasons (I am not feeling amazing today, either, but poetry month continues, and makes me feel better about most things), so here are two poems by two different poets with the same title. The second one was already on my poem schedule, but I also really love the first one, and it made sense to post them together. Both poems do kind of amazing and completely different things with poetic structure, and both, of course, are about Scheherazade, and storytelling, and love. 

Dumb was as good as dead; 

better to utter. 

Inside a bottle, a genie. 

Abracadabra. 

Words were a silver thread

stitching the night. 

The first story I said

led to the light. 

Fact was in black and white; 

fiction was colour. 

Inside a dragon, a jewel. 

Abracadabra. 

A magic carpet took flight, 

bearing a girl. 

The hand of a Queen shut tight

over a pearl. 

Imagination was world; 

clever to chatter. 

Inside a she-mule, a princess. 

Abracadabra. 

A golden sword was hurled

into a cloud. 

A dead woman unfurled

out of a shroud. 

A fable spoken aloud

kindled another. 

Inside a virgin, a lover. 

Abracadabra. 

Forty thieves in a crowd, 

bearded and bold. 

A lamp rubbed by a lad

turning to gold. 

Talking lips don't grow cold; 

babble and jabber. 

Inside a beehive, a fortune. 

Abracadabra. 

What was lost was held

inside a tale. 

The tall stories I told

utterly real. 

Inside a marriage, a gaol; 

better to vanish. 

Inside a mirror, an ogre;

better to banish. 

A thousand and one tales;

weeping and laughter. 

Only the silent fail. 

Abracadabra. 

—Carol Ann Duffy, "Scheherazade," from The Bees, 2011. 

*

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake

                                         and dress them in warm clothes again.

      How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running

until they forget that they are horses.

            It's not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,

      it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,

                  how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days

were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple

                                                                to slice into pieces.

Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means

      we’re inconsolable.

                        Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.

These, our bodies, possessed by light.

                                            Tell me we'll never get used to it.

—Richard Siken, "Scheherazade," from Crush, 2005.

will in overplus

Today is Shakespeare Day! The tradition in recent years, on Shakespeare Day, has been to post one sonnet and one poem that is not by Shakespeare, but relates in some way to Shakespeare. This year, a pun-filled sonnet (sometimes the sonnets are really ludicrous), and an incredible poem that I was introduced to by a friend, which has some things to say about Hamlet. 

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'

And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in overplus;

More than enough am I that vex thee still,

To thy sweet will making addition thus.

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?

The sea all water, yet receives rain still

And in abundance addeth to his store;

So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will'

One will of mine, to make thy large 'Will' more.

Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;

Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'

—William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Sonnet 135

*

To C.M.

Now that we're alone we can talk prince man to man

though you lie on the stairs and see no more than a dead ant

nothing but black sun with broken rays

I could never think of your hands without smiling

and now that they lie on the stone like fallen nests

they are as defenceless as before The end is exactly this

The hands lie apart The sword lies apart The head apart

and the knight's feet in soft slippers

You will have a soldier's funeral without having been a soldier

the only ritual I am acquainted with a little

There will be no candles no singing only cannon-fuses and bursts

crepe dragged on the pavement helmets boots artillery horses drums

drums I know nothing exquisite

those will be my manoeuvres before I start to rule

one has to take the city by neck and shake it a bit

Anyhow you had to perish Hamlet you were not for life

you believed in crystal notions not in human clay

always twitching as if asleep you hunted chimeras

wolfishly you crunched the air only to vomit

you knew no human thing you did not know even how to breathe

Now you have peace Hamlet you accomplished what you had to

and you have peace The rest is not silence but belongs to me

you chose the easier part an elegant thrust

but what is heroic death compared with eternal watching

with a cold apple in one's hand on a narrow chair

with a view of the ant-hill and the clock’s dial

Adieu prince I have tasks a sewer project

and a decree on prostitutes and beggars

I must also elaborate a better system of prisons

since as you justly said Denmark is a prison

I go to my affairs This night is born

a star named Hamlet We shall never meet

what I shall leave will not be worth a tragedy

It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos

and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince

—Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998), "Elegy of Fortinbras," translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott. Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) is also the "C. M." of the dedication. The poem was originally published in 1961, but I couldn't find a date for the translation. Thanks to Clare for this poem.

my rivers and my stars

This poem is a little in conversation with John Donne in a way I really adore, but I don't think you need the Donne to appreciate it; it's a phenomenal poem about bodies and aging and embodiedness, and it's by Ursula Le Guin. What more do you need to know? 

The map of the tributaries of the Amazon

in blue, on the right thigh; 

lesser river systems

on the lower left leg. 

Extremities far more extreme: 

knobbed, wired, bent, and multiknuckled. 

Some dun cloud

drifts across the color of the eye, 

that aged nestling in its baggy nest, 

still avid, still insatiable. 

Replacement of cheek by jowl, 

of curve by hook or crook. 

Moles, warts, wenlets, cancerlings, 

a distressed finish, constellations, 

here the Twins, there the Cluster, 

flesh Pleiades

coming out thick at evening of the skin, 

pied beauty—there is none

that hath not some Strangeness in the Proportion. 

So the columnar what was waist

sockets to the cushioned pediment

of hips and buttocks. Parts are missing. Scars

lie smiling soft and small among the folds

and hillocks of that broad countryside. 

Oh, have I not my rivers and my stars, 

my wrinkled ranges in the Western sun? 

Oh, have I not my Strangeness? 

I am this continent, 

and still explore and find no boundary, 

for the far sandy beaches of my mind

where soft vast waves and winds erase

the words, the faces—this is still

endless, this is endless still. 

I am that wind, that ocean. 

—Ursula K. Le Guin (1928-2018), "Inventory," from In the Red Zone: Mount St. Helens, October 1981, although I have it in Finding My Elegy: New and Selected Poems 1960-2010 (2012). Other direct references in this poem include Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Pied Beauty" and Francis Bacon's "Of Beauty."

people in exile write so many letters

I had a request for Anne Carson, before I even started the month, but the problem I always have with posting Anne Carson during National Poetry Month is that her stuff is so difficult to excerpt, and I like her long things—Autobiography of Red, the Oresteia translation, the Glass Essay—more than her short things, a lot of the time. I'm also in a weird place with Anne Carson right now because the show we saw last night was...her id on stage? And I love her work, but I'm not sure the stage is the right place for her id. On the other hand, sometimes she does short really well. The line breaks on this poem are pretty arbitrary and (as far as I can tell) somewhat dependent on the printing, but as prose poetry it does work for me, which prose poetry rarely does. Maybe it's the Ovid. 

I see him there on a night like this but cool, the 

moon blowing through black streets. He sups

and walks back to his room. The radio is on the 

floor. Its luminous green dial blares softly. He

sits down at the table; people in exile write so 

many letters. Now Ovid is weeping. Each night

about this time he puts on sadness like a 

garment and goes on writing. In his spare time he 

is teaching himself the local language (Getic) in 

order to compose in it an epic poem no one will 

ever read. 

—Anne Carson, "On Ovid," from Short Talks, 1992.

this is a torch song

And, on the third poetry-and-theatre night of this week, a poem at least somewhat in keeping with the show I saw tonight—Norma Jeane Baker of Troy at The Shed—about which...I have some mixed feelings. Content warning for discussion of rape in this poem. 

The world is full of women

who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself

if they had the chance. Quit dancing.

Get some self-respect

and a day job.

Right. And minimum wage,

and varicose veins, just standing

in one place for eight hours

behind a glass counter

bundled up to the neck, instead of 

naked as a meat sandwich.

Selling gloves, or something.

Instead of what I do sell.

You have to have talent 

to peddle a thing so nebulous

and without material form.

Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way

you cut it, but I've a choice

of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.

Like preachers, I sell vision,

like perfume ads, desire

or its facsimile. Like jokes

or war, it's all in the timing.

I sell men back their worse suspicions:

that everything's for sale,

and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see

a chain-saw murder just before it happens,

when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple

are still connected.

Such hatred leaps in them,

my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary

hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads 

and upturned eyes, imploring

but ready to snap at my ankles,

I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge 

to step on ants. I keep the beat,

and dance for them because

they can't. The music smells like foxes,

crisp as heated metal

searing the nostrils

or humid as August, hazy and languorous

as a looted city the day after,

when all the rape's been done

already, and the killing,

and the survivors wander around

looking for garbage

to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.

Speaking of which, it's the smiling

tires me out the most. 

This, and the pretence

that I can't hear them.

And I can't, because I'm after all

a foreigner to them.

The speech here is all warty gutturals,

obvious as a slab of ham,

but I come from the province of the gods

where meanings are lilting and oblique.

I don't let on to everyone,

but lean close, and I'll whisper:

My mother was raped by a holy swan.

You believe that? You can take me out to dinner. 

That's what we tell all the husbands.

There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here

but you would understand.

The rest of them would like to watch me

and feel nothing. Reduce me to components

as in a clock factory or abattoir.

Crush out the mystery.

Wall me up alive

in my own body. 

They'd like to see through me, 

but nothing is more opaque

than absolute transparency.

Look—my feet don't hit the marble!

Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,

I hover six inches in the air

in my blazing swan-egg of light.

You think I’m not a goddess?

Try me.

This is a torch song.

Touch me and you'll burn.

—Margaret Atwood, "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing," from Morning in the Burned House, 1995.

a deathless, inexhaustible wine

I didn't post a poem yesterday because it has been a hell of a week and I was too exhausted; but yesterday I watched the season finale of The Magicians, and today I went to see Hadestown on Broadway, and you know what that means? That means it's time for Rilke. Here are two sonnets from Sonnets to Orpheus, one for yesterday and one for today; normally I post the German as well as the translation, but I'm tired and I don't want to type it up, so I'm going straight to the excellent Stephen Mitchell translations. (I recommend his editions—they're usually bilingual and very good.) 

A god can do it. But will you tell me how

a man can penetrate through the lyre's strings? 

Our mind is split. And at the shadowed crossing

of heart-roads, there is no temple for Apollo. 

Song, as you have taught it, is not desire, 

not wooing any grace that can be achieved; 

song is reality. Simple, for a god. 

But when can we be real? When does he pour

the earth, the stars, into us? Young man, 

it is not your loving, even if your mouth 

was forced wide open by your own voice—learn

to forget that passionate music. It will end. 

True singing is a different breath, about

nothing. A gust inside the god. A wind. 

*

Praising is what matters! He was summoned for that, 

and came to us like the ore from a stone's 

silence. His mortal heart presses out 

a deathless, inexhaustible wine. 

Whenever he feels the god's paradigm grip

his throat, the voice does not die in his mouth. 

All becomes vineyard, all becomes grape, 

ripened on the hills of his sensuous South. 

Neither decay in the sepulchre of kings

nor any shadow that has fallen from the gods

can ever detract from his glorious praising. 

For he is a herald who is with us always, 

holding far into the doors of the dead

a bowl with ripe fruit worthy of praise. 

—Rainer Maria Rilke, I, 3 and I, 7 from The Sonnets to Orpheus, 1922; translated by Stephen Mitchell.

to reach the limits of ourselves

I went to see Cradle Will Rock at Classic Stage Company tonight (the first of three shows I am seeing this week). It was an amazing production, but I totally didn't realize how well I still knew the show from my obsession with the 1999 movie and the Patti Lupone recording of the musical (I know it...really well?!). Anyway, there are a shortage of poems about unions and labor organizing and the Federal Theatre Project. But I've been sitting on this poem since the beginning of the month, and although it's not directly related, it seems appropriate to me, in a sort of two-steps-sideways kind of way. 

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.

—Muriel Rukeyser, "Poem" from The Speed of Darkness, 1968. With thanks to N., who brought this poem to my attention.

where your heart is

Be broken. 

Lie there

on the ground

in the wreckage

until you can feel

all of your new jagged

edges individually. 

Notice how much more

surface area there is to you now. 

Notice there's a rhythm to the stinging. 

It will lead you back to your pulse. 

Try to move if you can. 

Follow the path the pain takes

when it forks and sharks

through your body. 

Focus on your uneven breath. 

Try to love the way it hitches now, 

how each drag of air cuts

through the field of panic. 

As your thoughts struggle

to harden into words, 

return to your breath. 

Pull yourself into sitting

as best you can. 

Be tender. 

Try speaking. 

Grasp the leathery

harness of your voice. 

How long have you been crying? 

Hum something

your mother taught you. 

Anything is fine. 

Feel it vibrate in your chest. 

That's where your heart is, 

still beating, 

still wrestling life into you, 

still pushing back against the world. 

—Mindy Nettifee, "Zen of the Broken," from Rise of the Trust Fall, 2010.

that square & speckled stone

Notre Dame is on fire and I'm depressed about it; I really love that cathedral. I was sadly texting with K about it, and she requested this poem, and, well, yeah. Nobody does church architecture like Herbert does, and he still makes me cry sometimes. 

Mark you the floore? that square & speckled stone,

                         Which looks so firm and strong,

                                             Is Patience:

And th' other black and grave, wherewith each one

                         Is checker'd all along,

                                             Humilitie:

The gentle rising, which on either hand

                         Leads to the Quire above,

                                             Is Confidence:

But the sweet cement, which in one sure band

                         Ties the whole frame, is Love

                                             And Charitie.

     Hither sometimes Sinne steals, and stains 

     The marbles neat and curious veins: 

But all is cleansed when the marble weeps. 

     Sometimes Death, puffing at the doore, 

     Blows all the dust about the floore: 

But while he thinks to spoil the room, he sweeps. 

     Blest be the Architect, whose art 

     Could build so strong in a weak heart. 

—George Herbert (1593-1633), "The Church-floore" from The Temple, 1633, and in this case from the excellent Helen Wilcox edition (Cambridge University Press, 2007). 

For Herbert, the church is always a heart (and the heart, a church).

will it alter my life altogether

Here is a little Auden, late at night on my birthday. I had a good day—caught up on sleep and read a bunch of fic and did laundry and had a very nice dinner with wonderful friends—and here's to a good year.

Some say that love's a little boy,

And some say it's a bird,

Some say it makes the world go round,

And some say that's absurd,

And when I asked the man next-door,

Who looked as if he knew,

His wife got very cross indeed,

And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,

Or the ham in a temperance hotel?

Does its odour remind one of llamas,

Or has it a comforting smell?

Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,

Or soft as eiderdown fluff?

Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?

O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it

In cryptic little notes,

It's quite a common topic on

The Transatlantic boats;

I've found the subject mentioned in

Accounts of suicides,

And even seen it scribbled on

The backs of railway-guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,

Or boom like a military band?

Could one give a first-rate imitation

On a saw or a Steinway Grand?

Is its singing at parties a riot?

Does it only like Classical stuff?

Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?

O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;

It wasn't ever there;

I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,

And Brighton's bracing air.

I don't know what the blackbird sang,

Or what the tulip said;

But it wasn't in the chicken-run,

Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?

Is it usually sick on a swing?

Does it spend all its time at the races,

or fiddling with pieces of string?

Has it views of its own about money?

Does it think Patriotism enough?

Are its stories vulgar but funny?

O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning

Just as I'm picking my nose?

Will it knock on my door in the morning,

Or tread in the bus on my toes?

Will it come like a change in the weather?

Will its greeting be courteous or rough?

Will it alter my life altogether?

O tell me the truth about love.

—W. H. Auden (1907-1973), "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" or XII from "Twelve Songs," according to my Collected Poems, January 1938.

above all do not be fooled

When suddenly at the midnight hour

an invisible troupe is heard passing

with exquisite music, with shouts—

do not mourn in vain your fortune failing you now, 

your works that have failed, the plans of your life

that have all turned out to be illusions. 

As if long prepared for this, as if courageous, 

bid her farewell, the Alexandria that is leaving. 

Above all do not be fooled, do not tell yourself

it was only a dream, that your ears deceived you; 

do not stoop to such vain hopes. 

As if long prepared for this, as if courageous, 

as it becomes you who are worthy of such a city; 

approach the window with firm step, 

and listen with emotion, but not

with the entreaties and complaints of the coward, 

as a last enjoyment listen to the sounds, 

the exquisite instruments of the mystical troupe, 

and bid her farewell, the Alexandria you are losing. 

—C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933), "The God Forsakes Antony," 1911. Translated by Rae Dalven (San Diego: Harcourt, 1948/1976). This is a sad poem, but I also find it really beautiful—which is a combination and a mood that Cavafy completely excels at, both here and elsewhere.

mi corazón

It's my last night in Mexico, so here is some Juana Inés de la Cruz, often referred to as Sor Juana because she was a pretty badass nun. It took me a while to track down both Spanish and English for this poem, which is a pretty classical Petrarchan love sonnet to a lady from a lady—it's a little less grammatically explicit about being addressed to a woman than some of her others, but I like this one. 

En que satisface un recelo con la retórica del llanto

Esta tarde, mi bien, cuando te hablaba,

como en tu rostro y tus acciones vía

que con palabras no te persuadía,

que el corazón me vieses deseaba;

y Amor, que mis intentos ayudaba,

venció lo que imposible parecía,

pues entre el llanto, que el dolor vertía,

el corazón deshecho destilaba.

Baste ya de rigores, mi bien, baste;

no te atormenten más celos tiranos,

ni el vil recelo tu quietud contraste

con sombras necias, con indicios vanos,

pues ya en líquido humor viste y tocaste

mi corazón deshecho entre tus manos.

In which she responds to jealous suspicion with the rhetoric of weeping 

This afternoon, my love, when I spoke to you, 

I could see in your face, in what you did, 

that you were not persuaded by mere words, 

and I wished you could see into my heart; 

and Love, assisting me in my attempt, 

overcame the seeming impossible, 

for among the tears that my sorrow shed

was my breaking heart, liquid and distilled. 

Enough of anger now, my love, enough; 

do not let tyrant jealousy torment you, 

nor base suspicion roil your serenity

with foolish specters and deceptive clues; 

in liquid humor you have seen and touched

my broken heart and held it in your hands. 

—Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), Sonnet 164, translated by Edith Grossman (New York: W. W. Northon & Company, 2014).

dazzling lurch of the sea

I had a plan to post another Mexican poet today, but then I was reading Pablo Neruda, because...well, let's be honest, when am I not reading Pablo Neruda. So we're going with Pablo Neruda, and with this one because the beach was glorious today. I need at least 100 years to post all of Cien sonetos de amor. 

Al golpe de la ola contra la piedra indócil 

la claridad estalla y establece su rosa 

y el círculo del mar se reduce a un racimo, 

a una sola gota de sal azul que cae. 

Oh radiante magnolia desatada en la espuma, 

magnética viajera cuya muerte florece 

y eternamente vuelve a ser y a no ser nada: 

sal rota, deslumbrante movimiento marino. 

Juntos tú y yo, amor mío, sellamos el silencio, 

mientras destruye el mar sus constantes estatuas 

y derrumba sus torres de arrebato y blancura, 

porque en la trama de estos tejidos invisibles

del agua desbocada, de la incesante arena, 

sostenemos la única y acosada ternura.

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks 

the clear light bursts and enacts its rose, 

and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds, 

to one drop of blue salt, falling. 

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam, 

magnetic transient whose death blooms 

and vanishes—being, nothingness—forever: 

broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea. 

You and I, Love, together we ratify the silence, 

while the sea destroys its perpetual statues, 

collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness: 

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics, 

galloping water, incessant sand, 

we make the only permanent tenderness.

—Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), IX from 100 Love Sonnets, translated by Stephen Tapscott (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986).

but the line goes on

For yuletide this year, I wrote a story based on this poem, which is one of my favorite poems in the world. I thought it was probably time to post it, this year, even though April isn't quite the right season. 

Camelot is served

By a sixteen-track stub terminal done in High Gothick Style,

The tracks covered by a single great barrel-vaulted glass roof framed upon iron,

At once looking back to the Romans and ahead to the Brunels.

Beneath its rotunda, just to the left of the ticket windows,

Is a mosaic floor depicting the Round Table

(Where all knights, regardless of their station of origin

Or class of accommodation, are equal),

And around it murals of knightly deeds in action

(Slaying dragons, righting wrongs, rescuing maidens tied to the tracks).

It is the only terminal, other than Gare d'Avalon in Paris,

To be hung with original tapestries,

And its lavatories rival those at the Great Gate of Kiev Central.

During a peak season such as this, some eighty trains a day pass through,

Five times the frequency at the old Londinium Terminus,

Ten times the number the Druid towermen knew.

(The Official Court Christmas Card this year displays

A crisp black-and-white Charles Clegg photograph from the King's own collection.

Showing a woad-blued hogger at the throttle of "Old XCVII,"

The Fast Mail overnight to Eboracum. Those were the days.)

The first of a line of wagons have arrived,

Spilling footmen and pages in Court livery,

And old thick Kay, stepping down from his Range Rover,

Tricked out in a bush coat from Swaine, Adeney, Brigg,

Leaning on his shooting stick as he marshalls his company,

Instructing the youngest how to behave in the station,

To help mature women that they may encounter,

Report pickpockets, gather up litter,

And of course no true Knight of the Table Round (even in training)

Would do a station porter out of Christmas tips.

He checks his list of arrival times, then his watch

(A moon-phase Breguet, gift from Merlin):

The seneschal is a practical man, who knows trains do run late,

And a stolid one, who sees no reason to be glad about it.

He dispatches pages to posts at the tracks,

Doling out pennies for platform tickets,

Then walks past the station buffet with a dyspeptic snort,

Goes into the bar, checks the time again, orders a pint.

The patrons half turn—it's the fella from Camelot, innit?

And Kay chuckles soft to himself, and the Court buys a round.

He's barely halfway when a page tumbles in,

Seems the knights are arriving, on time after all,

So he tips the glass back (people stare as he guzzles),

Then plonks it down hard with five quid for the barman,

And strides for the doorway (half Falstaff, half Hotspur)

To summon his liveried army of lads.

* * *

Bors arrives behind steam, riding the cab of a heavy Mikado.

He shakes the driver's hand, swings down from the footplate,

And is like a locomotive himself, his breath clouding white,

Dark oil sheen on his black iron mail,

Sword on his hip swinging like siderods at speed.

He stamps back to the baggage car, slams mailed fist on steel door

With a clang like jousters colliding.

The handler opens up and goes to rouse another knight.

Old Pellinore has been dozing with his back against a crate,

A cubical, chain-bound thing with FRAGILE tags and air holes,

BEAST says the label, QUESTING, 1 the bill of lading.

The porters look doubtful but ease the thing down.

It grumbles. It shifts. Someone shouts, and they drop it.

It cracks like an egg. There is nothing within.

Elayne embraces Bors on the platform, a pelican on a rock,

Silently they watch as Pelly shifts the splinters,

Supposing aloud that Gutman and Cairo have swindled him.

A high-drivered engine in Northern Lines green

Draws in with a string of side-corridor coaches,

All honey-toned wood with stained glass on their windows.

Gareth steps down from a compartment, then Gaheris and Aggravaine,

All warmly tucked up in Orkney sweaters;

Gawaine comes after in Shetland tweed.

Their Gladstones and steamers are neatly arranged,

With never a worry—their Mum does the packing.

A redcap brings forth a curious bundle, a rude shape in red paper--

The boys did that one themselves, you see, and how does one wrap a unicorn's head?

They bustle down the platform, past a chap all in green.

He hasn't the look of a trainman, but only Gawaine turns to look at his eyes,

And sees written there Sir, I shall speak with you later.

Over on the first track, surrounded by reporters,

All glossy dark iron and brass-bound mystery,

The Direct-Orient Express, ferried in from Calais and Points East.

Palomides appears. Smelling of patchouli and Russian leather,

Dripping Soubranie ash on his astrakhan collar,

Worry darkening his dark face, though his damascene armor shows no tarnish,

He pushes past the press like a broad-hulled icebreaker.

Flashbulbs pop. Heads turn. There's a woman in Chanel black,

A glint of diamonds, liquid movements, liquid eyes.

The newshawks converge, but suddenly there appears

A sharp young man in a crisp blue suit

From the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits,

That elegant, comfortable, decorous, close-mouthed firm;

He's good at his job, and they get not so much as a snapshot.

Tomorrow's editions will ask who she was, and whom with...

Now here's a silver train, stainless steel, Vista-Domed,

White-lighted grails on the engine (running no extra sections)

The Logres Limited, extra fare, extra fine,

(Stops on signal at Carbonek to receive passengers only).

She glides to a Timkin-borne halt (even her grease is clean),

Galahad already on the steps, flashing that winning smile,

Breeze mussing his golden hair, but not his Armani tailoring,

Just the sort of man you'd want finding your chalice.

He signs an autograph, he strikes a pose.

Someone says, loudly, "Gal! Who serves the Grail?"

He looks—no one he knows—and there's a silence,

A space in which he shifts like sun on water;

Look quick and you may see a different knight,

A knight who knows that meanings can be lies,

That things are done not knowing why they're done,

That bearings fail, and stainless steel corrodes.

A whistle blows. Snow shifts on the glass shed roof. That knight is gone.

This one remaining tosses his briefcase to one of Kay's pages,

And, golden, silken, careless, exits left.

Behind the carsheds, on the business-car track, alongside the private varnish

Of dukes and smallholders, Persian potentates and Cathay princes

(James J. Hill is here, invited to bid on a tunnel through the Pennines),

Waits a sleek car in royal blue, ex-B&O, its trucks and fittings chromed,

A black-gloved hand gripping its silver platform rail;

Mordred and his car are both upholstered in blue velvet and black leather.

He prefers to fly, but the weather was against it.

His DC-9, with its video system and Quotron and waterbed, sits grounded at Gatwick.

The premature lines in his face are a map of a hostile country,

The redness in his eyes a reminder that hollyberries are poison.

He goes inside to put on a look acceptable for Christmas Court;

As he slams the door it rattles like strafing jets.

Outside the Station proper, in the snow,

On a through track that's used for milk and mail,

A wheezing saddle-tanker stops for breath;

A way-freight mixed, eight freight cars and caboose,

Two great ugly men on the back platform, talking with a third on the ballast.

One, the conductor, parcels out the last of the coffee;

They drink. A joke about grails. They laugh.

When it's gone, the trainman pretends to kick the big hobo off,

But the farewell hug spoils the act.

Now two men stand on the dirty snow,

The conductor waves a lantern and the train grinds on.

The ugly men start walking, the new arrival behind,

Singing "Wenceslas" off-key till the other says stop.

There are two horses waiting for them. Rather plain horses,

Considering. The men mount up.

By the roundhouse they pause,

And look at the locos, the water, the sand, and the coal,

The look for a long time at the turntable,

Until the one who is King says "It all seemed so simple, once,"

And the best knight in the world says "It is. We make it hard."

They ride on, toward Camelot by the service road.

The sun is winter-low. Kay's caravan is rolling.

He may not run a railroad, but he runs a tight ship;

By the time they unload in the Camelot courtyard,

The wassail will be hot and the goose will be crackling,

Banners snapping from their towers, fir logs on the fire, drawbridge down,

And all that sackbut and psaltery stuff.

Blanchefleur is taking the children caroling tonight,

Percivale will lose to Merlin at chess,

The young knights will dally and the damsels dally back,

The old knights will play poker at a smaller Table Round.

And at the great glass station, motion goes on,

The extras, the milk trains, the varnish, the limiteds,

The Pindar of Wakefield, the Lady of the Lake,

The Broceliande Local, the Fast Flying Briton,

The nerves of the kingdom, the lines of exchange,

Running to a schedule as the world ought,

Ticking like a hot-fired hand-stoked heart,

The metal expression of the breaking of boundaries,

The boilers that turn raw fire into power,

The driving rods that put the power to use,

The turning wheels that make all places equal,

The knowledge that the train may stop but the line goes on;

The train may stop

But the line goes on.

—John M. Ford (1957-2006), "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" (1988). The poem is online in a couple of places, and printed in Heat of Fusion and Other Stories (2004).