R.I.P Wendell Berry

The Sorrel Filly

by Wendell Berry

The songs of small birds fade away
into the bushes after sundown,
the air dry, sweet with goldenrod.
Beside the path, suddenly, bright asters
flare in the dusk. The aged voices
of a few crickets thread the silence.
It is a quiet I love, though my life
too often drives me through it deaf.
Busy with costs and losses, I waste
the time I have to be here—a time
blessed beyond my deserts, as I know,
if only I would keep aware. The leaves
rest in the air, perfectly still.
I would like them to rest in my mind
as still, as simply spaced. As I approach,
the sorrel filly looks up from her grazing,
poised there, light on the slope
as a young apple tree. A week ago
I took her away to sell, and failed
to get my price, and brought her home
again. Now in the quiet I stand
and look at her a long time, glad
to have recovered what is lost
in the exchange of something for money.

Through the garden-walks straying,
He plucks the flowers that fairest seem.
- Goethe

 kurtster wrote:
Und als der Morgennebel zerrann,
Da sah ich am Wege ragen,
Im Frührotschein, das Bild des Manns,
Der an das Kreuz geschlagen.

Mit Wehmut erfüllt mich jedesmal
Dein Anblick, mein armer Vetter,
Der du die Welt erlösen gewollt,
Du Narr, du Menschheitsretter!

Sie haben dir übel mitgespielt,
Die Herren vom hohen Rate.
Wer hieß dich auch reden so rücksichtslos
Von der Kirche und vom Staate!

Zu deinem Malheur war die Buchdruckerei
Noch nicht in jenen Tagen
Erfunden; du hättest geschrieben ein Buch
Über die Himmelsfragen.

Der Zensor hätte gestrichen darin,
Was etwa anzüglich auf Erden,
Und liebend bewahrte dich die Zensur
Vor dem Gekreuzigtwerden.

Ach! hättest du nur einen andern Text
Zu deiner Bergpredigt genommen,
Besaßest ja Geist und Talent genug,
Und konntest schonen die Frommen!

Geldwechsler, Bankiers, hast du sogar
Mit der Peitsche gejagt aus dem Tempel –
Unglücklicher Schwärmer, jetzt hängst du am Kreuz
Als warnendes Exempel!

Heinrich Heine

Dig deep in the ground in search for water. With pain and hardship you must fight your way through.
Then all of a sudden you meet an old friend who brings you up to the blue sky of heaven.

Guanyin

"What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 buddy wrote:

yep. 100-fold

 Manbird wrote:
This is a better place whenever you rise to the occasion.

☮️

Rise

A fugue more powerful than deepening distance

Every mile tattooed with the beating of bone on skin

Every minute passing amplifies that carmine rhythm

The sound of a wind spreading gently over sky blue pain

Base violet rising beyond smoking sleeping graphite

I catch my breath with a cold air hook and exhale

Ashamed of my faded henna stains and simple iron filings

Still I light up and become sanguine and content

I feel my own red rising as sodium arc lamps drown

In the bluing of the soft blown sky in the sea-window

Above me and above the black people shaking seeds

Over cool clay and the brown people in the vineyards

Over shipyards reflecting tones of broken steel and grey

And spreading white blankets of warmth over graves

And stones where insects sleep until heat re-animates

I have brewed sumatra lintong and washed my face

The window opens wide my face is washed with light

The mint the golden poppies the cala lilies grow quickl

Breathing with me growing shadows as the day ignites

– Manbird 2015

Screw spring.
 I'm the only thing not blooming. 
The arrowhead plant, so carelessly plotted,
 is growing godammit. 
Even the jonquils, 
brought for one dinner, 
are not quite dead. 
Under the bed the dust is as thick
as wool on spring sheep, 
which are undoubtedly 
grazing where 
grass is growing 
at an enviable rate.

Screw spring. 
My boyfriend's taken
to getting up early. 
He goes out 
to see plants pushing their way 
out of the ground, 
and flowering, 
and sits by some chartreuse tree 
in the sun, breathing air
 as sweet as berry wine, 
watching girls pass. 
Their faces are rested 
from sleeping alone all winter. 

Screw spring. 
I wish it were winter, 
when the world's 
this one room. 
These walls, this bed 
do 
not 
grow.

William M. Hoffman

 SeriousLee wrote:

Shameless bump. Happy Spring!

The New Species - Voiceover Red Voters: A Case Study in Backward Evolution

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

William Blake

 Antigone wrote:
I was ready to post this, but thought I better check first. A flock of geese just flew overhead, heading south.

 oldviolin wrote:
I know. It's incredibly profound and spooky.

 Isabeau wrote:

It's a poem about the futility of trying to navigate the space between God and Godless without oxygen.

 oldviolin wrote:
Heavy heavy fuel.  

Kendrew Lassales