SONNET XVII [NERUDA]

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.


I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving


but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

[Pablo Neruda]

how everything turns away

© Eni Turkeshi Photography

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure;
the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

w.h. auden’s musée des beaux arts

::

a sapphire remembrance is all i own--

Five miles above the Atlantic,
you fall into dreaming.
Somewhere between Paris and San Francisco,
the sky turns the color
of sapphire.

by a fellow twitter poet {sam} who wrote this for me last week.
{encore merci sam!} to see more of his sensitive and inspired writing
check out his blog or follow him on twitter @semaphore1

image via jerry yoon photography

write now..

i'm sitting in the cafe where i meet the girls who i tutor in writing. both of the girls i worked with today never fail to inspire me in numerous yet different ways. first i worked with olivia who i somehow managed to persuade into agreeing with me that haiku was not boring "but i hate haiku" but actually fun..or at least it is when you sit on a couch in a cafe and write it with me... {will post some of our haiku next.} *O* as we call her by pen name, literally gets bursts of instantaneous inspiration. today she blurts out in the middle of our haiku fest "hang on i have an idea for a poem i need a piece of paper quick!" waits impatiently as i tear out a piece of paper for her and search for a pen, and within 2 minutes, had scribbled down a poem. she's done this in the past, written impulse poems of revelation, but this one blew me away:

the one you love

the one you love
could be right
around the corner

the one you love
could be right
across the street

the one you love
could be right
at your feet

when you find them
you may feel
complete

by,
*O*

{written in approximately 2.5 minutes}

i quickly and curiously looked around the room and finally ask her who.. i mean.. what inspired this?! she said it was something going on at school, and i was relieved as i hadn't spotted anyone in the cafe deserving of such a tribute..and ya, and she's in 5th grade. see more of olivia's writing here.

then there's abby, i see reflections of myself in her quietly persistent imagination. among many other things, abby is writing a series called pink princess {see here} this girl (abby) is so clever, her story is not simply about a princess who likes the color pink. in fact, she calls it a tale of sadness, because it's about a princess whose mother had an allergic reaction to pink lemonade when she was pregnant with her, and the unfortunate baby is born with pink skin. abby was sitting in the corner table of the café, writing away as i was working with olivia. she told me later that she doesn't know what's going to happen next in the story, it's the characters who live it out in her mind for her. i told her many brilliant fiction writers would say the same thing. abby's in 6th grade.

anyway, got interrupted with this post when my fav mexican bff sergio walked in the cafe {aka my office} to save the day and say hi, but i will have a haiku post soon!!!

just a quick note.... bon week-end.

image: photobird

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

william carlos williams

pencils, papers, poems.

ahhh!! just had the best time with one of my writing students. we spent well over an hour together writing a furry of poems. we both feel pretty confident in our ability to transform ordinary moments, mundane objects and everyday situations into delightful works of poetry ;) and we seriously fed off of each others inspiration it was a great mental and creative workout! we would give each other topics such as 'bathroom sink' {yes, that's one olivia really gave me!!} and 'red wall' and we'd scribble like mad on lined paper from the back of olivia's binder, scribbling pencils trying to keep up with the pace of the poems swirling about in our heads, scribbling down those poems on paper until our pencil lead wore down, then with eager smiles, we'd share our brief creations. here's a sample of our best work from today:

i gave olivia the subject of red wall, she gave me the subject of bathroom sink, here's what transpired....

red wall

The pictures sit upon
the big red wall. The wall is
steady so they do not fall.
So much depends upon
the big red wall
for if it
was not there the pictures
would fall.

by
*O*

{a poem literally written in 3 minutes}

that bathroom sink!

uh! that bathroom sink!!
you know the one!!
gets me every time.

minding my own business
looking in the mirror
i turn the faucet on
water soaks my tshirt
water splatters my pants
walk out of the bathroom
feel like everyone's looking
feel a little silly

uh! that bathroom sink!!
you know the one!!
gets me every time.

by
chantal

{i know she had the idea to give me this topic
because the bathroom sink in the cafe where
we meet is very temperamental!}

and then she gave me the word croissant which was perfect {ha! did she see my last post?!}

croissants in the mail

croissants in the mail
warm from the sun
sitting on my front porch

croissants in the mail
she sent them yesterday
sitting on my plate
now breakfast today

croissants in the mail
taste of butter, and better
than any other croissants
in the mail sent with love

by
me

and one more for the road by olivia, i called this one 'a poem in 2 minutes' because, well, it was....

A Poem in Two Minutes

So much depends upon
the wind blowing through the
trees. It moves through the
air blowing through the leaves.
Blowing scraps of trash
through the air. Sometimes
i you're not lucky it
will mess up your hair.

by
*O*

anyway, we enjoyed ourselves immensely, think we both walked away inspired. perhaps we'll start a poetry collection together. and i will be posting these and all the others on the website i'm creating for my students. the blog is a collective space to share their work! check it out: writing from the rooftops. olivia even has her first fan on her three-part saga about a super hero called Super Brick.....

images: 1} robyn glaser 2} lightbulb chandelier 3} moleskine reloaded

My lover asks me

My lover asks me:
'What is the difference between me and the sky?'
The difference, my love,
Is that when you laugh,
I forget about the sky.

Nizar Qabbani

exile is not an easy art to master...

debi treloar

bits and pieces of the latest..
long weekend in santa barbara and other things i found along the way....

music i loaded on my ipod for the ride:
....a fine frenzy {great lyrics for listening to over and over while looking out the car window at the ocean} and lady gaga {to distract me from what those other lyrics made me think about...} and yes for my walk tonight...kelly clarkson....among others like lily allen and the killers are the songs that for one reason or another seem to repeat on my ipod again and again these days...and again..


katya de grunwald

books i discovered in the corners of chaucer's
{my favorite bookshop in santa barbara}:

poems of turkish poet nazim hikmet, wonderful book,
words from the pages therein floated into my subconscious like...

"it is my fate
to roam the world without you,
what can we do..."

"exile is not an easy art to master..."

"all i wrote about us is lies
all i wrote about us is the truth"

and sweet words that melt off the pages like honey.....

"because of you, each day is a melon slice
smelling sweetly of earth"

and

"suddenly i cling to the day
i started out as if it wouldn't end,
and every time you float up to the surface..."

i also found a new collection of updike essays and literary criticism called due considerations and another book called other colors essays and a story by the brilliant turkish writer and nobel prize winner orhan pamuk. good stuff. reading all of them at once. and listening to my music.
and drinking coffee. and walking. had to come in from my evening walk early as the sun was shining so bright {now that we've advanced an hour here in california} at 6:30 {and with a headache}
the sun can be painfully strong. on my way now to recover
and get coffee with the algerian...more later.


hessa alfalasi on etsy

in other words

Praise Song for the Day,
A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration

This is the poem written for Obama's inauguration
by Elizabeth Alexander who read it aloud at the inaugural ceremony.

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

Picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Poem by Elizabeth Alexander
Images found here and here

still thinking about italy!!

alla luna

O graziosa luna, io mi rammento
Che, or volge l'anno, sovra questo colle
Io venia pien d'angoscia a rimirarti:
E tu pendevi allor su quella selva
Siccome or fai, che tutta la rischiari.
Ma nebuloso e tremulo dal pianto
Che mi sorgea sul ciglio, alle mie luci
Il tuo volto apparia, che travagliosa
Era mia vita: ed è, nè cangia stile,
O mia diletta luna. E pur mi giova
La ricordanza, e il noverar l'etate
Del mio dolore. Oh come grato occorre
Nel tempo giovanil, quando ancor lungo
La speme e breve ha la memoria il corso,
Il rimembrar delle passate cose,
Ancor che triste, e che l'affanno duri!

to the moon

Now that the year has come full circle,
I remember climbing this hill, heartbroken,
To gaze up at the graceful sight of you,
And how you hung then above those woods
As you do tonight, bathing them in brightness.
But at that time your face seemed nothing
But a cloudy shimmering through my tears,
So wretched was the life I led: and lead still ...
Nothing changes, moon of my delight. Yet
I find pleasure in recollection, in calling back
My season of grief: when one is young,
And hope is a long road, memory
A short one, how welcome then
The remembrance of things past - no matter
How sad, and the heart still grieving.

g i a c o m o l e o p a r d i

translated by eamon grennan

The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

w. h. a u d e n