Day 190

Love the rhythm and language of this poem.

O Where Are You Going?
by W. H. Auden

“O where are you going ?” said reader to rider,
“That valley is fatal when furnaces burn,
Yonder’s the midden where odours will madden,
That gap is the grave where the tall return.”

“O do you imagine,” said fearer to farer,
“That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass ?”

“O what was that bird,” said horror to hearer,
“Did you see that shape in the twisted trees ?
Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
The spot on your skin is a shocking disease.”

“Out of this house” – said rider to reader,
“Yours never will” – said farer to fearer,
“They’re looking for you” – said hearer to horror,
As he left them there, as he left them there.

Day 189

delightfully scandalous.

To His Mistress Going to Bed
by John Donne


Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy ;
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envy,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,
As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.
Off with your wiry coronet, and show
The hairy diadems which on you do grow.
Off with your hose and shoes ; then softly tread
In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes heaven's angels used to be
Revealed to men ; thou, angel, bring'st with thee
A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise ; and though
Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know
By this these angels from an evil sprite ;
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
    Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery ;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee !
To enter in these bonds, is to be free ;
Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.
    Full nakedness !  All joys are due to thee ;
As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be
To taste whole joys.   Gems which you women use
Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views ;
That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,
His earthly soul might court that, not them.
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus array'd.
Themselves are only mystic books, which we
—Whom their imputed grace will dignify—
Must see reveal'd.   Then, since that I may know,
As liberally as to thy midwife show
Thyself ; cast all, yea, this white linen hence ;
There is no penance due to innocence :
To teach thee, I am naked first ; why then,
What needst thou have more covering than a man?

Day 188

Japan
by Billy Collins

Today I pass the time reading a favorite haiku, saying the few words over and over. It feels like eating the same small, perfect grape again and again. I walk through the house reciting it and leave its letters falling through the air of every room. I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it. I say it in front of a painting of the sea. I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf. I listen to myself saying it, then I say it without listening, then I hear it without saying it. And when the dog looks up at me, I kneel down on the floor and whisper it into each of his long white ears. It's the one about the one-ton temple bell with the moth sleeping on its surface, and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating pressure of the moth on the surface of the iron bell. When I say it at the window, the bell is the world and I am the moth resting there. When I say it at the mirror, I am the heavy bell and the moth is life with its papery wings. And later, when I say it to you in the dark, you are the bell, and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you, and the moth has flown from its line and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Day 187

Slowly
by Donna Masini

I watched a snake once, swallow a rabbit.
Fourth grade, the reptile zoo
the rabbit stiff, nose in, bits of litter stuck to its fur,

its head clenched in the wide
jaws of the snake, the snake
sucking it down its long throat.

All throat that snake--I couldn't tell
where the throat ended, the body
began.  I remember the glass

case, the way that snake
took its time (all the girls, groaning, shrieking
but weren't we amazed, fascinated,

saying we couldn't look, but looking, weren't we
held there, weren't we
imagining--what were we imagining?)

Mrs. Peterson urged us to move on girls,
but we couldn't move.  It was like
watching a fern unfurl, a minute

hand move across a clock.  I didn't know why
the snake didn't choke, the rabbit never
moved, how the jaws kept opening

wider, sucking it down, just so
I am taking this in, slowly,
taking it into my body:

this grief.  How slow
the body is to realize.
You are never coming back.

Day 186

Sonnet 1
by Pablo Neruda
Translated by Stephen Tapscott

Matilde, nombre de planta o piedra o vino,
de lo que nace de la tierra y dura,
palabra en cuyo crecimiento amanece,
en cuyo estío estalla la luz de los limones.

En ese nombre corren navíos de madera
rodeados por enjambres de fuego azul marino,
y esas letras son el agua de un río
que desemboca en mi corazón calcinado.

Oh nombre descubierto bajo una enredadera
como la puerta de un túnel desconocido
que comunica con la fragancia del mundo!

Oh invádeme con tu boca abrasadora,
indágame, si quieres, con tus ojos nocturnos,
pero en tu nombre déjame navegar y dormir.

Matilde: the name of a plant, or a rock, or a wine, 
of things that begin in the earth, and last:
word in whose growth the dawn first opens,
in whose summer the light of the lemons bursts.


Wooden ships sail through that name, 
and the fire-blue waves surround them:
its letters are the waters of a river
that pours through my parched heart


O name that lies uncovered among tangling vines
like the door to a secret tunnel
toward the fragrance of the world!


Invade me with your hot mouth; interrogate me
with your night-eyes, if you want--only let me
steer like a ship through your name; let me rest there.

Day 185

Dream Within A Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
  And, in parting from you now,
  Thus much let me avow
  You are not wrong, who deem
  That my days have been a dream:
  Yet if hope has flown away
  In a night, or in a day,
  In a vision or in none,
  Is it therefore the less gone?
  All that we see or seem
  Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
  Of a surf-tormented shore,
  And I hold within my hand
  Grains of the golden sand--
  How few! yet how they creep
  Through my fingers to the deep
  While I weep--while I weep!
  O God! can I not grasp
  Them with a tighter clasp?
  O God! can I not save
 One from the pitiless wave?
  Is all that we see or seem
  But a dream within a dream?

Day 184

since feeling is first
by e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;


wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world


my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says


we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph


And death i think is no parenthesis