VOICES AND VERSE:An afternoon of poetry

Read by Monmouth college faculty

Thursday, 25 April, 20133:45pm; Morgan Room, Poling Hall

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TABLE OF CONTENTSDavid Timmerman William Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned: An Evening Scene on that Same Subject”

William Wordsworth, “The World is Too Much With Us: Late and Soon”Steve Bloomer Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”Bill Wallace Mike Cross, “The Scotsman”Eric Dickens Robert Frost, “Desert Places”Anne Mamary Wilfred Owen, “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young”Tom Sienkewicz Catallus 2

Catallus 3Hannah Schell Joanna Klink, “And Having Lost Track”

Joanna Klink, “Apology”Ken Cramer e. e. cummings, “(listen)”

Pablo Neruda, “A Callarse”Rob Hale William Butler Yeats, “Lapis Lazuli”Michael Harrison Federico García Lorca, “Romance Sonámbulo”James Godde J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Mewlips”Annika Hagley Ani DiFranco, “Bodily”Mark Willhardt Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sonnet XLCraig Watson Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish”Marlo Belschner David Wright, “Lines on Retirement, After Reading Lear”Lee McGaan T. S. Eliot, “The Four Quartets: Burnt Norton”Petra Kuppinger Theodor Fontane, “Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland”

Original poetry:Erika Solberg “One Year Barbara Was a Cowgirl and Eddie Was a Cow”Rev. Dr. B. Kathleen Fannin “ALONE”Luz Schick “My Mother’s Garden”Benjamin Eaton “Island Number 10”Joe Angotti “Something Close to Home” by Arica BrazilRachael Laing “Necromancer”

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David Timmerman

William Wordsworth“The Tables Turned: An Evening Scene on that Same Subject”

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;Or surely you’ll grow double:Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain’s head,A freshening lustre mellowThrough all the long green fields has spread,His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife:Come, hear the woodland linnetHow sweet his music! on my life,There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!He, too, is no mean preacher:Come forth into the light of things,Let Nature be your Teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,Our minds and hearts to bless—Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal woodMay teach you more of man,Of moral evil and of good,Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;Our meddling intellectMis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;Close up those barren leaves;Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.

(1798)

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David Timmerman

William Wordsworth“The World Is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon”

The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!The sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers;For this, for everything we are out of tune;It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather beA pagan suckled in a creed outworn, So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

(1804)

Stephen Bloomer

Robert Frost“The Road Not Taken”

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

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claimBecause it was grassy and wanted wear,Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,

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

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

Bill Wallace

Mike Cross“The Scotsman”

Well a Scotsman clad in kilt left the bar one evening fairAnd one could tell by how he walked that he’d drunk more than his shareHe fumbled ‘round until he could no longer keep his feetAnd stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street

About that time two young and lovely girls just happened byOne says to the other with a twinkle in her eye“See yon sleeping Scotsman so strong and handsome builtI wonder if it’s true what they don’t wear beneath their kilt?”

They crept up on that sleeping Scotsman quiet as they could beLifted up his kilt about an inch so they could seeAnd there behold for them to view beneath his Scottish skirtWas nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth

They marveled for a moment then on said, “We must be goneLet’s leave a message for our friend before we move along”As a gift they left a blue silk ribbon tied into a bowAround the bonnie star the Scot’s kilt did lift and show

Now the Scotsman woke to nature’s call and stumbled towards the trees

Behind the bush he lifts his kilt and gawks at what he seesAnd in a startled voice he says to what’s before his eyes“Ah lad I don’t know where you’ve been but I see ya won first prize!”

Eric Dickens

Robert Frost“Desert Places”

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fastIn a field I looked into going past,And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it - it is theirs.All animals are smothered in their lairs.I am too absent-spirited to count;The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that lonelinessWill be more lonely ere it will be less -A blanker whiteness of benighted snowWith no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spacesBetween stars - on stars where no human race is.I have it in me so much nearer homeTo scare myself with my own desert places.

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Anne Mamary

Wilfred Owen“The Parable of the Old Man and the Young”

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,And took the fire with him, and a knife.And as they sojourned both of them together,Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,Behold the preparations, fire and iron,But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,and builded parapets and trenches there,And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,Neither do anything to him. Behold,A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Tom Sienkewicz

Catullus 2

Passer, deliciae meae puellae,quicum ludere, quem in sinu tenere,cui primum digitum dare appetentiet acris solet incitare morsus,cum desiderio meo nitenticarum nescio quid lubet iocariet solaciolum sui doloris,credo ut tum gravis acquiescat ardor:tecum ludere sicut ipsa possemet tristis animi levare curas!

Sparrow, favorite of my girl, with whom she is accustomed to play, whom she is accustomed to hold in her lap, for whom, seeking greedily, she is accustomed to give her index finger

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and to provoke sharp bites. When it is pleasing for my shining desire to make some kind of joke and a relief of her grief. I believe, so that her heavy passion may become quiet. If only I were able to play with you yourself, andto lighten the sad cares of your mind.

Translation by Joannes Fortaperus

Tom Sienkewicz

Catullus 3

LVGETE, o Veneres Cupidinesque,et quantum est hominum uenustiorum:passer mortuus est meae puellae,passer, deliciae meae puellae,quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.nam mellitus erat suamque noratipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,nec sese a gremio illius mouebat,sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illucad solam dominam usque pipiabat.qui nunc it per iter tenebricosumilluc, unde negant redire quemquam.at uobis male sit, malae tenebrae

Orci, quae omnia bella deuoratis:tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistiso factum male! o miselle passer!tua nunc opera meae puellaeflendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.

Mourn, oh Cupids and Venuses,and whatever there is of rather pleasing men:the sparrow of my girlfriend has died,the sparrow, delight of my girl,whom she loved more than her own eyes.For it was honey-sweet and it had known itsmistress as well as a girl knew her mother,nor did it move itself from her lap,but jumping around now here now therehe used to chirp continually to his mistress alone:who now goes through that gloomy journey

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from whence they denied anyone returns.But may it go badly for you, bad darknessof Orcus, you who devour all beautiful things:and so beautiful a bird you taken away from meo bad deed! o miserable sparrow!Now on account of your work my girl'sslightly swollen little eyes are red from weeping.

Translation by Walter Sullivan

Hannah Schell

Joanna Klink“And Having Lost Track”from Circadian (2007)

And having lost track, I walkedtoward the open field. Now transparent,now far, the day-moon burned through the wasteair. I passed a scientist, his handsholding cinders to the sky.I passed a pile of corroding metal, a young girl with a ring of keys.The sound of a flute came and went. I passed a garden under snow, a half-open book,

a man unaccustomed to grief.And thought: what must I do differently.And could not avoid the scraps of glass,the fog at my knees. I, like you,am irreparable. And aware thatwhen the cold clouds lift, there may be nothing.And having lost track, I walked by the highgold grasses, a softness I could not reach tofeel. And came upon a table laid outwith wine and winter shadow. We shall grow heavy. And felt the signature of light,of sound and people, laid bare within me.And I would give it up: this weight,this concentration. Would gladlybe mistaken, or rebuild by force whatcannot hold. I passed the slow autumn sunas it moved through the branches,the terrible spread of deserts, the leapof a bleeding deer.To be outside the classifiable world,and having lost track, and having heardno message. As when a single existence vanishes and the flute does not warp,or sounds like the inside of a shell,and the word shell meanstoo many things. As if this were the lastmile, a path fashioned with white roses.And chose the science of extraction,the science of snow.And walked in the dark world,everywhere shaking with light.That we only exist. That we do not have the means. And are free to take place.

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Hannah Schell

Joanna Klink “Apology”from Circadian (2007)

Lately, too much disturbed, you stay trailing in meand I believe you. How could I not feelyou were misspent, there by books stacked clean on glass,or outside the snow arriving as I am still arriving.If the explanations amount to something, I will tell you.It is enough, you say, that surfaces grow so distant. Maybe you darken, already too much changed,maybe in your house you would be content whereno incident emerges, but for smoke or glass or air,such things held simply to be voiceless.And if you mean me, I believe you.Or if you should darken, this inwardness would be misspent,and flinching I might pause, and add to these meagerincidents the words. Some booksshould stake formal on the shelves.So surely I heard you, in your complication aware,snow holding where it might weightless rest,and should you fold into me – trackless, misspent,too much arranged – I might believe youbut swiftly shut, lines of smoke rising through snow,here where it seems no good word emerges.though it is cold, I am aware such reluctancecould lose these blinking hours to simple safety.Here is an inwardless purpose.In these hours when snow shuts, it may be we empty,amounting to something. How could I notwait for those few words, which we might enter.

Ken Cramer

e. e. cummings“(listen)”

(listen)

this a dog barks andhow crazily houses eyes people smilesfaces streetssteeples are eagerly

tumbl

ing through wonder ful sunlight––look–– selves,stir:writheo-p-e-n-i-n-g

are(leaves;flowers)dreams

,come quickly comerun runwith me nowjump shout(laughdance cry

sing)for it’s Spring

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––irrevocably;and inearth sky trees:everywhere a miracle arrives

(yes)

you and i may nothurry it witha thousand poemsmy darlingbut nobody will stop it

With All The Policeman In The World

Ken Cramer

Pablo Neruda“A Callarse”

Ahora contaremos docey nos quedamos todos quietos.

Por una vez sobre la tierrano hablemos en ningún idioma,por un segundo detengámonos,no movamos tanto los brazos.

Sería un minuto fragante,sin prisa, sin locomotoras,todos estaríamos juntosen una inquietud instantánea.

Los pescadores del mar fríono harían daño a las ballenasy el trabajador de la salmiraría sus manos rotas.

Los que preparan guerras verdes,guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,victorias sin sobrevivientes,

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se pondrían un traje puroy andarían con sus hermanospor la sombra, sin hacer nada.

No se confunda lo que quierocon la inaccíon definitiva:la vida es solo lo que se hace,no quiero nada con la muerte.

Si no pudimos ser unánimesmoviendo tanto nuestras vidas,tal vez no hacer nada una vez,tal vez un gran silencio pueda interrumpir esta tristeza,este no entendernos jamásy amenazarnos con la muerte,tal vez la tierra nos enseñe cuando todo parece muertoy luego todo estaba vivo.

Ahora contaré hasta docey tú callas y me voy.

“Keeping Quiet”

Now we will count to twelveand we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth, let’s not speak any language,let’s stop for one second,and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,without hurry, without locomotives,all of us would be togetherin a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold seawould do no harm to the whalesand the peasant gathering saltwould look at this torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,wars of gas, wars of fire,victories without survivors,

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would put on clean clothingand would walk alongside their brothersin the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn’t be confusedwith final inactivity:life alone is what matters,I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimousabout keeping our lives in so much motion,if we could do nothing for once,perhaps a great silence wouldinterrupt this sadness,this never understanding ourselvesand threatening ourselves with death,perhaps the earth is teaching uswhen everything seems to be deadand then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelveand you keep quiet and I’ll go.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Rob Hale

William Butler Yeats “Lapis Lazuli”

I have heard that hysterical women sayThey are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.Of poets that are always gay,For everybody knows or else should knowThat if nothing drastic is doneAeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls inUntil the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;Yet they, should the last scene be there,The great stage curtain about to drop,If worthy their prominent part in the play,

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Do not break up their lines to weep.They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.All men have aimed at, found and lost;Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,And all the drop-scenes drop at onceUpon a hundred thousand stages,It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,Old civilisations put to the sword.Then they and their wisdom went to rack:No handiwork of Callimachus,Who handled marble as if it were bronze,Made draperies that seemed to riseWhen sea-wind swept the corner, stands;His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stemOf a slender palm, stood but a day;All things fall and are built again,And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,Are carved in lapis lazuli,Over them flies a long-legged bird,A symbol of longevity;The third, doubtless a serving-man,Carries a musical instrument.

Every discoloration of the stone,

Every accidental crack or dent,Seems a water-course or an avalanche,Or lofty slope where it still snowsThough doubtless plum or cherry-branchSweetens the little half-way houseThose Chinamen climb towards, and IDelight to imagine them seated there;There, on the mountain and the sky,On all the tragic scene they stare.One asks for mournful melodies;Accomplished fingers begin to play.Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

Michael Harrison

Federico García Lorca“Romance Sonámbulo”

Verde que te quiero verde.Verde viento. Verdes ramas.El barco sobre la mary el caballo en la montaña.Con la sombra en la cinturaella sueña en su baranda,verde carne, pelo verde,con ojos de fría plata.Verde que te quiero verde.Bajo la luna gitana,las cosas le están mirandoy ella no puede mirarlas.

Verde que te quiero verde.Grandes estrellas de escarcha,

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vienen con el pez de sombraque abre el camino del alba.La higuera frota su vientocon la lija de sus ramas,y el monte, gato garduño,eriza sus pitas agrias.¿Pero quién vendrá? ¿Y por dónde...?Ella sigue en su baranda,verde carne, pelo verde,soñando en la mar amarga.

Compadre, quiero cambiarmi caballo por su casa,mi montura por su espejo,mi cuchillo por su manta.Compadre, vengo sangrando,desde los montes de Cabra.Si yo pudiera, mocito,ese trato se cerraba.Pero yo ya no soy yo,ni mi casa es ya mi casa.Compadre, quiero morirdecentemente en mi cama.De acero, si puede ser,con las sábanas de Holanda.¿No ves la herida que tengodesde el pecho a la garganta?Trescientas rosas morenaslleva tu pechera blanca.Tu sangre rezuma y huelealrededor de tu faja.Pero yo ya no soy yo,ni mi casa es ya mi casa.Dejadme subir al menoshasta las altas barandas,dejadme subir, dejadme,

hasta las verdes barandas.Barandales de la lunapor donde retumba el agua.

Ya suben los dos compadreshacia las altas barandas.Dejando un rastro de sangre.Dejando un rastro de lágrimas.Temblaban en los tejadosfarolillos de hojalata.Mil panderos de cristal,herían la madrugada.

Verde que te quiero verde,verde viento, verdes ramas.Los dos compadres subieron.El largo viento, dejabaen la boca un raro gustode hiel, de menta y de albahaca.¡Compadre! ¿Dónde está, dime?¿Dónde está mi niña amarga?¡Cuántas veces te esperó!¡Cuántas veces te esperara,cara fresca, negro pelo,en esta verde baranda!

Sobre el rostro del aljibese mecía la gitana.Verde carne, pelo verde,con ojos de fría plata.Un carámbano de lunala sostiene sobre el agua.La noche su puso íntimacomo una pequeña plaza.Guardias civiles borrachos,en la puerta golpeaban.

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Verde que te quiero verde.Verde viento. Verdes ramas.El barco sobre la mar.Y el caballo en la montaña.

Green, how I want you green.Green wind. Green branches.The ship out on the seaand the horse on the mountain. With the shade around her waist she dreams on her balcony, green flesh, her hair green, with eyes of cold silver. Green, how I want you green. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her and she cannot see them.

Green, how I want you green. Big hoarfrost stars come with the fish of shadow

that opens the road of dawn. The fig tree rubs its wind with the sandpaper of its branches, and the forest, cunning cat, bristles its brittle fibers. But who will come? And from where? She is still on her balcony green flesh, her hair green, dreaming in the bitter sea.

--My friend, I want to trade my horse for her house, my saddle for her mirror, my knife for her blanket. My friend, I come bleeding from the gates of Cabra.--If it were possible, my boy, I'd help you fix that trade. But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house.--My friend, I want to diedecently in my bed. Of iron, if that's possible, with blankets of fine chambray. Don't you see the wound I have from my chest up to my throat?--Your white shirt has grown thirsy dark brown roses. Your blood oozes and flees around the corners of your sash. But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house.--Let me climb up, at least, up to the high balconies; Let me climb up! Let me,

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up to the green balconies. Railings of the moon through which the water rumbles.

Now the two friends climb up, up to the high balconies.Leaving a trail of blood. Leaving a trail of teardrops. Tin bell vineswere trembling on the roofs.A thousand crystal tambourines struck at the dawn light.

Green, how I want you green, green wind, green branches. The two friends climbed up. The stiff wind left in their mouths, a strange taste of bile, of mint, and of basil My friend, where is she--tell me--where is your bitter girl?How many times she waited for you! How many times would she wait for you, cool face, black hair, on this green balcony! Over the mouth of the cisternthe gypsy girl was swinging, green flesh, her hair green, with eyes of cold silver. An icicle of moonholds her up above the water. The night became intimate like a little plaza.Drunken "Guardias Civiles"were pounding on the door. Green, how I want you green.

Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea. And the horse on the mountain.

Translation by William Logan

James Godde

J.R.R. Tolkien“The Mewlips”

The Shadows where the Mewlips dwellAre dark and wet as ink,And slow and softly rings their bell,As in the slime you sink.

You sink into the slime, who dare16

To knock upon their door,While down the grinning gargoyles stareAnd noisome waters pour.

Beside the rotting river-strandThe drooping willows weep,And gloomily the gorcrows standCroaking in their sleep.

Over the Merlock Mountains a long and weary way,In a mouldy valley where the trees are grey,By a dark pool's borders without wind or tide,Moonless and sunless, the Mewlips hide.

The cellars where the Mewlips sitAre deep and dank and coldWith single sickly candle lit;And there they count their gold.

Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip;Their feet upon the floorGo softly with a squish-flap-flip,As they sidle to the door.

They peep out slyly; through a crackTheir feeling fingers creep,And when they've finished, in a sackYour bones they take to keep.

Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road,Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode,And through the wood of hanging trees and gallows-weed,You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.

Annika Hagley

Ani DiFranco“Bodily”

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You broke me bodilyThe heart ain't the half of itAnd I'll never learn to laugh at itIn my good natured wayIn fact I'm laughing less in generalBut I learned a lot at my own funeralAnd I knew you'd be the death of meSo I guess that's the price I pay

I'm trying to make new memoriesIn cities where we fell in loveMy head just barely aboveThe darkest water I've ever knownYou had me in that cageYou had me jumpin through those hoops for youStill, I think I'd stoop for youStoop for your eyes alone

From that bomb shell moon in yet another lovely dressTo the deep mahogany sheen of a roachI am trying to take an appreciative approachTo life in your wakeI focus on the quiet nowAnd occasionally I'll fall asleep somehowAnd emptiness has its solaceIn that there's nothing left to take

Mark Willhardt

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sonnet XL

Loving you less than life, a little less

Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall

Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess

I cannot swear I love you not at all.

For there is that about you in this light –

A yellow darkness, sinister of rain –

Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight

To dwell on you, and dwell on you again.

And I am made aware of many a week

I shall consume, remembering in what way

Your brown hair grows about your brow and cheek,

And what divine absurdities you say:

Till all the world, and I, and surely you,

Will know I love you, whether or not I do.

Craig Watson

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Elizabeth Bishop“The Fish”

I caught a tremendous fishand held him beside the boathalf out of water, with my hookfast in a corner of his mouth.He didn't fight.He hadn't fought at all.He hung a grunting weight,battered and venerableand homely. Here and therehis brown skin hung in stripslike ancient wallpaper,and its pattern of darker brownwas like wallpaper:shapes like full-blown rosesstained and lost through age.He was speckled and barnacles,fine rosettes of lime,and infestedwith tiny white sea-lice,and underneath two or threerags of green weed hung down.While his gills were breathing inthe terrible oxygen--the frightening gills,fresh and crisp with blood,that can cut so badly--I thought of the coarse white fleshpacked in like feathers,the big bones and the little bones,

the dramatic reds and blacksof his shiny entrails,and the pink swim-bladderlike a big peony.I looked into his eyeswhich were far larger than minebut shallower, and yellowed,the irises backed and packedwith tarnished tinfoilseen through the lensesof old scratched isinglass.They shifted a little, but notto return my stare.--It was more like the tippingof an object toward the light.I admired his sullen face,the mechanism of his jaw,and then I sawthat from his lower lip--if you could call it a lipgrim, wet, and weaponlike,hung five old pieces of fish-line,or four and a wire leaderwith the swivel still attached,with all their five big hooksgrown firmly in his mouth.A green line, frayed at the endwhere he broke it, two heavier lines,and a fine black threadstill crimped from the strain and snapwhen it broke and he got away.Like medals with their ribbons

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frayed and wavering,a five-haired beard of wisdomtrailing from his aching jaw.I stared and staredand victory filled upthe little rented boat,from the pool of bilgewhere oil had spread a rainbowaround the rusted engineto the bailer rusted orange,the sun-cracked thwarts,the oarlocks on their strings,the gunnels--until everythingwas rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!And I let the fish go.

Marlo Belschner

David Wright, for Richard Pacholski“Lines on Retirement, after Reading Lear”

Avoid storms. And retirement parties.You can’t trust the sweetnesses your friends willoffer, when they really want your office,which they’ll redecorate. Beware the stilluntested pension plan. Keep your keys. Askfor more troops than you think you’ll need. Listenmore to fools and less to colleagues. Love youryoungest child the most, regardless. Back tostorms: dress warm, take a friend, don’t eat the grass,don’t stand near tall trees, and keep the yellingdown—the winds won’t listen, and no one willsee you in the dark. It’s too hard to hearyou over all the thunder. But you’re notLear, except that we can’t stop you from whatyou’ve planned to do. In the end, no one leavesthe stage in character—we never seethe feather, the mirror held to our lips.So don’t wait for skies to crack with sun. Feelthe storm’s sweet sting invade you to the skin,the strange, sore comforts of the wind. Embraceyour children’s ragged praise and that of friends.Go ahead, take it off, take it all off.Run naked into tempests. Weave flowersinto your hair. Bellow at cataracts.If you dare, scream at the gods. Babble asif you thought words could save. Drink rain like cold

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beer. So much better than making theories.We’d all come with you, laughing, if we could.Lee McGaan

T. S. Eliot “The Four Quartets: Burnt Norton”

I

Time present and time pastAre both perhaps present in time futureAnd time future contained in time past.If all time is eternally presentAll time is unredeemable.What might have been is an abstractionRemaining a perpetual possibilityOnly in a world of speculation.What might have been and what has beenPoint to one end, which is always present.Footfalls echo in the memoryDown the passage which we did not takeTowards the door we never openedInto the rose-garden. My words echoThus, in your mind. ….

V

Words move, music movesOnly in time; but that which is only livingCan only die. Words, after speech, reachInto the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,Can words or music reachThe stillness, as a Chinese jar stillMoves perpetually in its stillness.Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,Not that only, but the co-existence,Or say that the end precedes the beginning,And the end and the beginning were always thereBefore the beginning and after the end.And all is always now. Words strain,Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,Will not stay still. Shrieking voicesScolding, mocking, or merely chattering,Always assail them. The Word in the desertIs most attacked by voices of temptation,The crying shadow in the funeral dance,The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

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Petra Kuppinger

Theodor Fontane (1819-1898)“Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland”

Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland,Ein Birnbaum in seinem Garten stand,Und kam die goldene HerbsteszeitUnd die Birnen leuchteten weit und breit,Da stopfte, wenn's Mittag vom Turme scholl,Der von Ribbeck sich beide Taschen voll.Und kam in Pantinen ein Junge daher,So rief er: »Junge, wiste 'ne Beer?«Und kam ein Mädel, so rief er: »Lütt Dirn,Kumm man röwer, ick hebb 'ne Birn.«

So ging es viel Jahre, bis lobesamDer von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck zu sterben kam.Er fühlte sein Ende. 's war Herbsteszeit,Wieder lachten die Birnen weit und breit;Da sagte von Ribbeck: »Ich scheide nun ab.Legt mir eine Birne mit ins Grab.«Und drei Tage drauf, aus dem Doppeldachhaus,Trugen von Ribbeck sie hinaus,Alle Bauern und Büdner mit FeiergesichtSangen »Jesus meine Zuversicht«,Und die Kinder klagten, das Herze schwer:»He is dod nu. Wer giwt uns nu 'ne Beer?«

So klagten die Kinder. Das war nicht recht -Ach, sie kannten den alten Ribbeck schlecht;

Der neue freilich, der knausert und spart,Hält Park und Birnbaum strenge verwahrt.Aber der alte, vorahnend schonUnd voll Mißtrauen gegen den eigenen Sohn,Der wußte genau, was er damals tat,Als um eine Birn' ins Grab er bat,Und im dritten Jahr aus dem stillen HausEin Birnbaumsprößling sproßt heraus.

Und die Jahre gehen wohl auf und ab,Längst wölbt sich ein Birnbaum über dem Grab,Und in der goldenen HerbsteszeitLeuchtet's wieder weit und breit.Und kommt ein Jung' übern Kirchhof her,So flüstert's im Baume: »Wiste 'ne Beer?«Und kommt ein Mädel, so flüstert's: »Lütt Dirn,Kumm man röwer, ick gew' di 'ne Birn.«

So spendet Segen noch immer die HandDes von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland.

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Erika Solberg“One Year Barbara Was a Cowgirl and Eddie Was a Cow”

I hate Halloween.So typical of Monmouth where you can’t sneeze on Mondaywithout the sister of your neighbor’s friend’s son’s mom saying, “I hear you’re sick” on Tuesday.The sky here billows out forever and the fields skim out to beyond your vision,but the people psychically cram themselves together,a tumble of tools in a drawer,til you’re wedged in at some receptionbetween two colleaguesmean mugging each otheras you smoosh the cheese into your cracker and speedtalk inanities because you can’t yell at them, “Get over it and like each other again!”without starting a whole new riot.

I hate Halloween when I plop myself on my porch and drop sugar in the bags of SuperMariosand Edvard Munch-faced frightswho mumble Trick or Treat and teeter down the steps, the clots of kids so fast I give up trying to read in between feedings.

It's true that maybe that day I stood under my gingko treeand laughed because leaves as yellow as corn sprinkled me like steady rain.

And it’s true when I bought my candy at ShopKo,I saw that great mom from years ago at Playgroupand Caroline Buban -- who’s off to college next year can you believe it? --and the church member who clobbered breast cancer rang me up, and we all complained how nice if we had a Target butat least we have a Walgreens though I remember Zimmer’s Apothecary where once I bought $6000 worth of drugs to do IVF and later rolled my stroller full of baby through the door stupefied by the happiness of babyspit and tiny fat feet –like somehow a trip to ShopKo is supposed to remind me my beat is part

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of the Monmouth rhythm too.

But I hate Halloween.I am not the Ogorzaleks, who test each mechanized vampire,map each ghost footprintday by day through October til on the last night the yard howlswith beckoning skeletons and Frankenstein monsters breathe smoke and kids scamper down our street to See that! Look there!The next morning each bone and coffin is tucked away til next year except for the red bat blinking in the attic window wing by wing.

I don’t care about the glazed-eyed babies swaddled up as sheep and peapodswhose parents are inflated by the joy of Our First Halloween!

the same way it ballooned up in me and Rob the year he danced with Barbara in her ladybug costumein Marlo’s kitchen.

I don’t care about Gael and Addy and Chloe and Keshawn who big-eyed exclaim, “Your Eddie’s mom!” “Your Barbara’s mom!”from their Hulked or cheerleadered bodies.

Or Vivian hiding in the bushes to help boys zipline fake bats across the porch.Or each year Emma Willhardt twirled around in a new, homemade princess dress.

All these kids who have transformed –Zane from the big belly on Amy sweating on Meeker’s porchto a crazy-legged drumming writer --Hamid Tala Hassan Benoit Mima Henry Bella Gareth Finn Alex Haley Xander Nate --and all the others who’ve marked my years with stretching bonesretoothed mouths --their selves likes waves rolling toward the grownup world and pulling back to their mysterious realmsthen rolling in again,Halloween a marker buoy in the channel.

I hate the whole night.

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Like the year we left the dogs in the yardand after our usual stops people were at our house talking in forced-calm voices --the dogs had gotten loose – Briscoe was hit -- Trudi’d cursed in front of our minister’s wife – Clay had hefted Louie inside –a neighbor I barely spoke to and a friend I sometimes didn’t like had taken my sweet,sweet dog to Kirkwood.My neighbor stayed with me through the x-rays,and my friend drove me home with my broken but wagging dog.How can an awful night be the one you remember with lovebecause people rushed in,because the “hi”s at Midwest Bank, the “hey-there”s at the Blues Fest,the “how’s-it-going”s in the Wallace basement tie together into this:that I hate Halloween but the bombs can go off at any timeand people rush in.

These tentacles of people and town grapple me.I cannot pull free of so much backstory,so many mistakes forgiven and forgived.I gasp for air free of who did what when and why.

But when the explosions come,the person you quarreled with holds the casserole on your front steps.The one you got drunk with covers you class.The one who recommended your gynecologist sorts the mail you cannot bear to touch.People rush in,

and though there is a radiance in the stranger rescuing you from the fire,what beauty too in knowing the faces of the ones who care.I can wear no mask that will conceal me here,and what a drag sometimes --but what a glory too.

Rev. Dr. B Kathleen Fannin“ALONE”

Night crashed down, with pounding rainon wounded men who lay aloneamong the dead; pushed them downon hard, cold ground where dead men laylike used up clay, alone; betweenthe lines of men who’d spent all dayflinging death across torn earthand shattered woods, near a church

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called Shiloh.

Night, ripped with screams of shot and shell—and dying men who lay alone;left for dead, among the dead—night smashed them down like broken stones.The last night some would ever knowpounded men afraid, alone,as nightborn winds rained death acrossa bloody field between the linesat Shiloh.

The Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee occurred April 6-7, 1862. Confederate forces (under General Albert Sidney Johnston) attacked Union troops (commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant) who were guarding Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. There were 23,000 casualties, making it the bloodiest battle in American history up to this time.Luz Schick“My Mother’s Garden”

1.My mother never had a garden where we lived—Six-room apartments on Chicago’s west side

Always renters, we lived by the sealStamped on our passports in fading inkTuristas, from Mexico, going back there someday

Why put down roots? Why buy, even if we could?Even if we had The moneyThe papersThe ease with such things

When there, in the brown earth of our eyesIn the trembling ground of our heartsMexico grewOld, twisted vineFragrant mess of thorns and blooms

Mexico—In the back In the depthsOf our walledSecret selves

Mexico was my mother’s gardenTended nightly as she stood before her altar Searching the faces of her saintsHer mother’s portrait on the wallMexico

Praying to San Ramón Nonato, her favoriteFor some of the gold coins In that bag at his feetFor Immigration never to find us

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Mexico

Prayers every night until she couldn’t standThe weight too muchThe varicose veins spreading, gnarled blue stemsThen prayers as she sat at the edge of the bedWhite-haired, weary, lost in thought

2.Lo que no logro entender, she once told meWhen she was no longer herself, when she no longer rememberedEs cómo llegué a dar aquí.What I just don’t getIs how I ended up here

This spoken amiablyAs if it were an idle puzzleThis shared with me, now a stranger to herNow the nice woman—nurse, hospice worker, one of those—Keeping her company, tending to her

3.Today is Mother’s Day and in my gardenThe blue sky vaults Warm wind swellsOver buds bursting, ferns fiddlingFrom the rich country soil

I stab at the creeping CharlieGet on my knees to shovel

Below the rootsPut my back into itTo bring them up clean

They barely fight, those little rootsThey’re barely there, little thread fingersGrabbing the ground half-heartedly Just at the surfaceAs if they knew their place, their fate

But sometimes there’s a weedWhose root goes deepPoints straight in the groundLike an arrowQuivering for its mark

This one fightsThis one will not giveFor a long time A long timeUntil it does

Then I lose my balance Fall back baptized in dirtStare at the strangePale twist In my hands

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Then thinning but never weakeningNever ceasing to probeFor waterFor source

And I feel something openingFrom the fist of my heartPlunging through darkness, soaring to lightSomething ancient and archingRemembered, revering

Sharing the life that is still but not stilledIn my dirt-stained handsLike what an Indian hunter feelsFor the deer he killsLike I should pray

Benjamin Eaton“Island Number 10”

The clouds split the Mississippi River—gray stones flinch underneath. The river illumes redgloss-stumps and moss-bark, both blossomed underflowing boulders and branches,each scratching shoreline coasts. Thatches and slabs and mildew scabscrash-crescendo down banks,flooding with twigs that decimate the thrushes’ canebrakes and stock piles by river basinsunder undisturbed beds of the dead.

Beneath the carnage a slow walleyebattles for inches, a sturgeon swimswith the strong current, a large mouthbass bouts, and the muscle hugsunnoticed, as the currents strengthforces another shad to perish.

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Joe Angotti

Arica Brazil“Something Close to Home”

The buildings kept climbing up, and we kept plummeting downGypcrete and glassEach one more eager to interrupt heavenEach one more shiny and slick;Secreting an electric sludge.

Books became rocks,Rocks became sidewalks,Advanced into something…Wind pipes creeping up on plastic matrix.

Rocket man burning out his fuse up here aloneAnd I think it's gonna’ be a long. long time.

The buildings kept climbing up, and we kept plummeting downSteel and sandEach one more willing to interrupt heavenEach one more complex and copied;Unions loved the sites.

The bad and the new badThe sad and the new sadRecalling nothing remembered

Linking the world through landlines, And bloodlines became shorelines;Bled out.

Rocket man burning out his fuse up here aloneAnd I think it's gonna’ be a long, long time.

When the wind changed, it didn’t mean muchWalking through the snow, and the sleet, and the sunshineUndifferentiated.

It’s been a long, long timeBut everything was too busy looking up.

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Rachael Laing“The Necromancer”

When I raised you from the dead you came back different.

You couldn't speak through your collapsed throat,

and the breath intake through your punctured lung was ragged.

Your eyes were more wild, like you had seen things and wanted to

see more, a renewed

love for life in death (how interesting).

Hands, bloody and worn after crawling your way up through the

ground.

Did 6 feet feel like a lifetime, I wonder?

Did the roots snake through your veins when your body had begun to

sink into the dirt?

You seem lost, walking around in the memory of a former life,

but you smile more often,

and the sun shines brighter,

and I said you came back different.

Not worse.

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