Image Marriages

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come garg...

Some say love’s a little boy, And some say it’s a bird, Some say it makes the world go round, 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 ...

Obscurely yet most surely called to praise, As sometimes summer calls us all, I said The hills are heavens full of branching ways Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead; I said the trees are mines in air, I said See how the sparrow burrows in the sky! And then I wondered why this mad instead Perverts our praise to uncreation, why Such savour's in this wrenching things awry. Does sense so stale that it must needs derange The world to know it? To a praiseful eye Should it not be enough of fresh and strange That trees grow green, and moles can course in clay, And sparrows sweep the ceiling of our day? Richard Wilbur Diary of Discoveries by Vladimir Kush

Every love counts, the puppy you were given At six, the tadpoles that you tried to raise; Even your silly parents and the siblings You couldn’t stand were loved on certain days. The first love of your adolescence, later Spoken of slightingly as immature, The love of marriage, even if it ended In bitterness, the friends that still endure. Into the mix, put in your charity To those who had no one but you to love them. All the loves given, even reluctantly, Are still our loves. Let’s not make little of them. They form the empyrean that burns on when sun and moon and stars have packed and gone. Gail White ( First published in FIRST THINGS ) Painting: Nativity, Rein Nomm, on Flickr

An atom’s 99.9% nothing at all. The world’s an empty place. Its solid shapes are objects we invent to give a form to nuclei and space. But these constructions aren’t exactly fake– it hurts when, as a test, we kick a stone; electrons charge across the void and make illusions hard enough to break a bone. Outside the window, photons waver, glow, collapsing to what matters here: your bright blue scarf, dark hair; a body that I know is not a trick of late November light. You and I–more than a thought, thin air– unique arrangements of what isn’t there. Robert Crawford Photo: “I’m Not There” by PoL Úbeda Hervàs on Flickr

Last night as I lay sleeping, I dreamed–oh blessed art!– of fountain water leaping and flowing in my heart. “Where is the hidden channel,” I cried, “that was equipped to bring to me this spring of life from which I never sipped?” Last night as I lay sleeping, I dreamed–oh blessed art!– a hive of bees was reaping its nectar in my heart. The worker bees so golden were filling up the cracks with sorrows they converted into honey and white wax. Last night as I lay sleeping, I dreamed–oh blessed art!– a burning sun was steeping the blood within my heart. I know that it was burning. I felt its heat inside. I know that it was sunlight. It shone, and then I cried. Last night as I lay sleeping, I dreamed–oh blessed art!– that God himself was keeping watch inside my heart. Antonio Machado Translated from the Spanish by Robert Schechter Sleep, by Franceska Shirka on Flickr

The Indians have mostly gone but not before they named the rivers the rivers flow on and the names of the rivers flow with them Susquehanna Shenandoah The rivers are now polluted plundered but not the names of the rivers cool and inviolate as ever pure as on the morning of creation Tennessee Tombigbee If the rivers themselves should ever perish I think the names will somehow somewhere hover like ghosts of eagles those mighty whisperers Missouri Mississippi Robert Francis Green eagle, Igor Morski

Faces grim with grief or goals unknown, or slack from lack of sleep or social graces, or deadened by the will to be alone, share only stillness as the subway races. The wheezing metal stutters to a pause; doors fold to open and admit a crowd whose laughter draws brief wonder at its cause, then scorn for riders deemed uncouth and loud. Each briefcase and backpack abuts another; brown shopping bags assault a denim knee. Slickers and wool coats confront each other, but not their wearer’s anonymity. At last a faceless voice drones, “Park Street Station,” dismissing the impassive congregation. Jean L. Kreiling Painting from Art History in Contemporary Life series by Alexey Kondakov

I watch an old man working in his garden Dealing life to plant and death to weed. Of one he saves, of one destroys the seed. He knows the weeds and not one will he pardon. He bids the pea vines bloom and they obey. He teaches them to climb. He tests a pod. Much that another man might throw away He saves, he forks it under for decay To be another generation’s need. This is his work to do. This is his day. He makes all birth and growth and death his deed. Slowly he moves, but slow is not delay. He has all time to work. I watch him plod. Old man, old man, who told you you were God? Robert Francis The Old Gardener, Paul Cezanne

Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land, Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows. In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives. I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain, Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, And mocked by hopeless longing to regain Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats, And going to the office in the train. Siegfried Sassoon Rafael Edwards, World without wars...peace now!

In that divided city, in the heart, you wander half the lengths of any street When suddenly you meet Festoons of razor wire that slice apart The mirrored parks and avenues, discrete Histories that start To ramify from one event. The chart Is half detailed, half blank and incomplete. And on the other side, does someone stand Deciphering the signs forbidding entry In doubled alphabets? A weary sentry — One star — winks overhead. The nettles grow Between, in no-man’s land, And only cats, like dreams, pass to and fro. Alicia E. Stallings   Portrait on map by Ed Fairburn

Into my empty head there come a cotton beach, a dock wherefrom I set out, oily and nude through mist, in chilly solitude. There was no line, no roof or floor to tell the water from the air. Night fog thick as terry cloth closed me in its fuzzy growth. I hung my bathrobe on two pegs. I took the lake between my legs. Invaded and invader, I went overhand on that flat sky. Fish twitched beneath me, quick and tame. In their green zone they sang my name and in the rhythm of the swim I hummed a two-four-time slow hymn. I hummed “Abide With Me.” The beat rose in the fine thrash of my feet, rose in the bubbles I put out slantwise, trailing through my mouth. My bones drank water; water fell through all my doors. I was the well that fed the lake that met my sea in which I sang “Abide With Me.” Maxine Kumin   Three Feet Under, Samantha French

One of those dismal, end-of-autumn nights I came around a bend and saw her there, standing beside the road as though my lights had conjured her from dark, rain-ridden air. Twenty years old at most, slender, frail, she stood with shoulders hunched against the rain, her black hair pulled back in a pony tail, her face a mask of disbelief and pain. Poor soul . . . I knew exactly who she was and thought of stopping there to help her when she vanished suddenly, no doubt because she knew I doubted she had ever been anything more than my imaginings projected on a darkened world of things. Bill Coyle Ladies of the Lake, Rob Gonsalves

In August, oaks are orchestras In concert on the public greens. The maestro bows to light applause. The crickets tap their tambourines. An easy, bright formality Is visited upon the day. Maidenly spirits serve us tea And after clear the cups away. To get us closer to the sky We rest our dreams upon the grass. The laundered clouds are piled so high The branches will not let them pass. A hawk’s wide ploughshare tilts and tills His cultivated fields of air. The angels at their windowsills Remark the weather passing fair. Something’s discovered in a day Whose means are matched to gentle ends. From a point of stillness far away, A parable of light descends. Alfred Nicol Summer Solstice From the Brick House, Laurel Waters

The squabbling soldiers gone, the women got What fell to them. Beneath the drooping eyes Of Pilate’s guard (the afternoon was hot) They laid him out and shooed the stinging flies, Rubbed linen strips with myrrh and aloes, rinsed The dust from limbs whose wounds no longer bled. As if the crown still pressed there, Mary winced When, with a separate cloth, they wrapped his head; And she recalled the pressure of his palm, The scent of spikenard, Simon’s baleful stare, And how, the whole house filling with the balm, She wiped his wet feet with her loosened hair. Days later, at the empty tomb alone, She thought first of his pierced and broken feet And wept, incredulous. But he was gone, The wrappings, neatly rolled, still faintly sweet. A gardener was bending in the shade Among the gravestones. Trembling with dismay, She cried, “Where is he? Tell me where you’ve laid His body. Who has taken him away?” He didn’t answer. When she called again, The stranger stood and t...

You sit, suspending your critique Of Venuses and nymphs at play, While a few scattered strollers creak Slowly across the floor’s parquet. Beside you on the bench, your purse (Capacious well-worn leather) shows A slumped, collapsed look. You, no worse For touring, strike a fresher pose - On your crossed legs your forearms crossed. Your blond hair, in a single fold Over your shoulder, makes a glossed And negligent descent of gold. And though a grace so natural Seems something only art supplies, You now, with a distracted smile, Among the static beauties, rise. Timothy Steele Painting: “Head of a Nymph” by Sophie Anderson

 The horse beneath me seemed To know what course to steer Through the horror of snow I dreamed, And so I had no fear, Nor was I chilled to death By the wind’s white shudders, thanks To the veils of his patient breath And the mist of sweat from his flanks. It seemed that all night through, Within my hand no rein And nothing in my view But the pillar of his mane, I rode with magic ease At a quick, unstumbling trot Through shattering vacancies On into what was not, Till the weave of the storm grew thin, With a threading of cedar-smoke, And the ice-blind pane of an inn Shimmered, and I awoke. How shall I now get back To the inn-yard where he stands, Burdened with every lack, And waken the stable-hands To give him, before I think That there was no horse at all, Some hay, some water to drink, A blanket and a stall?  Richard Wilbur   “Horse in Snow” by Laurie Pace

1 Accept your prison like a ring forget rebelling give up submitting and after saying farewell to your shadow talk with the sun facing the moon consent to your own death don’t breathe... and then burst into song 7 After the mirrors have broken and you’ve died swallowed by the darkness don’t give yourself up as beaten: give light time enough and the recent wings initiate them slowly in blood The other side of your being hoists roots have no doubt: there will be flight 8 Stroke the back of the least beloved moment: sing each drizzle of your blood toward the sea let the sun shoot all your anguish and in round numbers you’ll find out what life is all about Spanish Original 1 Acepta tu prisión como un anillo: olvida rebelarte renuncia a someterte después de despedirte de tu sombra conversa con el sol ante la luna accede a verte muerto: no respires... y entonces suéltate a cantar 7 Después que se hayan roto los espejos y mueras dig...

Like migrant birds who pause to light upon some sunny isle, my thoughts leave off their weary flight to rest upon your smile. Marion Shore   (la Grande Famiglia, Rene Magritte)

I am, you anxious one. Do you not hear me rush to claim you with each eager sense? Now my feelings have found wings, and, circling, whitely fly about your countenance. Here my spirit in its dress of stillness stands before you, — oh, do you not see? In your glance does not my Maytime prayer grow to ripeness as upon a tree? Dreamer, it is I who am your dream. But would you awake, I am your will, and master of all splendor, and I grow to a sphere, like stars poised high and still, with time’s marvelous city stretched below. Rainer Maria Rilke, Poems from the Book of Hours translated by Babette Deutsch   Salvador Dali, Butterfly Mother in a Book