Manifest by Jane Hirshfield

Hawks, rivers, cities, ochre, us.

A species whose right hand sketches its left hand
but can’t draw itself.

Whales.
Geosynchronous satellites.
A truck hauling folded tarps under a tarp.

Wars, hunger, jail cells, praises, pratfalls, puns,
gold circuits on phone-card connectors—
all cargo, manifest,
    circling the sun together
each three hundred and sixty-five days
plus a few remnant hours.

A story here ribboned with lightning,
there dimmed by clouds,
on a nitrogen-, oxygen-,
carbon-dioxide-, and dust-cushioned bundle,
whose glaciers depart, insects quiet, seas rise.

To that which is coming, I say,
Here, take what is yours.

But forget, if you can, what-is-coming,
find not worth pocketing,
let fall unnoticed as weed seed,
one small handful of moments and gestures.

Moments mouse-colored, minor.
Gestures disturbing no one,
slipped between the ones that were counted,
the ones in which everything happened.

A petroglyph’s single fingerprint.

A spider awake in an undusted corner.

Let stay, if you can, what-is-coming,
one or two musical notes,
hummed in a half hour that couldn’t be herded
or mined,
made to save daylight or spend it.

Leave one unfraudulent hope,
one affection like curtains blown open in wind,
whose minutes, seconds, fragrance,
choices,
won’t sadden the heart to recall.

This is drawn from “The Asking: New & Selected Poems, 1971-2023.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/manifest

The Wishbone by Joyce Carl Oates

In the still of night
old fears emerge.

Those closest relatives
you’d found barely
bearable, cornucopias
of family dystopia
spilling into
“amusing anecdotes”
decades later
like a much-thumbed
rosary, or litany
of the dead.

Old vexations,
tics and mannerisms,
wincing at the pinch
of the drunk uncle
(so handsome!—but
died young),
stooping to avoid
the hacking cough
soon to propel
your Hungarian grandfather
to his grave.

Those years!
Pride redacts the grave
long heartbreak of loving
the one more than
he’d loved you,
who’d favored your
sister, and not you
who at twelve rolled
your eyes, such
boredom!—jaws
wrenched in yawns

at Thanksgiving
twinge of nausea
clammy-white turkey
carcass and skin, stink
of eviscerated gut
and in the “gravy boat”
coarse curdles of
grease. Pope’s nose,
giblets and innards,
“wishbone” carefully
removed from the ravaged
skeleton and perched atop
the fridge to dry,
forgotten and forlorn
until rediscovered
in December, brittle
and easily broken—
Make a wish, Joyce!—but
what could you have
possibly wished, so young?
To be older?
To be out of there?
To be—where?

Stunned now to recall
how all at that table
are gone now, mere
ectoplasm in a dim
region of the brain.
How heedless you’d loved
them after all, as
they’d loved who-
ever it was, was you.

Published in the print edition of the New Yorker November 7, 2022, issue.

Night Herons by Amy Gerstler

all day long you wring yourself out
work virtually
go nowhere
brain exclusively tuned
to end-times music
till twilight arrives
to fold you in blue pleats of evening
a flock of night herons flaps past
across the sky or your mind
it’s the same either way
long-closeted thoughts rise with them
winging out from daytime roosts
to forage swamps and wetlands
to nest in groups
black-crowned birds who croak like crows
swoop low over mangroves
the whirr of wings
real or imagined
blurs trivial things
strange-times lullabies
declare doom looms
everyone’s muzzled
mired in dread
the future’s not mutual
it’s mute or dead
everybody misses everybody
try to ride it out
as night herons seek
what the sun
will someday summon us to
after endless-seeming exile
a prayer to be spared
I shall be satisfied, when I wake, with thy likeness
a psalm’s promise
the night herons keep flying toward
tomorrow’s garlands

Facing It by Yusef Komuyakaa

My black face fades,   

hiding inside the black granite.   

I said I wouldn’t  

dammit: No tears.   

I’m stone. I’m flesh.   

My clouded reflection eyes me   

like a bird of prey, the profile of night   

slanted against morning. I turn   

this way—the stone lets me go.   

I turn that way—I’m inside   

the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

again, depending on the light   

to make a difference.   

I go down the 58,022 names,   

half-expecting to find   

my own in letters like smoke.   

I touch the name Andrew Johnson;   

I see the booby trap’s white flash.   

Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse   

but when she walks away   

the names stay on the wall.   

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s   

wings cutting across my stare.   

The sky. A plane in the sky.   

A white vet’s image floats   

closer to me, then his pale eyes   

look through mine. I’m a window.   

He’s lost his right arm   

inside the stone. In the black mirror   

a woman’s trying to erase names:   

No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.

Jerusalem by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

Dancing Barefoot by Patti Smith

The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
The mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
Grave visitations
What is it that calls to us?
Why must we pray screaming?
Why must not death be redefined?
We shut our eyes we stretch out our arms
And whirl on a pane of glass
An afixiation a fix on anything the line of life the limb of a tree
The hands of he and the promise that she is blessed among women.

Without by Joy Harjo

The world will keep trudging through time without us

When we lift from the story contest to fly home

We will be as falling stars to those watching from the edge

Of grief and heartbreak

Maybe then we will see the design of the two-minded creature

And know why half the world fights righteously for greedy masters

And the other half is nailing it all back together

Through the smoke of cooking fires, lovers’ trysts, and endless

Human industry—

Maybe then, beloved rascal

We will find each other again in the timeless weave of breathing

We will sit under the trees in the shadow of earth sorrows

Watch hyenas drink rain, and laugh.

Little Spy in My Bedroom by Yusef Komunyakaa

What’s that ticking sound
under the red velvet sofa,
breathing a little click-song
stolen from South Africa,
perched on a windowsill
or lost in a coffin drawer
singing a half-pint of good
luck, aping such big emotion?
Whatever it is, it materialized
up here on the second floor,
as if from my head—the silent
timekeeper’s rasping alarm.
I pace around the room, careful
not to trip on the tiger rug,
to search out the mechanical
night song of a small being.
What good can it bring now
in our highly evolved world
of climate change & hunting
death stars to give the names
of hermit kings & outlaws.
Love, have I always listened
with my whole damn body,
18k. tick of a pocket watch?
I rise, gazing into an inlaid box
of hex signs & cheap rings.
Now I hardly hear the faint
noise, yet know it is here.
I cover my eyes with my left
hand to hear the machine
pulse of a careless heart, &
in a patch of early-morning
sunlight I see a black cricket.
Someone kicks off her shoe
before I can think to say, No,
one of us must show mercy.

Published Nov. 30th 2020

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/07/little-spy-in-my-bedroom

Octavia Butler on what is sexy

Striving is sexy–Actually Desire is sexy

Transformation is sexy

Poor to rihc, esp. phsycial change

Powerless to power

coming of age, etc.

Downturns are only sexy if they are temporary.

Self-reliance, self confidence and self discipline are sexy

Dependency is also sexy–if it is chose and not coercive. *Symbiosis is a kind of dependency.

A dependency of equals is best.

*Mutual, commensal, parasitic

Evil is sexy. Good is only sexy when its very powerful, not sanctamonious and not too good <Real>

Opposites are sexy.

Hard-soft

Rich-poor

Black-white

Male-female, etc.

Symbisosis is deeply sexy.

Nuclear Winter.

Ultraviolet spring.

https://twitter.com/LAReviewofBooks/status/805094451475611648/photo/1

Marianne Williamson on radical love

“We must live for the day, and work for the day, when human society realigns itself with the radical love of God. In a truly democratic paradigm, there is no love of power for power’s sake.”

-Marianne Williamson

As quoted by bell hooks in “All About Love” Chapter 6, Values: Living By A Love Ethic, original text “The Healing of America” by Marianne Williamson, 1977