of politics, & art - a poem by norman dubie

Of Politics, & Art

Here, on the farthest point of the peninsula

The winter storm

Off the Atlantic shook the schoolhouse.

Mrs. Whitimore, dying

Of tuberculosis, said it would be after dark

Before the snowplow and bus would reach us.

She read to us from Melville.

How in an almost calamitous moment

Of sea hunting

Some men in an open boat suddenly found themselves

At the still and protected center

Of a great herd of whales

Where all the females floated on their sides

While their young nursed there. The cold frightened whalers

Just stared into what they allowed

Was the ecstatic lapidary pond of a nursing cow's

One visible eyeball.

And they were at peace with themselves.

Today I listened to a woman say

That Melville might

Be taught in the next decade. Another woman asked, "And why not?"

The first responded, "Because there are

No women in his one novel."

And Mrs. Whitimore was now reading from the Psalms.

Coughing into her handkerchief. Snow above the windows.

There was a blue light on her face, breasts and arms.

Sometimes a whole civilization can be dying

Peacefully in one young woman, in a small heated room

With thirty children

Rapt, confident and listening to the pure

God rendering voice of a storm.

Dubie, Norman. "Of Politics, & Art" The Best American Poetry 1990. Don Mills: Collier Macmillan Canada, Inc., 1990.

one more scott cairns poem for the road

After the Last Kiss

By now I'm dead. Make what you will of that.

But granted you are alive, you will need

to be making some more as well. Prayers

have been made, for instance but (trust me)

the dead are oblivious to such late sessions.

Settle instead for food, common meals of thick soup.

Invite your friends. Make lively conversation

among steaming bowls, lifting heavy spoons.

If there is bread (there really must be bread),

tear it coarsely and hand each guest his share

for intinction in the soup. Something to say?

Say it now. Let the napkin fall and stay.

Kiss each guest when it comes to time for parting.

They may be embarrassed, caught without wit

or custom. (See them shifting from foot to

foot at the open door?) Could be you will

repeat your farewells a time or two more

than seems fit. But had you not embraced them

at such common departures, your prayers will

fall as dry crumbs, nor will they comfort you.

Cairns, Scott. "After the Last Kiss" philokalia: new & selected poems. Lincoln, Nebraska: Zoo Press, 2002.

a poem by heberto padilla

A Fountain, a House of Stone

(Zurbaran)

A fountain, a house of stone,
a bridge, a chapel with a weather vane
and a squeaking hinge in the door,
a road bordered by flowers
and, farther on, a river.

Can we describe the world this way,
eyes wide open, shoes up on the table
with a dusky halo like a lantern,
and the still face, distant and ever-demanding,
nailing us down with its eyes,
hunting down in our innards
the cowardly swagger of allegory?
It is possible. The world can be described
in any way you like. You might
come out with one last twist of the facts, as they say,
our last coin
to take us back again to that river
that attends our childhood as it does old age.
One might cross the bridge
among the bamboo which creaks once again
like a bridge across a river,
in such a way that the hinge we have hung on to
since we were children
becomes stronger as time passes.
The house, the road bordered by flowers, and the chapel
thereby belong to us,
or we belong to them. It's all the same.

Translated from the Spanish by the Alastair Reid and Alexander Coleman

Padilla, Heberto. "A Fountain, a House of Stone" The Vintage Book of Contemporary Poetry. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.

a poem by henrik nordbrandt

and yes. he's danish. like hamlet.

No Matter Where We Go

No matter where we go, we always arrive too late

to experience what we left to find.

And in whatever cities we stay

it is the houses where it is too late to return

the gardens where it's too late to spend a moonlit night

and the women whom it's too late to love

that disturb us with their intangible presence.

And whatever streets we think we know

take us past the gardens we are searching for

whose heavy fragrance spreads throughout the neighborhood.

And whatever houses we return to

we arrive too late at night to be recognized.

And in whatever rivers we look for our reflections

we see ourselves only when we have turned our backs.

Translated from the Danish by the author and Alexander Taylor

Nordbrandt, Henrik. "No Matter Where We Go" The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.

another poem by scott cairns

Imperative

The thing to remember is how

tentative all of this really is.

You could wake up dead.

Or the woman you love

could decide you're ugly.

Maybe she'll finally give up

trying to ignore the way

you floss your teeth as you

watch television. All I'm saying

is that there are no sure things here.

I mean, you'll probably wake up alive,

and she'll probably keep putting off

any actual decision about your looks.

Could be she'll be glad your teeth

are so clean. The morning could

be full of all the love and kindness

you need. Just don't go thinking

you deserve any of it.

Cairns, Scott. "Imperative" philokalia: new & selected poems. Lincoln, Nebraska: Zoo Press, 2002.