The Artist
~ Amy Lowell

Why do you subdue yourself in golds and purples?
Why do you dim yourself with folded silks?
Do you not see that I can buy brocades in any draper’s shop,
And that I am choked in the twilight of all these colors.
How pale you would be, and startling—
How quiet;
But your curves would spring upward
Like a clear jet of flung water,
You would quiver like a shot-up spray of water,
You would waver, and relapse, and tremble.
And I too should tremble,
Watching.

Murex-dyes and tinsel—
And yet I think I could bear your beauty unshaded.

Taken
~ Dorothy Walters

First, you must let your heart
be broken open
in a way you have never
felt before, cannot imagine.

You will
not know if what you are feeling
is anguish or joy,
something predestined
or merely old wounds
flowing once more,
reminders of all that is
unfinished in your life.

Something will flood into
your chest
like air sweetened by
desert honeysuckle,
love that is too strong.

You will stand there,
very still,
not seeing what this is.
Later, you will not remember
any of this
until the next time
when you will say,
yes, yes, I have known this before,
it has come again,
just as your lids close shut again.

Not a Thousand Prostrations
~ Dorothy Walters

(Inspired by Mary Oliver)

1.

You do not have to
change your name
in order for god
to love you.

You are not required to rise
at a certain hour
nor wear a robe
of a prescribed color
because that’s what
the others have chosen to do.

You needn’t make
the thousand prostrations
nor circumnavigate the holy mountain
a hundred times
nor dwell on an image
of an imaginary form
until you think
that being is who you are.

But you must wash your heart again and again
in the pure fountain where sanctity dwells.

You must cleanse your spirit many times over
in the cauldrons of love.

Only love, my friend,
can take you there.
Only the fiercest seekers
find the way.

2.

Still no one requires
that you be perfect,
that you turn away from the world
and live in a dark cavern
like a saint preparing to ascend.
Or that you stripe you back
with lashes, expiation
for the world’s gross blunders,
your own hidden miscalculations.

It isn’t even necessary
to be fully informed,
to know all about everything,
or even a single thing,
for that matter.

What is important
is to be who you are,
to come ahead
with your small allotment of wisdom
garnered through the years,
your residue of compassion
eager to be shared.

If you paused to feed the pigeons
in the park one day,
that will count for you.
If you saw what was happening
to the forest
or spoke out against the sullying
of the noble sea,
heard the cry of the children
or the rising drums of war
and raised your voice in protest,
that will suffice..

Meanwhile,
dance as naked as you can.
Breathe your secret breath.
Let the world’s warm currents
enter your body,
show you the way.
I CANNOT TELL YOU

I do not know
if god
is a thing
or a process,
or a being
or a presence.

I cannot tell you
how the world
was constructed,
or when it began
or by whom.

I cannot unravel
the tables of meaning,
the diagrams
and the scales of comparison,
the charts and the long explanations
of everything
that has ever been.

What I know is this:
this moment,
this kiss,
this infinite longing,
endless loving and being loved
by no one
who has a name
in a place
that does not exist

Villeggiature
~ Edith Nesbit

My window, framed in pear-tree bloom,
White-curtained shone, and softly lighted:
So, by the pear-tree, to my room
Your ghost last night climbed uninvited.

Your solid self, long leagues away,
Deep in dull books, had hardly missed me;
And yet you found this Romeo’s way,
And through the blossom climbed and kissed me.

I watched the still and dewy lawn,
The pear-tree boughs hung white above you;
I listened to you till the dawn,
And half forgot I did not love you.

Oh, dear! what pretty things you said,
What pearls of song you threaded for me!
I did not—till your ghost had fled—
Remember how you always bore me!

September
~ Deborah Landau