Friday, June 27, 2025

 

               REMAINDER

  

I dreamed that Science would relieve my pain;

And through the weary night I tossed and turned,

Tormented by utopian concerns

To satisfy all cravings in my brain—

Surmount the bounds of space and time and strain

With brave new breakthroughs of Technology:

When suddenly, all Nature turned on me

The elements I thought that I had tamed!

Consumed with fire, choked in a watery grave,

By earth’s upheavals torn, I gasped for breath;

As every atom of which these were made

Split open, to reveal the jaws of death—

But in the twisted ruins of my toys,

Compassion stood, of all things undestroyed.

Monday, June 23, 2025

 

TO A VIRGINIA BLUEBELL

  

You nod to me across the trail

That runs before my garden seat.

With clustered bells of blue you greet

My visit with a subtle peal.

 

You wave your frolic fans of green

So gaily, as if you had met

Some kinsman or awaited yet

A long lost friend to grace the scene.

 

A friend indeed this scene has graced,

Projecting in his mental sight

A sphere within which Nature’s face

Beams out as with a mirror’s light.

 

Long lost no more, now recognized,

My roots beside yours in the earth,

Together we unite in mirth—

While botanists but classify.

 

Some people blow that way and this,

Whichever way the wind doth blow:

Some people fly like April snow,

And say you have no consciousness—

 

Unlike themselves, whose knowledge glues

Each specimen with abstract frame.

They see things but as things are named:

Myself, I share one Mind with you.

 

And I to you must nod my head,

Assenting with the voice of Spring

That tinkles from my bells and sings

Blue music in our flower bed!

 

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

 

SHAKESPEARE

 

The Master strolled upon the beach,

And stooped to find

Among the shells washed up in heaps,

Mere husks of Mind—

 

Selecting them to suit his sense

Of what would score

To entertain an audience

That roared for more.

 

But did he ever come to know

Whence flowed his Art?

In all his dramas and his poems,

This plays no part.

 

For I have put him to the test,

And placed his shell

Beside my ear, and tried to guess

What he might tell.

 

But past the echoes of his voice

I could not hear.

Though all his Art made me rejoice,

The end was clear:

 

To charm me whilst he struts his hour

Upon the stage—

His tales evolved by the same power

My dreams engage.

 

Then I to that source of wisdom

As close may stand,

Or closer than he to the stream

That moved his hand.

 

Refute me with my own poor lines:

This dog, perforce,

Devours the carcass of the lion

And barks his roar.

 

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

 

   JUST LIKE AMERICA

  

Smarting with five wasp stings,

I strolled about Westminster Hall

through the rambling cemetery,

comparing the two graves of Poe--

 

while towering behind the church,

like an upstart promoted to supervisor,

a newly constructed office building

sneered down upon the Conqueror Worm.

 

That day was the Fourth of July.

That evening, in the Inner Harbor,

families huddled under umbrellas,

craned at fireworks in a drizzle.

 

Rockets soared from a nearby barge,

exploding just like America;

while above and beyond Federal Hill

and the Museum of Visionary Art,

 

another barge blew its pyrotechnics,

as in some parallel universe.

Slowly the rain soaked into the earth,

the grass, and the two graves of Poe.

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

 

          LIGHT SELLS

  

The agent told us to leave on a lamp

And open all the blinds. “Light sells,” she said.

“Stuffed animals that cluster on the bed,

Those pictures of the family: they stamp

The house with you and yours. When people tramp

The premises, they fail to see themselves,

Distracted by your knick-knacks on the shelves.

But light and empty space correct that slant.”

 

The Light is what I follow; so it seems

A quite appealing tactic to employ--

Though I have on occasion been deceived

By such displays as pledge domestic joy

That can be sold and bought and then possessed.

As time goes by, they fool me less and less.

  LAO TSU RETURNS FROM THE FRONTIER GATE                           FOR AN ENCORE   The perfect stranger is like water. pure as the v...