The Way My Mother Explained the Rain

Oh, I dunno. Heaven's way of washing a filthy planet?
she'd say on days the laundry pile disgusted her.

So farmers can grow more veggies for us to waste!
she'd sing, pointing her fork at my steamed spinach.

And the month my older brother ran away: Well . . .
I guess sometimes even God needs a good cry.

She's gone. But I've taken up explaining things her way.

            For example:

In 1907, a physician determined a soul weighs 21.3 grams
by remeasuring the mass of recently deceased bodies.

And the average raindrop weighs 0.034 grams.

Therefore, one soul needs more than 626 raindrops
to carry it. Should it wish to travel in the form of rain.

             Or:

An umbrella is a flimsy shield used to protect your soul
from the invasion of bodiless souls disguised as rain.

            And:

I don't own an umbrella because I look better wet.
And in case my mother's been trying to reach me.

 

 

--Michael Montlack

 

Two Poems

About Joy and Loss

A branch of bay laurel
        blends in elegance with dark mist,
alongside rivers, ten thousand peach trees
        blossom red in the rain.

For now, let's get drunk with celebratory cups of wine
        and leave your sad gazing behind—
from ancient times until now,
        sorrow and joy have been just the same.

 

 Farewell

Flexible, without its own form,
        water settles into what holds it.
Clouds arise from no-mind,
        but they are willing to return.
Spring winds spread melancholy
        over the river as the sun descends—
separated from her companions,
        a wild duck flies alone. 

--Yu Xuanji Translated from the Chinese by Peter Levitt and Rebecca Nie

Dorothy,

Trees, light, weather, people

Millions of warm vibrating chords

Chance threads woven together in coordinated movement

I close my eyes and try to feel my blood pumping

Instead I feel you, walking miles, melting into hills and flowers

The simple power of circling a lake

You knew how to lose yourself, how to leave space

Walking to find a way to be whole

Bird song, leaves rustling

I fall into this moment, my atoms spun just so

This heartbeat is not mine alone

Two bodies walking

Two layers of sound in motion together, hundreds of years apart

Words stored deep in muscle-memory

Carried in hunger, in bruises

Reflected back by grass, branches, rocks

How do I get this voice out of me?

 

 

--Garth Graeper

 

Anything Can Happen

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven's weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

 

 

--Horace

Translated by Seamus Heaney

 

Poem

Whenever I feel loss or lack, I imagine 
The wind roaming outside of my childhood’s lair
—as I am a child again, with my red knapsack 
bouncing lightly on my back— 
Beckoning me to run to it, into its slurry white expanse . . .
And in my heart, I am already on my way 
To some thrilling future 
Which is not yet weak and diluted with a lonely pain.
There, I am someone who wishes to be 
An exception and I am. A third and ringing note 
Edges the banal alternatives of 
Yes, and No. A lyric possibility rises 
Everywhere and at once, a thousand roses—allusive, corrosive.
Think how much you must change. Even more than you dare. 

--Sandra Lim

* * *

And that which was 'I' 

is only a word

in the darkness of December's mouth

--Tomas Transtromer

translated by Robin Robertson

The Pogues - Fairytale Of New York

For S. You sent this to me years ago, remember? I can't sign in to reply in your blog. Be well, stay alive. Until the next stop on the road. Love