Ode to Oakridge

November's Rotting Apples

Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?

By day, a mysterious wood, near the town,
breathes out cherry, a cherry perfume.
By night, on July’s sky, deep, and transparent,
new constellations are thrown.

And something miraculous will come
close to the darkness and ruin,
something no-one, no-one, has known,
though we’ve longed for it since we were children.

-- anna akhmatova

The last harvest

before the bulldozers come...

O Apricot Tree

If you were a woman,

you would have produced

enough offspring in your lifetime

to populate a planet-

a tastefully sized planet,

like Mercury or Venus-

inhabited by delicious people

not too sweet,

or tarted up,

with names like Goldilocks,

and Nectar,

who don't overdo it on

the perfume.

A world I prefer

over asphalt, concrete

and cookie-cutter houses,

any day, any lifetime.

...Find your flaws

endearing.

Given your pick

make it your flesh

you would choose

to inhabit.

-Samantha Rey

Leap

before you look...

Our dream of safety

has to disappear.

Happy Leap Day!

Leap Before You Look

The sense of danger must not disappear:

The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.

The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.

The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.

Much can be said for social savior-faire,
Bu to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.

-W.H. Auden

To Me & You

Love After Love

The time will come,

When with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Wolcott

(I think the title should be Love And Love,

but it isn't my poem...)

What is Poetry?

Little girl be careful what you say,

when you make talk with words, words--

(freedom and that other word, responsibility,

you can't have one and not the other.)

for words are made of syllables

and syllables, child, are made of air--

and air is so thin-- air is the breath of god....

--Carl Sandburg

A video montage by my friend, Trent Harris.