Poem of the day - Guide to the Other Gallery

Guide to the Other Gallery

by Dana Gioia 

 

This is the hall of broken limbs
Where splintered marble athletes lie
Beside the arms of cherubim.
Nothing is ever thrown away.

These butterflies are set in rows.
So small and gray inside their case
They look alike now. I suppose
Death makes most creatures commonplace.

These portraits here of the unknown
Are hung three high, frame piled on frame.
Each potent soul who craved renown,
Immortalized without a name.

Here are the shelves of unread books,
Millions of pages turning brown.
Visitors wander through the stacks,
But no one ever takes one down.

I wish I were a better guide.
There’s so much more that you should see—
Rows of bottles with nothing inside,
Displays of locks which have no key.

You’d like to go? I wish you could.
This room has such a peaceful view.
Look at that case of antique wood
Without a label. It’s for you.

 

“Guide to the Other Gallery” by Dana Gioia from 99 Poems.

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Song by Allen Ginsberg

Photo by Aileen Devlin

 SONG

The weight of the world
             is love.
Under the burden
             of solitude,
under the burden
             of dissatisfaction

             the weight,
the weight we carry
             is love.

Who can deny?
             In dreams
it touches
             the body,
in thought
             constructs
a miracle,
             in imagination
anguishes
             till born
in human—

looks out of the heart
             burning with purity—
for the burden of life
             is love,
but we carry the weight
             wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
             at last,
must rest in the arms
             of love.
No rest
             without love,
no sleep
             without dreams
of love—
             be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
             or machines,
the final wish
             is love
—cannot be bitter,
             cannot deny,
cannot withhold
             if denied:

the weight is too heavy

             —must give
for no return
             as thought
is given
             in solitude
in all the excellence
             of its excess.

The warm bodies
             shine together
in the darkness,
             the hand moves
to the center
             of the flesh,
the skin trembles
             in happiness
and the soul comes
             joyful to the eye—

yes, yes,
             that’s what
I wanted,
             I always wanted,
I always wanted,
             to return
to the body
             where I was born.

"Song” by Allen Ginsberg from Collected Poems 1947-1980. © Harper Collins, 1981.

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The Divine Image

 

Photo by Aileen Devlin

The Divine Image

by William Blake

To Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
All pray in their distress:
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is God our father dear:
And Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is Man his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine
Love Mercy Pity Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

"The Divine Image” by William Blake. Public Domain

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Deceiving the Gods

Bast Collection photo by Aileen Devlin

Deceiving the Gods

by Ellen Bass 

 

The old Jews rarely admitted good fortune.
And if they did, they’d quickly add kinahora—
let the evil eye not hear. What dummkopf
would think the spirits were on our side?
But even in a tropical paradise
laden with sugarcane and coconut,
something like the shtetl’s wariness exists.
In Hawaii, I’m told, a fisherman
never spoke directly, lest the gods
arrive at the sea before him.
Instead he’d look to the sky,
the fast-moving clouds, and say,
I wonder if leaves are falling in the uplands!
Let us go and gather leaves.
So, my love, today let’s not talk at all.
Let’s be like those couples
eating silently in restaurants,
barely a word the entire meal.
We pitied them, but now I see
they were always so much smarter than we were.

"Deceiving the Gods” by Ellen Bass from Like a Beggar. © Copper Canyon Press, 2014. Pin It

The Bridge

Photo by Aileen Devlin

The Bridge

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I stood on the bridge at midnight,
      As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o’er the city,
      Behind the dark church-tower.

I saw her bright reflection
      In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
      And sinking into the sea.

And far in the hazy distance
      Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
      Gleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long, black rafters
      The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
      Seemed to lift and bear them away;

As, sweeping and eddying through them,
      Rose the belated tide,
And, streaming into the moonlight,
      The seaweed floated wide.

And like those waters rushing
      Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me
      That filled my eyes with tears.

How often, O, how often,
      In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
      And gazed on that wave and sky!

How often, O, how often,
      I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
      O’er the ocean wild and wide!

For my heart was hot and restless,
      And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
      Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me,
      It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
      Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river
      On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
      Comes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousands
      Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
      Have crossed the bridge since then.

I see the long procession
      Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
      And the old subdued and slow!

And forever and forever,
      As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
      As long as life has woes;

The moon and its broken reflection
      And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
      And its wavering image here.

“The Bridge” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Public Domain.

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Blessing of the Animals by Faith Shearin

At my daughter’s Catholic school there is
a blessing of the animals at which
the children line up with their fat hamsters
and gauzy goldfish, their dogs so old

they can barely climb the hill. They bring
their cats with bald patches
and their lizards sleeping in cages
under a fake sun. In the line
to the priest there are snakes

with white eyes and birds without songs.
 

There are ant farms and worms and rats
with long, exposed tails. The children
wait hours for their animals
to be blessed: for the priest’s hand

to hover over the weight they carry.

They bring shoe boxes full of turtles,
hairy spiders, frogs with dry skin.
I like watching my daughter

among the other children: her dog

small in her arms, her gaze protective.

Children believe in the power
of animals, tucked into their feathers
and shells; they believe

in blessings: the sprinkle
of holy water, each tiny
unexplained life.

Per The Writers Almanac

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The Blessing

Photo by Aileen Devlin, Model: Claire Fletcher for the Eilisain Jewelry Valkyrie Collection

The Blessing by John Updike

The room darkened, darkened until
our nakedness became a form of gray;
then the rain came bursting,
and we were sheltered, blessed,
upheld in a world of elements
that held us justified.
In all the love I had felt for you before,
in all that love,
there was no love
like that I felt when the rain began:
dim room, enveloping rush,
the slenderness of your throat,
the blessed slenderness.

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