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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A Red, Red Rose

Brigid Collection photoshoot, by Aileen Devlin

A Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns

O my Luve is like a red, red rose,
     That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody,
     That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
     So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
     Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
     And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
     While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare the weel, my only luve!
     And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
     Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

 

“A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns. Public domain.

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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

On the Shortest Days by Joyce Sutphen

Photo by Aileen Devlin.

On the Shortest Days

by Joyce Sutphen 

 

At almost four in the afternoon, the
wind picks up and sifts through the golden woods.

The tree trunks bronze and redden, branches
on fire in the heavy sky that flickers

with the disappearing sun. I wonder
what I owe the fading day, why I keep

my place at this dark desk by the window
measuring the force of the wind, gauging

how long a certain cloud will hold that pink
edge that even now has slipped into gray?

Quickly the lights are appearing, a lamp
in every window and nests of stars

on the rooftops. Ladders lean against the hills
and people climb, rung by rung, into the night.

“On the Shortest Days” by Joyce Sutphen from Modern Love & Other Myths. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2015.

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Never give all the heart

Photo by Aileen Devlin

Never give all the heart

by William Butler Yeats 

 

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

“Never give all the heart” by William Butler Yeats. Public Domain.

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Neither Out Far Nor In Deep

Photo by Bayardo Caceres, Model: Rosie Nova, Make up by Meagan Wilson

Neither Out Far Nor In Deep
by Robert Frost 

 

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be—
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?

“Neither Out Far Nor In Deep” by Robert Frost from Complete Poems of Robert Frost.

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The Living Tree

Photo by Aileen Devlin.

 Living Tree

by Robert Morgan

It’s said they planted trees by graves
to soak up spirits of the dead
through roots into the growing wood.
The favorite in the burial yards
I knew was common juniper.
One could do worse than pass into
such a species. I like to think
that when I’m gone the chemicals
and yes the spirit that was me
might be searched out by subtle roots
and raised with sap through capillaries
into an upright, fragrant trunk,
and aromatic twigs and bark,
through needles bright as hoarfrost to
the sunlight for a century
or more, in wood repelling rot
and standing tall with monuments
and statues there on the far hill,
erect as truth, a testimony,
in ground that’s dignified by loss,
around a melancholy tree
that’s pointing toward infinity.

“Living Tree” by Robert Morgan from Dark Energy. © Penguin, 2014.

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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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Night in Day

Samhain is drawing near, the time of year when Pagans honor their ancestors and pay homage to the dark time of the year.

Samhain (pronounced Sa-ween) is the basis of Halloween, which is (from records shown) the second biggest holiday in American culture.  We love it. 

I especially love this time of year more for the meaning of Samhain and celebration.  Honoring my ancestors has become a bigger part of my life for me; as I've gotten older I see and have learned how much of their lives is part of my own.  For example my grandmother in Panama, she used to love tarot cards and reading the signs but then she became a reformed Catholic.  I myself enjoy tarot cards.  My paternal grandmother made up the silliest rhymes, I do that now whenever I greet my cats or my boyfriend!

Anywho, to commemorate this special time of year, I'm working on a greeting card in my letterpress class that welcomes an audience to Samhain with an owl flying with a moon in the background, a short snippet of a prayer will also be on the cover.  I'm really looking forward to the finished product.

Here is a beautiful poem a friend shared with me several years ago that has a wonderful way of describing Autumn and the impending winter:

The Night never wants to end,

   to give itself over to light

Even on summer solstice,

  the day of lights great triumph,

Where fields of sunflower

  guzzle in the sun -

We break open the watermelon

  and spit out black seeds,

Bits of night glistening on the grass.

-By Joseph Stroud

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