Still There

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ART :: ADELINE JESSICA CRITES-MOORE (about age 9)

THE PEAR by Jane Hirshfield

November. One pear   
sways on the tree past leaves, past reason.
In the nursing home, my friend has fallen.   
Chased, he said, from the freckled woods
by angry Thoreau, Coleridge, and Beaumarchais.
Delusion too, it seems, can be well read.
He is courteous, well-spoken even in dread.
The old fineness in him hangs on   
for dear life. “My mind now?
A small ship under the wake of a large.
They force you to walk on your heels here,
the angles matter. Four or five degrees,
and you’re lost.” Life is dear to him yet,   
though he believes it his own fault he grieves,
his own fault his old friends have turned against him
like crows against an injured of their kind.
There is no kindness here, no flint of mercy.
Descend, descend,
some voice must urge, inside the pear stem.
The argument goes on, he cannot outrun it.
Dawnlight to dawnlight, I look: it is still there.

(In celebration of National Poetry Month, I am sharing a poem each day this month ... except for the past two days, which I missed.)

Memoir

MEMOIR by Vijay Seshadri

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.
The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.
If I wrote that story now ---
radioactive to the end of time ---
people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn’t peel
the gloves fast enough
from your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.
Your poor hands. Your poor eyes
to see me weeping in my room
or boring the tall blonde to death.
Once I accused the innocent.
Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.
I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.
And one October afternoon, under a locust tree
whose blackened pods were falling and making
illuminating patterns on the pathway,
I was seized by joy,
and someone saw me there,
and that was the worst of all,
lacerating and unforgettable.

I am sharing a poem each day, in celebration of National Poetry Month. Today's poem is from Vijay Seshadri's latest book, 3 Sections, which was just announced as the winner of the 2014 Pulizter Prize for poetry. 

One Last Day

A Dog's Life by Daniel Groves

A stay of execution: one last day,
your day, old Everydog, then, as they say,
or as we say (a new trick to avoid
finalities implicit in destroyed),
you have to be put down, or put to sleep—
the very dog who, once, would fight to keep
from putting down, despite our shouts, a shoe
until he gnawed it to the sole, and who
would sit up, through our sleepless nights, to bark
away some menace looming in the dark.

Can you pick up the sense of all this talk?
Or do you still just listen for a walk,
or else, the ultimate reward, a car?—
My God, tomorrow's ride . . . Well, here we are,
right now. You stare at me and wag your tail.
I stare back, dog-like, big and dumb. Words fail.
No more commands, ignore my monologue,
go wander off. Good dog. You're a good dog.
And you could never master, anyway,
the execution, as it were, of Stay

(In celebration of National Poetry Month, I am sharing a poem each day this month.)

Something doesn't happen as it should

CAT IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT by Wisława Szymborska
translated from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

Die—you can’t do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here
but nothing is the same.
Nothing’s been moved
but there’s more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.

Footsteps on the staircase,
but they’re new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.

Something doesn’t start 
at its usual time.
Something doesn’t happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.

Every closet’s been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken:
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.

Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle toward him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and no leaps or squeals at least to start.

(In celebration of National Poetry Month, I am sharing a poem each day this month.)

A pain so utter

POEM by Emily Dickinson

There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows being up—
Then covers the abyss with trance—
So memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop him—bone by bone.

(In celebration of National Poetry Month, I am sharing a poem each day this month.)

Butterfly

Butterfly by Shashikant Nishant Sharma

O butterfly, butterfly
Teach us to fly
We want to reach the sky
Touch the milky moon
And play with stars
O butterfly, butterfly
Teach us how and why
You are so beautiful
We want to beautify
Ourselves like you
And attract attention of all
O butterfly, butterfly
Tell us the way
In which we may
Make ourselves colourful
And we may be playful
We want to be cheerful
O butterfly, butterfly
Tell us the secrets
Of your beauty
Unveil the mystery
How do you fly
We want to fly
Like you beautiful butterfly
O butterfly, butterfly 

(In celebration of National Poetry Month, I am sharing a poem each day this month.)