Praises

Unknown

Praises



The vegetables please us with their modes and virtues.
                                                                                 The demure heart
Of the lettuce inside its circular court, baroque ear
Of quiet under its rustling house of lace, pleases
Us.
       And the bold strength of the celery, its green Hispanic
!Shout! its exclamatory confetti.

                                                      And the analogue that is Onion:
Ptolemaic astronomy and tearful allegory, the Platonic circles
Of His inexhaustible soul!
                                           O and the straightforwardness
In the labyrinth of Cabbage, the infallible rectitude of Homegrown Mushroom
Under its cone of silence like a papal hat -
                                                                       All these
Please us.

                  And the syllabus of the corn,
                                                                  that wampum,
                                                                                            its golden
Roads leading out of the wigwams of its silky and youthful smoke;
The nobility of the dill, cool in its silences and cathedrals;
Tomatoes five-alarm fires in their musky barrios, peas
Asleep in their cartridge clips
                                                  beetsblood,
                                                                      colonies of the imperial
Cauliflower, and the buddha-like seeds of the pepper
Turning their prayerwheels in the green gloom of their caves.
All these we praise: they please us all ways: these smallest virtues.
All these earth-given;
                                    and the heaven-hung fruit also...

                                                                                          As instance
Banana which continually makes angelic ears out of sour
Purses, or the winy abacus of the holy grape on its cross
Of alcohol, or the peach with its fur like a youg girl's -
All these we praise: the winter in the flesh of the apple, and the sun
Domesticated under the orange's rind.

                                                                       We praise
By the skin of our teeth, Persimmon, and Pawpaw's constant
Affair with gravity, and the proletariat of the pomegranate
Inside its leathery city.

                                      And let us praise all these
As they please us: skin, flesh, flower, and the flowering
Bones of their seeds: from which come orchards: bees: honey:
Flowers, love's language, love, heart's ease, poems, praise.



Thomas McGrath
 
 
I can't help but think of Pablo Neruda. Who else would praise a vegetable so? Well McGrath has taken a stab at it. The thought of a lettuce as a circular court, a house of rustling lace, it does please me. Celery like an exclamation, an onion with its Platonic circles, the labyrinth of cabbage – it doesn't even take a poet to recognize that similarity – but I love “the nobility of the dill, cool in its silences and cathedrals” - that is very very like how I have felt standing next to the dill plant in my mother's garden in the days when it still grew taller than me. “The sun domesticated under the orange's rind”, oh but I have the best painting of that to include here, if only I had the room. Yes, the “green gloom” of the pepper's cave, yes! How pleasing are these? Let us praise them – masterpieces that they are. Is it possible that with practice our praise could be as proficient as Pablo's and McGrath's? I'd like to think so.

The Snow-Shower

Tsuchiya Koitsu

The Snow-Shower

Stand here by my side and turn, I pray, 

   On the lake below, thy gentle eyes;

The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray, 

   And dark and silent the water lies;

And out of that frozen mist the snow 

In wavering flakes begins to flow;

                            Flake after flake 

They sink in the dark and silent lake.

See how in a living swarm they come 

   From the chambers beyond that misty veil;

Some hover awhile in air, and some 

   Rush prone from the sky like summer hail.

All, dropping swiftly or settling slow, 

Meet, and are still in the depths below;

                            Flake after flake 

Dissolved in the dark and silent lake.

Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud, 

   Come floating downward in airy play,

Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd 

   That whiten by night the milky way;

There broader and burlier masses fall; 

The sullen water buries them all–

                            Flake after flake–

All drowned in the dark and silent lake.

And some, as on tender wings they glide 

   From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray,

Are joined in their fall, and, side by side, 

   Come clinging along their unsteady way;

As friend with friend, or husband with wife, 

Makes hand in hand the passage of life;

                            Each mated flake 

Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake.

Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste 

   Stream down the snows, till the air is white,

As, myriads by myriads madly chased, 

They fling themselves from their shadowy height.

   The fair, frail creatures of middle sky, 

What speed they make, with their grave so nigh;

                            Flake after flake, 

To lie in the dark and silent lake!

I see in thy gentle eyes a tear; 

   They turn to me in sorrowful thought;

Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear, 

   Who were for a time, and now are not;

Like these fair children of cloud and frost, 

That glisten a moment and then are lost,

                            Flake after flake–

All lost in the dark and silent lake.

Yet look again, for the clouds divide; 

   A gleam of blue on the water lies;

And far away, on the mountain-side, 

   A sunbeam falls from the opening skies,

But the hurrying host that flew between 

The cloud and the water, no more is seen;

                            Flake after flake, 

At rest in the dark and silent lake.

William Cullen Bryant

 

To pause and notice all the various qualities of a thing, its appearance, its effect, the way it calls to mind other beings and ideas - how often do we slow down enough to do this? And how much of life do we miss because we skim over and through it? A poem like this one shows me how little practice I have in savoring life. The way Bryant takes his time, turns his rhyme so thoughtfully, moves so mesmerically through them, makes me want to do the same. Appreciation and poetry take time. I need to re-learn how to take my time.

The Instinct of Hope

Unknown

The Instinct of Hope

Is there another world for this frail dust

To warm with life and be itself again?

Something about me daily speaks there must,

And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?

'Tis nature's prophesy that such will be,

And everything seems struggling to explain

The close sealed volume of its mystery.

Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace

As seeming anxious of eternity,

To meet that calm and find a resting place.

E'en the small violet feels a future power

And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,

And surely man is no inferior flower

To die unworthy of a second spring?

John Clare

 "Why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?" Now that's a good question.
(John Clare! The more of his poems I read, the more I like them.) This line - "everything seems struggling to explain/the close sealed volume of its mystery."  A hidden-in-plain-sight secret? If all of nature dies, or lies dormant, hibernates, but "feels a future power", should we not trust to this also? I like that "surely man is no inferior flower". We have dormant seasons too; times of holding back, of waiting, of saying goodbye, of letting go. And all these are a kind of preparation, a storing up - of strength? of hope? of "future power"? Nature shows us faithfully, year after year, a new season is coming.

Winter Storm

Aleksey Zuev

winter storm:

the peering cat

squints and blinks

Yaso

from Snow Falling From a Bamboo Leaf: The Art of Haiku

by Hiag Akmakjian

There’s something about a cat. A cat sitting in a window, watching the world, observing each detail. The stillness of a cat, alert but relaxed.  Like in the poem "Pax" ,by D.H. Lawrence, where the cat embodies a sense of belonging. It slips into place, and rests. How I admire that! To watch and rest until the time for action? To not be anxious or tense? To be one's self and trust. How beautiful.