The loved ones we call the dead
depart from us and for a while
are absent. And then as if
called back by our love, they come
near us again. They enter our dreams.
We feel they have been near us
when we have not thought of them.
They are simply here, simply waiting
while we are distracted among
our obligations. At last
it comes to us: They live now
in the permanent world.
We are the absent ones.–Wendell Berry
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When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such grey clouds of incense rose
That only God’s eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew,
But flame on flame, and deep on deep,
Throne over throne where in half sleep,
Their swords upon their iron knees,
Brood her high lonely mysteries.
1899
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
1889
My dad had too few kids to field wiffle ball, so
he introduced me to the Ghost Man. Suppose
I found myself stuck at second base
when it came my time to bat: The Ghost Man
could take my place, continuing my parade
around the bases
Of all the ghosts
my parents left to me, this Ghost Man
serves me best — see the hurled ball
pass right through him, watch him score
a shred of glory in my name. Long after dusk
has eaten the Midwestern backyard
barely large enough to hold this game,
years after the players have gathered
the Frisbee & pie plate bases & have gone
their separate ways, the Ghost Man runs —
is still running — through the diamond-
shaped cycle that I taught him: toward & away
from home, toward & away from home.
From Ghost Man on Second, 2024
According to Ethan Molick, this is one of the poems that LLMs recently told him best express their situation..
By Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated By Stephen Mitchell
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
The most popular choice of the AIs was actuall Borges' The Golem, a poem I have always disliked and which I think fits the situation of an LLM much worse than you might think from the title.
even
a small purple artichoke
boiled
in its own bittered
and darkening waters
grows tender, grows tender and sweet
patience I think,
my species,
keep testing the spiny leaves,
the spiny heart
– Jane Hirshfield
A "villanelle", in 19th-century poetic parlance, was a very structured 19-line form based on Italian popular song; the first and third lines must repeat in a standard pattern. Many modern poets have tried their hand at them, but of those I have read, this is my favorite.
Head toward the exit if you can.
Smiling, pointing at the dollar seats,
we crawled beneath the tent. They pulled us in,
gave us candy bars, red paper fans,
free soda pop, though we were clearly cheats.
Head toward the exit if you can.
We tried to leave it, once the show began,
ducked below the bleachers and the feet.
We crawled beneath the tent. They pulled us in.
The players caught us even though we ran,
Gave us better places and more sweets.
Head toward the exit if you can.
They masked us, made us join the caravan
to ride their cycles, wheeling in dead heat.
We crawled beneath the tent. They pulled us in.
The circus is on fire to a man.
The band is clowning out some new retreats.
Head toward the exit if you can.
We crawled beneath the tent. They pulled us in.
1924
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the ranks of the
Angels? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly to his heart I would be devoured
by his more potent being. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror which we are still just able to endure,
and we stand in wonder because it coolly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terrifying.
And so I grip myself and choke down that call note
of dark sobbing. Ah, whom can we turn to
in our need? Not Angels, not humans,
and the sly animals see at once
how little at home we are
in the interpreted world. Perhaps there remains for us
some tree on a slope, to which our eyes return
day after day; there remains for us yesterday’s street
and the coddled loyalty of an old habit
that liked it here, lingered, and never left.
O and the night, the night, when the wind full of worldspace
gnaws at our faces—, for whom won’t the night be there,
desired, softly disappointing, setting hard tasks
for the single heart. It is easier on lovers?
Ah, they only use each other to mask their fates.
You still don’t see? Fling the emptiness in your arms
out into the spaces we breathe; perhaps the birds
will feel the increase of air with more passionate flight.
1912, pastiche of various translations
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.
Spring View
Translated by Arthur Sze
The nation is broken, but hills and rivers remain.
Spring is in the city, grasses and trees are thick.
Touched by the hard times, flowers shed tears.
Grieved by separations, birds are startled in their hearts.
The beacon fires burned for three straight months.
A letter from home would be worth ten thousand pieces of gold.
As I scratch my white head, the hairs become fewer:
so scarce that I try in vain to fasten them with a pin.
Thwarted
Translated by Carolyn Kizer
Thwarted, old friend! We have been baulked again.
Though we live at opposite ends of the same lane
We haven’t seen each other for ten whole days.
I returned my Official Horse to the local authorities
And the road is rotten, like a deliberate plot.
An obstacle course! Now, thanks to my lack of credit
I can’t even rent a carriage, though I still have shoes.
But what if my department head caught me afoot?
Taking such risks with protocol, face, future!
You know I’d walk through brambles to get to you.
By morning the rain is furious. I’m resigned.
Though I’ve raved like the spring wind, in my sleep.
Now I’m deaf to the ring-bell and the bang-drum,
The summons to Court. Next door a lame donkey grazes.
A complaisant neighbor owns him, lends him. Ho!
But I daren’t ride the beast in the slick mud.
Not to that slippery Palace! Let them mark me absent.
Life is one long, fragmented, murky episode.
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.
1940
All I did was hide. I made myself so small
I could not be touched. I knew each player
by what they thought was invisible — the twice-tapped
cleat on the batter’s box back line, the little prayer
one whispered: deliver me this, & I will deliver this
for you. I watched their anxiety — how lonely it felt,
how lonely it always is to witness someone
turn their worry into the twitching of a finger,
something muttered, a glance to the sky as if the sky
might forgive each of us our wrongs.
The sky brought the light that hid the ball.
The sky threw shadows I called a curveball through.
When the pain came, I wondered why.
They pulled the chips from my joint & I kept them
in a glass. Look, I know. What isn’t broken
just isn’t broken yet. Jesus, I know. & someone
can spend their whole life hiding away their grief
& then find themselves crying in the dairy aisle of a store
while they hold the mint chip & vanilla,
because the mystery is gone, & with it, hope,
because someone said you don’t have a choice, said
you have to stop, & they were right, & you thought
they were wrong, & you spent your paycheck on tiger balm
& beer, rubbing each into your body until you felt
like liquid poured from a kaleidoscope.
I don’t get it. How what you love can kill you,
even if you spend your whole life loving it.
Even if you love it small. Even if you curl up in its palm.
Somewhere now, someone is whispering a list
of everything they’re scared of but no one
seems to hear them. Somewhere now, the wind
cuts through a promise being made, & breaks it.
There’s that story of the man who walked into the light
&, because of the light, could not see a thing.
Who played that trick on us, that long & lonely trick?
* * *
Devin Kelly is a high school teacher living in New York City.
Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, c. 315 AD
Emperor Valerian, having been made prisoner by the Persians, lost not only that power which he had exercised without restraint, but also the liberty of which he had deprived others, and he wasted the remainder of his days in the vilest condition of slavery. Shapur, the king of the Persians, who had made him prisoner, whenever he chose to get into his carriage or to mount on horseback, commanded the Roman to stoop and present his back; then, setting his foot on the shoulders of Valerian, he said, with a smile of reproach, "This is true, and not what the Romans boast of." Valerian lived for a considerable time under the insults of his conqueror.Valerian the Fallen
I see philosophers with lenses and crucibles burning libraries of old wisdom and building temples to new revelations.
I see machines like iron bulls that belch forth smoke and do the work of fifty men.
I see plebeians breaking down the palace gates, not to name a new man king but to proclaim an end to kingship.
When the shah’s foot stomps my back I see ships of fire sailing to the stars, and men walking on other worlds.
I do not choose to die because even as a footstool I behold the wonder and majesty of creation, and with every breath I praise the gods who brought me here to share their gift.
– John Bedell, September 2023
The highway is full of big cars going nowhere fast
And folks is smoking anything that'll burn
Some people wrap their lives around a cocktail glass
And you sit wondering,
Where you're going to turn.
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.
Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomrrow
And some give it a week or two
The paper is full of every kind of blooming horror
And you sit wondering'
Whay you're gonna do.
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.
Red begonias stricken by frost –
listen: they nail plywood sheets and complete the garage decking–
swarmed by mosquitoes, you wander hot, thirsty, disoriented in a palm forest–
you have blooded your hands on barbed wire–
after a snowfall, you inhale starlight while standing in an orchard–
you have had three operations to repair a torn elbow–
green mist rising from leafing willows–
running across a dune of white sand, you discover a pile of oryx bones–
they stack elephant tusks in a pyramid and set them on fire–
you have staggered out of a house in flames and lived to say this–
you have been thrust by rifle butt to a river and heard someone shout, "Swim!"–
the grass turns to yellow-gold stalks–
minutes replete with the noise of honeybees–
minutes replete with river gold–
asleep, she rides the waves of her breath onto the shore of your shoulder–
you coil hoses and haul them to a barn–
you have loved, hated, imagined, despaired, and the fugitive colors existence have quickened in your body–
after seventy years, you write with shivering memory into the sunrise–
In the August 7 New Yorker
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist’ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful ev’ning mild; then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glist’ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful ev’ning mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.
Milton, Paradise Lost
Tang Dynasty poem and quick primer on Chinese philosophy.
Substance speaks to Shadow:
Heaven and Earth exist for ever:
Mountains and rivers never change.
But herbs and trees in perpetual rotation
Grow and are withered by the dews and frosts:
And Man the wise, Man the divine—
Shall he alone escape this law?
Appearing by chance for a moment in the World
He suddenly departs, never to return.
How can he know that the friends he has left
Miss him and think of him?
Only the things that he used remain;
Friends look upon them and their tears flow.
Me no magical arts can save,
Though you may hope for a wizard’s aid.
I beg you listen to this advice—
When you can get wine, drink it.
Shadow replies:
There is no way to preserve life.
Drugs of Immortality are instruments of folly.
I would gladly wander in Paradise,
But it is far away and there is no road.
Since the day that I was joined to you
We have shared all our joys and pains.
While you rested in the shade, I left you a while:
But till the end we shall be together.
Our joint existence is impermanent:
Sadly together we shall slip away.
That when the body decays Fame should also go
Is a thought unendurable, burning the heart.
Let us strive and labour while yet we may
To do some deed that men will praise.
Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow,
But how compare it with lasting Fame?
Spirit expounds:
God can only set in motion:
He cannot control the things he has made.
Man, the second of the Three Orders,
Owes his precedence to Me.
Though I am different from you,
We were born involved in one another:
Nor by any means can we escape
The intimate sharing of good and ill.
The Three Emperors were saintly men,
Yet to-day—where are they?
P’ēng lived to a great age,
Yet he went at last, when he longed to stay.
And late or soon, all go:
Wise and simple have no reprieve.
Wine may bring forgetfulness,
But does it not hasten old-age?
If you set your hearts on noble deeds,
How do you know that any will praise you?
By all this thinking you do Me injury:
You had better go where Fate leads—
Drift on the Stream of Infinite Change,
Without joy, without fear:
When you must go—then go,
And make as little fuss as you can.
– Tao Yuanming (c. 365-427). Translated by Arthur Whaley
In my youth the heart of dawn was in my heart, and the songs of April were in my ears.
But my soul was sad unto death, and I knew not why. Even unto this day I know not why I was sad.
But now, though I am with eventide, my heart is still veiling dawn,
And though I am with autumn, my ears still echo the songs of spring.
But my sadness has turned into awe, and I stand in the presence of life and life’s daily miracles. . . .
In my youth I was sad indeed, and all things seemed dark and distant.
Today, all is radiant and near, and for this I would live my youth and the pain of my youth, again and yet again.
1926
The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life.
– Seamus Heaney, Elegy for Robert Lowell, 1979
