Even after all this time

the sun never says 

to the earth

"you owe me."

look what happens

with a love like that,

it lights

the whole sky.

Hafiz.

Photo from here

I was raised in the company of dolls.

My mother the miniaturist,

made pies the size of dolls.

My father, the shadowboxer,

talked only to the dark.

No one here remembers

the love of a chair for its ottoman

or the privacy of a shut door.

Windows grieve in their sashes.

They burn with interior light,

like blood oranges.

Imagine: a dollhouse in every room—

in every room, another room,

in every girl, another girl

looking out a tiny window,

her face repeated on the glass.

As two who could not pretend

to love each other,

we stared through grief.

Pupil, poupée, little doll

orphaned by the iris of my eye:

what did you see, what did you see

but that other girl in me,

the door to whose post was nailed

the smallest coffin,

hiding the name of God inside

like the rust in the mouth.

Preface. Robin Ekiss. The Mansion of Happiness.

wishlist

From Chapter E:

Westerners revere the Greek legends. Versemen retell the represented events, the resplendent scenes, where, hellbent, the Greek freemen seek revenge whenever Helen, the new-wed empress, weeps. Restless, she deserts her fleece bed where, detested, her wedded regent sleeps. When she remembers Greece, her seceded demesne, she feels wretched, left here, bereft, her needs never met. She needs rest; nevertheless, her demented fevers render her sleepless (her sleeplessness enfeebles her). She needs help; nevertheless her stressed nerves render her cheerless (her cheerlessness enfetters her).

Eunoia is the shortest word in English containing all five vowels - and it means "beautiful thinking". It is also the title of Canadian poet Christian Bok's book of fiction in which each chapter uses only one vowel.

He remembered

the books of poetry upon his shelves at home. He had bought them in his bachelor days and many an evening, as he sat in the little room of the hall, he had been tempted to take one down from the bookshelf and read out something to his wife. But shyness always held him back; and so the books had remained on their shelves.

“A Little Cloud”. Dubliners. James Joyce.

waiting booth

A star looks down at me,

And says: 'Here I and you

Stand, each in our degree:

What do you mean to do, -

Mean to do?'

I say: 'For all I know,

Wait, and let Time go by,

Till my change come,' - 'Just so,'

The star says: 'So mean I: -

So mean I.'

Thomas Hardy. Waiting Booth.

In Europe life retreats out of the cold,

and exquisite fireside myths have resulted—Balder, Persephone—but [in India] the retreat is from the source of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them.

E.M. Forster. A Passage to India.

This is just to say

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold This is just to say.William Carlos Williams.

Catch! calls the Once-ler.

He lets something fall.

It's a Truffula Seed.
It's the last one of all!
You're in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.
And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax
and all of his friends
may come back.

Dr. Seuss.The Lorax.

I wake to sleep

and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

T.Roethke. From The Waking.

Among other things, you'll find

that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them--if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.

J.D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye.

Our union is like this:

You feel cold, so I reach for a blanket to cover our shivering feet.
A hunger comes into your body, so I run to my garden and start digging potatoes.
You asked for a few words of comfort and guidance, and I quickly kneel by your side offering you a whole book as a gift.
You ache with loneliness one night so much you weep, and I say here is a rope, tie it around me, I will be your companion for life.

Our Union by Hafiz. The most beloved poet of Persia.

This grove is wild with tangling underwood

And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
They answer and provoke each other's song,
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,
And one low piping sound more sweet than all
Stirring the air with such a harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.

The Nightingale. Samuel Coleridge.