VERSES WRITTEN ON SAND-M. RAVITCH

In the garden. Summer's end./ Evening On a bench.The second highest tower burns in the west./The night wind has risen and with the rake I begin to compose a poem in the sand:/We are destructive, and friends' blood is as thin as water to us./Can I ask God or man why this is so?/It seems relatively easy to be good./Like the slaughterer's knife we are always in the right./I ask you again, God or man/It seems so difficult to fully give way to strife./We destroy, but who else sings on about turning the other cheek to the oppressor/--And under our jackets we can hardly hide the newly acquired weapon./In the garden. Summer's end. /Evening. I rise from the bench/The darkness has eclipsed the last of the towers./ simply say farewell to the emptiness/and in the darkness trample on my poem written in the sand.

Life is a dream-Calderone de la Barca

FROM 'LIFE IS A DREAM'
by: Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681)
I live, while we see the sun,
Where life and dreams are as one;
And living has taught me this,
Man dreams the life that is his,
Until his living is done.
The king dreams he is king, and he lives
In the deceit of a king,
Commanding and governing;
And all the praise he receives
Is written in wind, and leaves
A little dust on the way
When death ends all with a breath.
Where then is the gain of the throne,
That shall perish and not be known
In the other dream that is death?
Dreams the rich man of riches and fears,
The fears that his riches breed;
The poor man dreams of his need,
And all his sorrows and tears;
Dreams he that prospers with years,
Dreams he that feigns and foregoes,
Dreams he that rails on his foes;
And in all the world, I see,
Man dreams whatever he be,
And his own dream no man knows.
And I too dream and behold,
I dream I am bound with chains,
And I dreamed that these present pains
Were fortunate ways of old.
What is life? a tale that is told;
What is life? a frenzy extreme,
A shadow of things that seem;
And the greatest good is but small,
That all life is a dream to all,
And that dreams themselves are a dream.

The Circle Game-Joni Mitchell

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
and tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streamsWords like,
when youre older, must appease him
and promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him,
Take your time, it wont be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
Therell be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

And the seasons they go round and
captive on the carousel of time
where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

In memory of Mary Elizabeth Quinlan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjcKHEuOcxQ

for lynn

Yesterday aftenoon, I was walking along St Catherine St. and I came across a street vendor, sitting at a small table with an ancient Smith Corona. As it turned out he was selling made to order poems. I purchased one, dedicated to Lynn which he typed out in about 20 mins.I wish to share it with you.

You've been
one of the rolling stones
that tumbles down the rocky ledge
of twenty years
on a cliff by the sea:
one of the gulls
that circles endlessly
over the beach
carefree
and searching for the next
shiney sea-shell,
you've gone through heaven
and you've gone through hell
so that now you rest
somewhere between sky and sea,
one with the air
and the salty spray
that fizzles into foam:
and you could never have gotton here alone.
your lovingly built home
is the tin can
that two crabs found
and decided to give up
their solitude.

Allen Andre
Montreal, Quebec 07.15.08

The Moving Finger -The Rubaiyat of Omer Khayam

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it


the most perfect verse ever written,
no word need be added or altered.

Who will miss me?

How could it be that one day I will say goodbye to all of this and miss the lilac spring, the May times whistling on the wing, and the robin’s kiss? In the summertime, when days and evenings are in rhyme, you will not find me in the grove among the lilies in repose or weeding in the garden path where scented seedlings hold on fast. When autumn falls I’ll cast no shadow on the wall or hear the owl’s haunted hoot high above the rotting root. When all is orange russet red I will not be with you in bed. The day the silent snow descends and lolls to sleep all living friends, I too will slumber in the earth among the seeds and squirrel’s birth. Who will miss me? Who will care? When I am called and no one’s there?”
-

Little Gidding- T. S. Elliot

We die with the dying:

see, they depart, and we go with them.

we are born with the dead:

see, they return, and bring us with them.