Along the Beat ‘n Path: Presentation

Emily Dickinson x3

Translation of the following Emily Dickson poem in Irish and Spanish. Gobnait, patron saint of beekeepers, might be amused.

To Make a Prairie it takes

One Clover and a Bee,

A Clover and one Bee,

and reverie.

The reverie

Alone will do

if Bees are few.

 

Ní foláir ach seamair amháin agus beach
Fásach féir a dhéanamh
seamair agus ach beach amháin
agus brionglóideach.
Is leor an bhrionglóideach
má tá laghad na mbeach ann.

 

Para hacer una pradera requiere
una  hoja de treból y una abeja,
treból y solamente una abeja
mas arrobamiento.
El arrobamiento solo basta
si las abejas son pocas

Branch Brook Park trees

First, a principal of attention, simply that, A faith that if we look and look we will be surprised and we will be rewarded. 

Mark Doty in “Still Life with Oysters and Lemons”

 

out and traveling

in blue fog at an hour

for those with insomnia

or dogs with needs

 

i am here.  tangerine suns

of street lights show silver

on grass, teardrops at tips

of branches, first words

 

of morning. between friends

about friends, not praise but

prayers of petition, promises,

wishful thinking that spirit

 

wants spirit in these faithful

tributes we make before

another day.  i look up, see

scraggly heads of trees, roots

 

trying to

anchor

the lifting

sky

 

 

you know
what words
do, especially these
newly acquired diamonds
where light is
caught, exquisitely angled
to show the infinite
possibilities, even from the most
hard and hidden
elements, you yourself have lived
with only hope to keep you
and now you know how
words coupled with
your best
your one-foot-in-front
hands-extended
eyes-open
efforts
everyday
just shine

Gobnait’s Well (or not so)

 

A day fourteen centuries ago shortly before the sun appears
full and steady in Ballyvourney, Gobnait passes the well
eager for the buzz of market day, the trading of gossip

like any commodity, the adornments of detail will
be added to humble stories of humbler lives, beads
of sweat from an uncommonly warm day

setting off complaints in a litany
even the abbey priest would find tiring
the weather, the wares, the worries

There is no agreement of woes, except the bees:
Who will save us? Moses, the great Patrick who sent serpents
to the sea? We cannot find our way from misery.

A lot they expect from their petitions, Gobnait sighs
as she cools herself under the tree the bears her name,
they had better want what they pray for.

And they received the relief for which heaven had been stormed
but without the bees, earth turned the brown of powder,
bushes had thorns, but no blooms.

‘Tis these miracles that burden us so; this land could do
with fewer kinds, poets and saints.” With some fear
holy Gobnait takes her leave to the beehive huts
further west and down the coast to Dunquinn.

Still they call that well in Cork Tobar Ghobnait
and for every traveler who passes this way
the story gets told as it is remembered.

Fall 2006

Postcard project for advising group. Card was made at a site called art.com/artpad.

Elizabeth Detention Center

family candids

 

 

why wouldn’t a carpenter’s daughter

fix her eyes upon a instant carved on wood

brought to forever

by apparitions of orange

moon and spun silver sun that inhabit her

young woman dreams. she pauses and vows

the how     she needs to be

in the bell-clear sound of that moment

she imagines sisters

before her bridget and macha

beside her roseann and michaeline

herself rising,         becoming

one

  

(Note: the woodcut is called “The Dialogue” by Irving Amen and was in the Provincial House in West Orange from 1967 until the end of the provinces. The picture was taken at a workshop given by songwriter and social activist, Carolyn McDade in March of 2006 at Convent Station, NJ)

 

Autumn Haiku

never far behind
pink fog, gray pangs, winter comes
accompanies us

wind pushes, stirs up
the loose, torn off bits
ready or not

long-lobed, cat-faced
feathered ovals, ruddy-cheeked
waxen, all one pile

naked oaks
all about scattered raiments
rumpled souvenirs

circles of leaves appear
flames, we walk across embers
unharmed, holy

golden leaves pyred
high and crackling, hide
the dropped lens cap

when the wind swirls
the pile, it rises–
the burning bush

at the end of the world

at the end of the world

we will be standing

as we have

our whole natural lives

 

some of us will be on the side

some of us will be on the side

of the poor, the lonely, the quirky

 

at the end of the world

we will be standing

at the door, the breath

of new worlds

in our faces

where circles will be

what makes us forever

 

let those of us who feel

more complex, less round

take the circles and turn them

into knots

eternal knots

everyone will be satisfied

 

at the end of the world

i will be found waiting

at the corner of broad and south

for the #18 bus headed north

not wanting to leave

my copy of the beatitudes

behind so as not to lose my place

in line among the meek, the sorrowful

the pure of heart, the forgetful

  

3/31/07