Weekly Edition #21
Art by Egon Schiele
All I Ever Wanted by by Katie Ford
When I thought it was right to name my desires,
what I wanted of life, they seemed to turn
like bleating sheep, not to me, who could have been
a caring, if unskilled, shepherd, but to the boxed-in hills
beyond which the blue mountains sloped down
with poppies orange as crayfish all the way to the Pacific seas
in which the hulls of whales steered them
in search of a mate for whom they bellowed
in a new, highly particular song
we might call the most ardent articulation of love,
the pin at the tip of evolution,
modestly shining.
In the middle of my life
it was right to say my desires
but they went away. I couldn’t even make them out,
not even as dots
now in the distance.
Yet I see the small lights
of winter campfires in the hills—
teenagers in love often go there
for their first nights—and each yellow-white glow
tells me what I can know and admit to knowing,
that all I ever wanted
was to sit by a fire with someone
who wanted me in measure the same to my wanting.
To want to make a fire with someone,
with you,
was all.
Other poems I read this week: (Click the link to read the full poem)
"This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet—
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space …
You must grieve for this right now
—you have to feel this sorrow now—
for the world must be loved this much
if you’re going to say “I lived”…" -On Living by Nazim Hikmet
"I turn
to a single one
of its
pages:
Cape
Cartridge
how wonderful
to pronounce these syllables
with air,
and further on,
Capsule
hollow, awaiting oil or ambrosia,
and near them
Captivate Capture Capuchin
Carousel Carpathian
words
as slippery as smooth grapes
or exploding in the light
like blind seeds awaiting
in the storehouse of vocabulary
alive again and given life:
once again the heart is burning them."
-Ode to the Dictionary (Oda al diccionario) by Pablo Neruda (Translated by Ilan Stavans)
"Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
You're twenty-six, and still have some life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll
Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.
The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away." -Sit by Vikram Seth
"Now it is Loneliness who comes at night
Instead of Sleep, to sit beside my bed.
Like a tired child I lie and wait her tread,
I watch her softly blowing out the light.
Motionless sitting, neither left or right
She turns, and weary, weary droops her head.
She, too, is old; she, too, has fought the fight.
So, with the laurel she is garlanded." -Loneliness by Katherine Mansfield
Recommended Listening: Oregano - Chilly Gonzales 7 Verses by Siddhartha Plan The Escape - Son Lux If I Could Be A Porcupine - Six Flying Whales Lightenup - Parcels Meeting Again - Max Richter Podcast: Kind World
Links of the Week:
The Disordered Mind of Chuck Close
Puzzle Montage Art by Tim Klein Dreamy Pictures of Life on the Seashore Revealing Sylvia Plath The Man Who Turns Back New York City’s Clocks, Hand by Hand