Let us begin with a simple line . . .

Let us begin with a simple line,
Drawn as a child would draw it,
To indicate the horizon,

More real than the real horizon,
Which is less than line,
Which is visible abstraction, a ratio.

The line ravishes the page with implications
Of white earth, white sky!

The horizon moves as we move,
Making us feel central.
But the horizon is an empty shell . . . .

from Art Class by James Galvin

National Poetry Month

When a poem
speaks by itself,
it has a spark

and can be considered
part of a divine
conversation.

Sometimes the poem weaves
like a basket around
two loaves of yellow bread.

"Break off a piece
of this April with its
raisin nipples," it says. . . .

from National Poetry Month by Elaine Equi


The image above is a mosaic depicting the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii. The mosaic is in the collection of the National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy.

"Writing poems about writing poems is like rolling bales of hay in Texas . . ."

Writing poems about writing poems
is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.
Nothing but the horizon to stop you. . . .

from Always on the Train by Ruth Stone

Poetry is a destructive force

That's what misery is,
Nothing to have at heart.
It is to have or nothing.

It is a thing to have,
A lion, an ox in his breast,
To feel it breathing there. . . .

from Poetry Is a Destructive Force by Wallace Stevens

"In the old days a poet once said . . ."

In the old days a poet once said
our nation is destroyed
yet the mountains and rivers survive

Today's poet says
the mountains and rivers are destroyed
yet our nation survives . . .

from In the old days a poet once said by Ko Un

" . . . there are things that are important beyone all this fiddle."

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful.

from Poetry by Marianne Moore

A poem should be palpable and mute

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

from Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish

Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

from Eating Poetry by Mark Strand

"Always an inner avalanche . . ."

It's not only the word roses
lurking inside neurosis or the fact
that most of my formal education
occurred in the midwest, so too
my summer job inhaling industrial
reactants should be considered.
It's an unstable world, babe.
Always an inner avalanche
as they say in receiving.
I'm sure if I'd gotten a shot
of Karl instead of Zeppo Marx
in utero, things would have turned out
differently. Instead, my mother
went right on eating lobster.
But where were we? . . .

from This Living Hand by Dean Young

Revenant - a story like a poem

Revenant: One Sandhill Crane's Story . . .

(The following is a pastiche of several articles published by The Associated Press in late March through April 1, 2009)


First AP article, published in late March 2009

Sandhill crane survives arrow through body, will be freed

The Associated Press, MILWAUKEE — A sandhill crane that was captured in central Wisconsin with an arrow through her body is ready for life in the wild after what a veteran bird rehabilitator calls a truly amazing recovery.

Bird watcher Don Darnell from Eden Prairie, Minn., spotted the crane standing by the road near Wisconsin Rapids as he and his wife were driving through last Labor Day weekend. "We couldn't believe it. This bird had an arrow clean through it," Darnell said. "We got out of the car to see if we could get a hold of it but it was too fast and got away."
They also alerted police and other authorities, but the injured crane remained on the loose.

Then, one evening in late September, 11-year-old Monica Schaetz saw the same bird in a stream near her home with its mate and a young crane — and with the arrow still through its body. "We were going for a walk that night — she insisted on going along," said Monica's mother, Connie. "She saw the crane across the street. It was a good thing she went with me."

The next day, Connie reached bird rehabilitator Marge Gibson, executive director of the Raptor Education Group Inc. in Antigo. Gibson and wildlife rehabilitator Nicki Christianson of Wisconsin Rapids developed a capture plan. On Sept. 29, more than two dozen people helped locate and capture the weakened crane.

The arrow was quickly removed. Gibson said the crane had a bad infection but survived during treatment and spent the winter at her center, serving as a foster parent for six young cranes that came in with a variety of injuries in late fall.
Through the recovery, Gibson had her doubts whether the crane could ever be released.

"I didn't think she'd ever fly again," she said, but a couple weeks ago she went to check on the crane in a large flight building and got a surprise.

"She flew straight over the top of my head," she said. She said the bird's survival has been miraculous, first when the arrow missed any vital organs and then when the infection failed to kill her.

"I've done this for 40 years and I've never seen anything like this before," she said.

Plans called for releasing the crane today. The crane's mate and the young crane have been seen in the area after returning from migration. Cranes mate for life. Gibson wanted to get the female back in the wild before the male starts looking for a replacement.

And here is the happy conclusion of the story of the sand hill crane….
Associated Press- Updated: 04/01/2009

A sandhill crane captured last September with an arrow through her body was released Wednesday and quickly reunited with her mate and offspring.

"She went high quickly with perfect flight. About 30 seconds into the flight, her mate from last year began calling. She circled back and called to him," bird rehabilitator Marge Gibson said in an e-mail. "The family was together within a few minutes, including their male juvenile from last year."

Gibson said the wounded bird's recovery has been surprising because the arrow missed vital organs and the crane survived a bad infection.

The crane had the arrow through its body at least a month by the time it was captured Sept. 29. Gibson treated the bird at the Raptor Education Group in Antigo.

No one has been charged with shooting the crane, despite a reward offered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The sandhill crane is a federally protected species.— Associated Press

Jane Goodall, born April 3, 1934

Loving chimps to death
by Jane Goodall 2/27/2009

Last week in Stamford, Conn., a chimpanzee named Travis was shot and killed after he mauled a friend of his owner. The chimpanzee lived with a widow, eating lobster and ice cream at the table, wearing human clothes and entertaining himself with a computer and television.

But as the tragedy made clear, a chimpanzee can never be totally domesticated.

The human brain is more highly developed than that of any other living creature. So why can't we learn that wild animals simply do not make good "pets"?

I believe it has a great deal to do with the fact that chimpanzees are so frequently used in entertainment and advertising. Only a month ago, Americans watching the Super Bowl may have laughed at an ad in which chimpanzees dressed as mechanics worked on a car. They seemed cute, funny and even lovable. Is it any wonder viewers might think that chimpanzees would make great pets?

Nothing could be further from the truth. Only infant chimpanzees are used in entertainment and advertising, because as they approach maturity, at about 6 to 8 years of age, they become strong and unmanageable. Chimpanzees evolved in the tropical forests of Africa, and that's where they're suited to live, roaming in groups of their own kind. A house in Connecticut was a completely alien environment for a chimp.

Yet as a "domesticated" chimpanzee, Travis could never have returned to the wild. He had never learned the array of skills necessary to survive there. The entertainment industry and pet owners rarely, if ever, provide for the long-term care of chimpanzees. Zoos don't want them because they have not learned to interact with others of their kind. So most of these poor creatures spend the rest of their lives -- as much as 50 years or more -- in small cages in circuses, roadside attractions and, yes, even in the homes of individuals who lack the means to provide for them.

Meanwhile, more infant chimpanzees are bred to maintain the supply for the entertainment industry.

The use of chimpanzees in entertainment and advertising not only condemns chimpanzees to lives they were not meant to live, it makes it hard for people to believe that these apes are actually endangered in the wild. But they are.

Chimpanzees are losing habitat, in part because of commercial logging and in part because of encroachment by ever-growing human populations who live in poverty and cut down the forest to grow crops and graze cattle. This deforestation also contributes significantly to climate change. And sometimes chimpanzees are caught up in ethnic conflicts or killed for their meat, a practice that is believed to have led to the human strains of HIV.

The Connecticut tragedy should remind us not just that chimpanzees do not make good pets but that their fate is intimately tied to ours.

"Looking up at the stars, I know quite well that, for all they care, I can go to hell"

The More Loving One
by W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

L'esprit du jour

The Man Who Pretends to Be Deaf, by Nguyen Khuyen (Vietnam, 1835-1901)

A man I know pretends to be deaf.
He throws such crazy looks that you’d think he cannot speak.
Who knows he is deaf only during working hours?
That kind of deafness, I would love to learn.
In a crowd his face is wooden, but at night he comes to life.

He roams in his garden, smoking a pipe, chewing betel, drinking tea and quoting classic poetry.
He is all ears one moment, and deaf the next.
Who wouldn’t like to be that kid of deaf?
But it’s not easy to be deaf that way:
Ask him how, and he will just say, “Eh?”