To: jriemer
The Names
By Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States
Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.
251 posted on
09/06/2003 5:04:21 PM PDT by
Tennessee_Bob
(LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?)
To: Tennessee_Bob
We only part to meet again,
though mighty boundless waves may sever.
Remembrance oft shall bring thee near,
and I with thee will go forever.
And oft at midnight's silent hour,
when brilliant planets shall guide the ocean,
thy name will rise to heaven's highest star,
and mingle with my soul's devotion.
(sorry I don't have the poet's name)
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
GETHSEMANE
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
IN golden youth when seems the earth
A Summer-land of singing mirth,
When souls are glad and hearts are light,
And not a shadow lurks in sight,
We do not know it, but there lies
Somewhere veiled under evening skies
A garden which we all must see
The garden of Gethsemane.
With joyous steps we go our ways,
Love lends a halo to our days;
Light sorrows sail like clouds afar,
We laugh, and say how strong we are.
We hurry on; and hurrying, go
Close to the border-land of woe,
That waits for you, and waits for me
Forever waits Gethsemane.
Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams,
Bridged over by our broken dreams;
Behind the misty caps of years,
Beyond the great salt fount of tears,
The garden lies. Strive as you may,
You cannot miss it in your way.
All paths that have been, or shall be,
Pass somewhere through Gethsemane.
All those who journey, soon or late,
Must pass within the garden's gate;
Must kneel alone in darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair.
God pity those who can not say,
"Not mine but thine," who only pray,
"Let this cup pass," and cannot see
The purpose in Gethsemane.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
9-11
Purple clouds rush over us and dank chill
Red October winds oppress a world
Which only yesterday hummed with summer;
Today the tube shows only the broken, jagged, teeth of Empire
jetting upwards through ghostly smoke and debris
as from a skull
Bewildered firemen creep through the hollowed sockets
From which no-thing stares
Skinless bone of fingers scrape the coffin dome
of uncertain skies
with crooked necrotic nails
of last minute's terror
Beneath smolder multitudes,
the shades of Sheol
Blue with death
Who just that morning
Made their eggs and bagels
And kissed goodbye their other
And worried only water cooler worries...
On the other side of a world
They make for the borders
Tens of thousands wrapped in blankets,
Dirt bucket poor
On donkeys, and on foot, like Joseph and Mary
Nomads in a time forgotten, but there, now
To escape the fiery Apocalypse
Which falls like Hell itself
in flaming Smart-shelled nightmares
Which their mothers never taught them,
Like some horror or fiction which even devils
of themselves cannot conceive
or can they?
I lift my lantern with trembling hand to look for hope
And seek some salve to ease the aching of my heart
Which throbs in pain for all,
Even for the perpetrators,
On both sides,
Who have no doubt,
Who are not capable of doubting
Or spitting back the milk they suckled
At a mothers paps
Jesus! Crucified! Man of Sorrows!
Rejected and left to hungry crows
On bitter wood!
Weep for Jerusalem again
And for us all
For we are still in deepest troubles
And Rachel is still heard wailing
For her children
And she---we---cannot be comforted!
---Stephen Hand
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Holy Sonnet X
John Donne
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee;
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou'art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie,' or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then they stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
304 posted on
09/06/2003 8:42:10 PM PDT by
LadyDoc
European Union
Munich, Germany
Minsk, Belarus
Jacques Chirac, President, France
Palestinians in East Jerusalem
Palestine school
Prague, Czech Republic
London, UK
Pristina, Kosovo
Zagreb, Croatia
Sweden
Berlin Embassy
Berlin schools
Moscow, Russia - Embassy
Outside U.S. Embassy in Berlin
Outside U.S. Embassy in Berlin
Sydney, Australia
Prague, Czech Republic
U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden
I5, Östersund, Sweden
U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland
Youth in Tirana, Albania
U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia
Oslo, Norway
Iwojima, and flag at wreckage
The Kremlin
U.S. Embassy, Tel Aviv
U.S. Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
Oslo, Norway
United States consulate in Hamburg, Germany
Moscow
Town hall, Copenhagen, Denmark
Outside U.S. Embassy in Denmark
Berlin
Berlin
Berlin
U.S. Capitol building
Chile
Dresden, Germany
Jerusalem
London
Muslim
South Africa
Wolfsburg, Germany
Canada
People signing a book of condolence in Cardiff, Wales
New Zealand
Norway
Norway
Norway
Norway
Rome, Italy
Germany
Frankfurt, Germany
Ottawa, Canada
Headquarters of the Allied Forces, Maisieres, Belgium
Warsaw, Poland
Lima, Peru
Brasilia, Brasil
St. Petersburg, Russia
Brussel
School in Korea
394 posted on
09/07/2003 3:25:50 PM PDT by
Straight Vermonter
(...they led my people astray, saying, "Peace!" when there was no peace -- Ezekiel 13:10)
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