Wild Words: Ferociously Nourishing Poetry

Astonishment, for Equinox

9/22/2024

There is a silence in the beginning.
The life within us grows quiet.
There is little fear. No matter
how all this comes out, from now on
it cannot not exist ever again.
*
The present pushes back the life of regret.
It draws forward the life of desire. Soon memory
will have started sticking itself all over us.
We were fashioned from clay in a hurry,
poor throwing may mean it didn’t matter
to the makers if their pots cracked.
*
On the mountain tonight the full moon
faces the full sun. Now could be the moment
when we fall apart or we become whole.
Our time seems to be up—I think I even hear it stopping.
Then why have we kept up the singing for so long?
Because that’s the sort of determined creature we are.
Before us, our first task is to astonish,
and then, harder by far, to be astonished.

We come to be astonished. To be reminded that the world—this life—is still full
of astonishing things: unexplainable acts of goodness, stunning beauty,
impossible hope.

We come because we need—every one of us—to fall to our knees from time to
time, in wonder. In awe.

- Galway Kinnell

Jump

8/4/2024

Photo by Haut Risque, Stockholm, Sweden

Because my car is twenty years old
and the gizmo that goes ding ding ding
when you leave the lights on
has been busted for at least a decade,
I’m always contending with a comatose battery,
always approaching strangers to ask for a jump
in the Trader Joe’s parking lot
or on a deserted street in the growing dark,
where a man in a python-green Porsche
affixed the red and black alligator clamps confidently
yet incorrectly, killing the thing altogether,
resulting in a 10 PM call to AAA,
an hours-long wait in a 7-Eleven,
and a midnight ride sitting in the cab
of a tow truck whose driver had just been dumped
by his wife of eleven years
and desperately needed to talk about it.
These are the adventures you may have
if you tend to leave your lights on, as I do,
at dusk when the light is tricky — the hour
between dog and wolf the French call it,
when the distracted mind is too full of shadows
to remember what the body did just moments ago.
By now I’m an old hand at setting up cables,
fitting black to minus, red to plus,
but I’ll never get over the small miracle
of how fast it all works, the spark arcing
quicker than thought
as soon as a benefactor turns their ignition switch;
my own car springing to life again
like Sleeping Beauty after just the right kiss;
the way a smile will ricochet from a stranger’s face
to my own, or one kind word retrieve
a flailing soul from the abyss.

- Alison Luterman

Meeting Eros, for Equinox

3/17/2024

Windflower Reverie
Painting by Duy Huynh

Because after the snow and the rain
the redwing blackbird trills in the cattails
and the song of the inner life is born again.
And from out of our dark caves
we stumble and call to each other
wondering what has been transformed
in the winter months and who will now emerge.
We are like bears bounding
out of the mountain, slightly bewildered
blinking in the bright new light,
ravenous for the world.

This is eros unleashed--
the seduction of apple blossoms--
petals raining on wet fertile earth,
hummingbirds unzipping the cerulean sky,
the glint of streamflow and bare skin.
How the full moon pours Maylight
upon our upturned faces,
and the breezes carry the scent of longing
and melancholy, lilac and the spice
of all that is greening.

We have died a thousand times
and been reborn for this.
To lie back, even for a moment,
into the arms of the world--
to meet eros in every turn--
to be courted by you who stirs
the inner waters and tears apart
the old husks. Yes, you
who makes us want to eat fire
and lay down in every meadow.

We have been waiting for your arrival
and now you are here,
no longer a Stranger, but a Storm--
you, who strikes the bell of awakening,
so the whole body rings out
with Delight.

- Laura Weaver

Nobody Cares

11/19/2023

photo by Leah Berman

Nobody cares if you stop here. You can
look for hours, gaze out over the forest.
And the sounds are yours too—take away
how the wind either whispers or begins to
get ambitious. If you let the silence of
afternoon pool around you, that serenity
may last a long time, and you can take it
along. A slant sun, mornings or evenings,
will deepen the canyons, and you can carry away
that purple, how it gathers and fades for hours.
This whole world is yours, you know. You can
breathe it and think about it and dream it after this
wherever you go. It’s all right. Nobody cares.

- William Stafford

These Mornings

6/11/2023

Photo by Pine Watt

All these mornings
are one morning;
over and over I am
greeted by the new day--
who greets me but
this Self that is your Self?
Beauty flows fresh,
mist and light glowing
in the valleys, brilliance
of gold breaking through
the leaves and branches
of the trees. All around
me the treasures of
the soul have gathered
as beings, as the created
newness of the World.
If I could ask for
any gift to be given
to us all,
over and over
it would simply be
This!
This!
This!

- Richard Wehrman

Wild Rose Goes for a Drive with God

4/30/2023

Aloha by Michael Zieve
www.artworkarchive.com/profile/michael-zieve

Wild Rose Goes for a Drive with God

But first, she takes a few slugs of absinthe.
The pale green thrill of it blazes in her throat.

God walks in just as she finishes her glass.
God finishes the bottle. Then he says,

Are you nervous? Wild Rose doesn't hesitate
to say, No way. I am ready for anything.

God says they're going for a spin.
Wild Rose doesn't care where. All she wants

is for God to show her a real good time. And
she is open to what that means. Here,

says God, as they arrive at the car,
climb in. He opens the driver's seat door for her.

She pours her long legs in. There's no brake, she sees.
No rearview mirror. No reverse. No safety belts.

A big back seat. Oh yeah, she says, and revs the engine.
The night smells like licorice, like sweat.

- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Lie Around and Get Zonked Out

4/9/2023

Blessing Tree by Michael Zieve
www.artworkarchive.com/profile/michael-zieve

If we were smarter, it would have been enough
that just one great Prophet would have to make
a personal appearance on earth.

He or She probably could have easily fixed some
important things forever, written a book that
really gave us the total lowdown...and that no
right-wing fanatic dare edit.

God in human form, as some called the Avatar--
or World Teacher--seemingly could have easily
shown us some tasty herb cocktails

that could cure any illness humans would ever
know. But looks like it does not work that way.

And what of us mules who like the harness? What
would the workhorses in this world do without
some imaginary cause--or situation--we felt
needed to be championed, or scotch-taped?

Heaven forbid, everyone might become happy
doing basically nothing

except to lie around and get zonked out on the
wonder of our being.

- Hafiz, trans. by Daniel Ladinsky

Motel Chronicles (excerpt)

3/12/2023

He changed the canary
Fed the mule
Stood transfixed for half an hour
Every morning
He changed the canaries
Fed the mule
And stood transfixed for half an hour
He never planned on standing transfixed for half an hour
It just happened
Every morning
Maybe it was the pause in finishing feeding the mule
The momentum running down
There seemed to be a natural momentum
From changing the canaries
To feeding the mule
There was never any problem
Moving from the canaries
To the mule
It just happened
Every morning
It was the pause
After feeding the mule
That stunned him
A Giant Pause
He even knew what the next thing was
He knew it very clearly
He knew the next thing was feeding himself
After feeding the mule
But he couldn’t move
He stood transfixed for half an hour
Staring at the desert
Sometimes staring at his bottle house
Sometimes staring at the well pump
It depended on which direction he happened to be facing
When the transfixion struck him
It got to the point when he looked forward
To standing transfixed for half an hour
It was the high point of his morning
Change the canaries
Feed the mule
Stand transfixed for half an hour

- Sam Shepard

Winter Morning

2/12/2023

When I can no longer say thank you
for this new day and the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the space heater glowing
orange as it warms the floor near my feet,
I know it’s because I’ve been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me
and believes he deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,
and watch the streetlights outside flashing
off one by one like old men blinking their
cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors hard against the morning
and see the steaming coffee in their mugs
kissing chapped lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries white into
the icy air around their faces—then I can
remember this one life is a gift each of us
was handed and told to open: Untie the bow
and tear off the paper, look inside
and be grateful for whatever you find
even if it is only the scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the fingers long after
you’ve finished peeling it.

- James Crews

Light Hoofed

8/21/2022

What if we enter each day
so silently, so seamlessly
the birds don't sound alarms and dart away,
our minds so well released from fits of thought
we are kin to all that breathes,
like grazing deer
hidden in dapples of green

O how we would walk then
light hoofed and elfin eyed, even on crowded days,
each trembling leaf a welcome
Silky beating wings
would cool our errant fevers of mind
would keep us filled with awe
and kind

- Cynthia Poten

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