tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-300063152023-11-15T05:10:15.936-08:00Poems for your talis bagSomething else to readMicah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-79112398251246953822010-09-24T08:45:00.001-07:002010-09-24T08:45:54.833-07:00Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert<p align="right" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: right; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;"><br /></span></span></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; min-height: 12px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Everyone forgets that Icarus also fle</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">It's the same when love comes to an end,</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">or the marriage fails and people say</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">they knew it was a mistake, that everybody</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">said it would never work. That she was </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">old enough to know better. But anything</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">worth doing is worth doing badly.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Like being there by that summer ocean</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">on the other side of the island while</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">love was fading out of her, the stars </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">burning so extravagantly those nights that</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">anyone could tell you they would never last.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Every morning she was asleep in my bed</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">like a visitation, the gentleness in her</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">like antelope standing in the dawn mist.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Each afternoon I watched her coming back</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">through the hot stony field after swimming,</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">the sea light behind her and the huge sky</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">on the other side of that. Listened to her</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">while we ate lunch. How can they say </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">the marriage failed? Like the people who</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">came back from Provence (when it was Provence)</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">but just coming to the end of his triumph.</span></div>Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-61817706219358318772010-09-24T08:30:00.001-07:002010-09-24T08:30:49.309-07:00Symbols<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19px; "><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: left; ">Whoever puts on a tallis when he was young he will never forget;</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: left; ">Taking it out of the soft velvet bag, opening the folded shawl,<br />Spreading it out, kissing the length of the neckband (embroidered<br />or trimmed in gold.) Then swinging it in a great swoop overhead<br />like a sky, a wedding canopy, a parachute. And then winding it<br />around his head as in hide-and-seek, wrapping<br />his whole body in it, close and slow, snuggling into it like the cocoon<br />of a butterfly, then opening would-be wings to fly.<br />And why is the tallis striped and not checkered black-and-white<br />like a chessboard? Because squares are finite and hopeless.<br />Stripes come from infinity and to infinity they go<br />like airport runways where angels land and take off.<br />Whoever has put on a tallis will never forget.<br />When he comes out of a swimming pool or the sea,<br />he wraps himself in a large towel, spreads it out again<br />over his head, and again snuggles into it close and slow,<br />still shivering a little, and he laughs and blesses.<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: left; ">-- Yehuda Amichai</p></span>Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-69741518636945330392008-01-13T12:31:00.000-08:002008-01-13T12:32:49.837-08:00You God Who Live Next DoorDu Nachbar Gott, wenn ich dich manchesmal<br /><br />You, God, who live next door--<br /><br />If at times, through the long night, I trouble you<br />with my urgent knocking--<br />this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom.<br />I know you're all alone in that room. <br />If you should be thirsty, there's no one<br />to get you a glass of water.<br />I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign!<br />I'm right here.<br /><br />As it happens, the wall between us<br />is very thin. Why couldn't a cry<br />from one of us<br />break it down? It would crumble<br />easily,<br /><br />it would barely make a sound.<br /><br />From Rilke's Book of Hours (trs. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-53364243112251657042007-10-28T22:08:00.001-07:002007-10-28T22:08:58.817-07:00The Panther by RilkeHis tired gaze -from passing endless bars-<br />has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.<br />To him there seem to be a thousand bars,<br />and out beyond these bars exists no world.<br /><br />His supple gait, the smoothness of strong strides<br />that gently turn in ever smaller circles<br />perform a dance of strength, centered deep within<br />a will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable.<br /><br />But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part,<br />the pupils of his eyes dilate as images<br />of past encounters enter while through his limbs<br />a tension strains in silence<br />only to cease to be, to die within his heart.Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-34590250448852342172007-06-20T07:39:00.000-07:002007-06-20T07:44:09.032-07:00Checklist by Meghan O' RourkeThere was a lot to be done before I grew.<br />The flowery bedspread had to go.<br /><br />Then the voice. <em>Hello.</em> I taped myself<br />getting dressed, mouthing "I understand your concern."<br /><br />I rose early. I read books<br />downstairs before anyone was awake.<br /><br />My parents told me to go outside.<br />Diving downward through the river.<br /><br />Glimpses of bridges; peering upward through the blue<br />as faces climbed away. I wrote it down.<br /><br />On my hand, a pine tree, sap<br />you can't wash off. Love.<br /><br />A line of cars humming down the road in silence. Then silence.<br />The ditch beside the empty house, the rivulets,<br /><br />the sun just leaving, the red light<br />retreating, the sun, the ditch, the house.<em></em><em></em><em></em>Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-27111943697826704632007-05-31T13:46:00.000-07:002007-05-31T13:49:03.222-07:00"To Jewishness" by Kenneth KochAs you were contained in<br />Or embodied by<br />Louise Schlossman<br />When she was a sophomore<br />At Walnut Hills<br />High School<br />In Cincinnati, Ohio,<br />I salute you<br />And thank you<br />For the fact<br />That she received<br />My kisses with tolerance<br />On New Year's Eve<br />And was not taken aback<br />As she well might have been<br />Had she not had you<br />And had I not, too.<br />Ah, you!<br />Dark, complicated you!<br />Jewishness, you are the tray<br />On it painted<br />Moses, David and the Ten<br />Commandments, the handwriting<br />On the Wall, Daniel<br />In the lions' den<br />On which my childhood<br />Was served<br />By a mother<br />And father<br />Who took you<br />To Michigan<br />Oh the soft smell<br />Of the pine<br />Trees of Michigan<br />And the gentle roar<br />Of the Lake! Michigan<br />Or sent you<br />To Wisconsin<br />I went to camp there<br />On vacation, with me<br />Every year!<br />My counselors had you<br />My fellow campers<br />Had you and "Doc<br />Ehrenreich" who<br />Ran the camp had you<br />We got up in the<br />Mornings you were there<br />You were in the canoes<br />And on the baseball<br />Diamond, everywhere around.<br />At home, growing<br />Taller, you<br />Thrived, too. Louise had you<br />And Charles had you<br />And Jean had you<br />And her sister Mary<br />Had you<br />We all had you<br />And your Bible<br />Full of stories<br />That didn't apply<br />Or didn't seem to apply<br />In the soft spring air<br />Or dancing, or sitting in the cars<br />To anything we did.<br />In "religious school"<br />At the Isaac M. Wise<br />Synagogue (called "temple")<br />We studied not you<br />But Judaism, the one who goes with you<br />And is your guide, supposedly,<br />Oddly separated<br />From you, though there<br />In the same building, you<br />In us children, and it<br />On the blackboards<br />And in the books Bibles<br />And books simplified<br />From the Bible. How<br />Like a Bible with shoulders<br />Rabbi Seligmann is!<br />You kept my parents and me<br />Out of hotels near Crystal Lake<br />In Michigan and you resulted, for me,<br />In insults,<br />At which I felt<br />Chagrined but<br />Was energized by you.<br />You went with me<br />Into the army, where<br />One night in a foxhole<br />On Leyte a fellow soldier<br />Said Where are the fuckin Jews?<br />Back in the PX. I'd like to<br />See one of those bastards<br />Out here. I'd kill him!<br />I decided to conceal<br />You, my you, anyway, for a while.<br />Forgive me for that.<br />At Harvard you<br />Landed me in a room<br />In Kirkland House<br />With two other students<br />Who had you. You<br />Kept me out of the Harvard Clubs<br />And by this time (I<br />Was twenty-one) I found<br />I preferred<br />Kissing girls who didn't<br />Have you. Blonde<br />Hair, blue eyes,<br />And Christianity (oddly enough) had an<br />Aphrodisiac effect on me.<br />And everything that opened<br />Up to me, of poetry, of painting, of music,<br />Of architecture in old cities<br />Didn't have you<br />I was<br />Distressed<br />Though I knew<br />Those who had you<br />Had hardly had the chance<br />To build cathedrals<br />Write secular epics<br />(Like Orlando Furioso) <br />Or paint Annunciations—"Well<br />I had David<br />in the wings." David<br />Was a Jew, even a Hebrew.<br />He wasn't Jewish.<br />You're quite<br />Something else. I had Mahler,<br />Einstein, and Freud. I didn't<br />Want those three (then). I wanted<br />Shelley, Byron, Keats, Shakespeare,<br />Mozart, Monet. I wanted<br />Botticelli and Fra Angelico.<br />"There you've<br />Chosen some hard ones<br />For me to connect to. But<br />Why not admit that I<br />Gave you the life<br />Of the mind as a thing<br />To aspire to? And<br />Where did you go<br />To find your 'freedom'? to<br />New York, which was<br />Full of me." I do know<br />Your good qualities, at least<br />Good things you did<br />For me—when I was ten<br />Years old, how you brought<br />Judaism in, to give ceremony<br />To everyday things, surprise and<br />Symbolism and things beyond<br />Understanding in the<br />Synagogue then I<br />Was excited by you, a rescuer<br />Of me from the flatness of my life.<br />But then the flatness got you<br />And I let it keep you<br />And, perhaps, of all things known,<br />That was most ignorant. "You<br />Sound like Yeats, but<br />You're not. Well, happy<br />Voyage home, Kenneth, to<br />The parking lot<br />Of understood experience. I'll be<br />Here if you need me and here<br />After you don't<br />Need anything else. HERE is a quality<br />I have, and have had<br />For you, and for a lot of others,<br />Just by being it, since you were born."<br /><br />(Thanks Bill Cohen for introducing me to this poem)Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1249673091311466112007-05-09T08:38:00.000-07:002007-05-09T08:49:52.657-07:00A Brief for the Defense by Jack GilbertSorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies<br />are not starving someplace, they are starving<br />somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.<br />But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.<br />Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not<br />be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not<br />be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women<br />at the fountain are laughing together between<br />the suffering they have known and the awfulness<br />in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody<br />in the village is very sick. There is laughter<br />every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,<br />and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.<br />If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,<br />we lessen the importance of their deprivation.<br />We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,<br />but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have<br />the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless<br />furnace of the world. To make injustice the only<br />measure of our attention is to praise the Devil,<br />If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,<br />we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.<br />We must admit there will be music despite everything.<br />We stand at the prow again of a small ship<br />anchored late at night in the tiny port<br />looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront<br />is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.<br />To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat<br />comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth<br />all the years of sorrow that are to come.<br /><br />From "Refusing Heaven" Knoff 2005Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-91557950937094382012007-04-06T09:11:00.001-07:002007-04-06T09:12:16.723-07:00"Refusing Heaven" by Jack GilbertThe old women in black at early Mass in winter<br />are a problem for him. He could tell by their eyes<br />they have seen Christ. They make the kernel<br />of his being and the clarity around it<br />seem meagre, as though he needs girders<br />to hold up his unusable soul. But he chooses<br />against the Lord. He will not abandon his life.<br />Not his childhood, not the ninety-two bridges<br />across the two rivers of his youth. Nor the mills<br />along the banks where he became a young man<br />as he worked. The mills are eaten away, and eaten<br />again by the sun and its rusting. He needs them<br />even though they are gone, to measure against.<br />The silver is worn down to the brass underneath<br />and is the better for it. He will gauge<br />by the smell of concrete sidewalks after night rain.<br />He is like an old ferry dragged on to the shore,<br />a home in its smashed grandeur, with the giant beams<br />and joists. Like a wooden ocean out of control.<br />A beached heart. A cauldron of cooling melt.<br /><br />Published in the January 10, 2005 New YorkerMicah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1165416655035402422006-12-06T06:50:00.000-08:002006-12-06T06:50:55.046-08:00L'Chaim by Gerald SternThere goes that toast again, four chipped<br />glasses full of some kind of ruby held up<br />to the sun this time, death crumbs falling and rising<br />like dust-motes, fish eggs, bubbles, here's to you bubbles,<br />here's to Mardi Gras, here's to the apple tree<br />pinned against my fence, here's to reproach<br />here's to doing it to music, here's to fog,<br />and here's to fog again, and life dividing<br />inside the fog; oh when it dissipates<br />let's make a circle; here's to the baby hiding<br />inside his clothes, here's to his being<br />alive without me, here's to the mountain again,<br />for what the hell, I might as well be on the mountain,<br />here's to delectables, free health care, love, popcorn.<br /><br />in "Everything is Burning"Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1160058238156269812006-10-05T07:22:00.000-07:002006-10-05T07:23:58.170-07:00Memoir by Vijay ShehadriMEMOIR<br /><br />Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.<br />The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.<br />If I wrote that story now--<br />radioactive to the end of time--<br />people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn't peel<br />the gloves fast enough<br />from your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.<br />Your poor hands. Your poor eyes<br />to see me weeping in my room<br />or boring the tall blonde to death.<br />Once I accused the innocent.<br />Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.<br />I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.<br />And one October afternoon, under a locust tree<br />whose blackened pods were falling and making<br />illuminating patterns on the pathway,<br />I was seized by joy,<br />and someone saw me there,<br />and that was the worst of all,<br />lacerating and unforgettable.<br /><br />Originally in the New Yorker, found also in *Best American Poetry 2006*Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1157570753221653452006-09-06T12:18:00.000-07:002006-09-06T12:33:25.336-07:00My Nephew and His Wife by Jane MayhallSome riders when they've done<br />with them, throw their horses away.<br />Who galloped the grassy sward, brisk on<br />a summer's day, buckles and saddles quoting<br />castanets in the sun.<br /><br />My nephew and his wife, stern lovers<br />of the equine, when their gallants died,<br />buried them gently in the front yard.<br />But other amatuer horse-trainers in Alabama<br />just cancelled their beau-cheval,<br /><br />once they'd either broken their<br />spirit, or let expire. And (incidentally,<br />against the law) carted their sleek beauties <br />off to the dump. But my nephew<br />and his wife, crack riders<br /><br />and young at heart, had a sense of <br />the morning light. And picked up their flickering<br />shovels. Like hooves clopping through<br />the dark, did their immortal, <br />solemn work.<br /><br />From *Sleeping Late on Judgment Day*Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1157569994035260392006-09-06T12:05:00.000-07:002006-09-06T12:27:25.923-07:00Healing and Light by Jane MayhallLying in wait, the undersoul,<br />when something hurts, you <br />can't heal it with descriptive passages<br />or wise guy quips,<br /><br />or human sacrifice. Like the satellite true<br />feature story on Rio de Janeiro and<br />the massacre of homeless children, <br />no double talk.<br /><br />Holding back the mismatch, misunderstanding<br />is the lonliest paradox, far seeing<br />with only faith to build on-- life's belittling<br />pathos, digging out.<br /><br />When this lunar thing, notoriously<br />expired, in the swamp ditch of<br />the night, a moon of transfigured light<br />goes up, that would be dark<br /><br />too, except filling the whole meadow, <br />so radiant, you could read <br />a newspaper by.<br /><br />From *Sleeping Late on Judgment Day*Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1157562181734344612006-09-06T10:01:00.000-07:002006-09-06T12:26:47.996-07:00Waiting for the Barbarians by Constantine P. CavafyWaiting for the Barbarians<br /><br />What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?<br /><br />The barbarians are to arrive today.<br /><br />Why such inaction in the Senate?<br />Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws?<br /><br />Because the barbarians are to arrive today.<br />What laws can the Senators pass any more?<br />When the barbarians come they will make the laws.<br /><br />Why did our emperor wake up so early,<br />and sits at the greatest gate of the city,<br />on the throne, solemn, wearing the crown?<br /><br />Because the barbarians are to arrive today.<br />And the emperor waits to receive<br />their chief. Indeed he has prepared<br />to give him a scroll. Therein he inscribed<br />many titles and names of honor.<br /><br />Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out<br />today in their red, embroidered togas;<br />why do they wear amethyst-studded bracelets,<br />and rings with brilliant, glittering emeralds;<br />why are they carrying costly canes today,<br />wonderfully carved with silver and gold?<br /><br />Because the barbarians are to arrive today,<br />and such things dazzle the barbarians.<br /><br />Why don't the worthy orators come as always<br />to make their speeches, to have their say?<br /><br />Because the barbarians are to arrive today;<br />and they get bored with eloquence and orations.<br /><br />Why all of a sudden this unrest<br />and confusion. (How solemn the faces have become).<br />Why are the streets and squares clearing quickly,<br />and all return to their homes, so deep in thought?<br /><br />Because night is here but the barbarians have not come.<br />And some people arrived from the borders,<br />and said that there are no longer any barbarians.<br /><br />And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?<br />Those people were some kind of solution.<br /><br />Constantine P. Cavafy (1904)Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1156182837934405892006-08-21T10:50:00.000-07:002006-09-06T12:34:06.023-07:00Das waren Tage Michelangelo by Ranier Maria RilkeOnce I read in foreign books<br />of the time of Michelangelo.<br />That was a man beyond measure--a giant--<br />who forgot what the immeasurable was.<br /><br />He was the kind of man who turns<br />to bring forth the meaning of an age<br />that wants to end.<br />He lifts its whole weight<br />and heaves it into the chasm of his heart.<br /><br />The anguish and yearning of all those before him<br />become in his hands raw matter<br />for him to compress into one great work.<br /><br />Only God escapes his will-- a God<br />he loves with a high hatred<br />for being so out of reach.<br /><br />I,29 from the Book of Hours; Love Poems to God trns. Anita Barrows and Joanna MacyMicah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1152889002879116912006-07-14T07:55:00.000-07:002006-07-27T08:48:43.960-07:00Riding the Elevator into the Sky by Anne SextonAs the fireman said:<br />Don't book a room over the fifth floor<br />in any hotel in New York.<br />They have ladders that will reach further<br />but no one will climb them<br />As the New York Times said:<br />The elevator always seeks out<br />the floor of the fire<br />and automatically opens<br />and won't shut.<br />There are warning<br />that you must forget<br />if you're climbing out of yourself.<br />If you're going to smash into the sky.<br />Many times I've gone past<br />the fifth floor,<br />cranking upwards,<br />but only once<br />have I gone all the way up.<br />Sixtieth floor:<br />small plants and swans bending<br />into their grave.<br />Floor two hundred:<br />mountains with the patience of a cat,<br />silence wearing its sneakers.<br />Floor five hundred:<br />messages and letters centuries old,<br />bird to drink,<br />a kitchen of clouds.<br />Floor six thousand:<br />the stars,<br />skeletons on fire,<br />their arms singing.<br />And a key,<br />a very large key,<br />that opens something -<br />some useful door -<br />somewhere -<br />up there.Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1152450227144623762006-07-09T06:02:00.000-07:002006-07-09T06:04:29.430-07:00since feeling is first by e.e. cummingssince feeling is first<br />who pays any attention<br />to the syntax of things<br />will never wholly kiss you;<br /><br />wholly to be a fool<br />while Spring is in the world<br /><br />my blood approves,<br />and kisses are a far better fate<br />than wisdom<br />lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry<br />--the best gesture of my brain is less than<br />your eyelids' flutter which says<br /><br />we are for eachother: then<br />laugh, leaning back in my arms<br />for life's not a paragraph<br /><br />And death i think is no parenthesisMicah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1151952914024636652006-07-03T11:53:00.000-07:002006-07-03T11:55:14.026-07:00A haiku by KikakuAbove the boat<br />bellies<br />of wild geese.<br /><br />A haiku by Kikaku<br />from A Book of Luminous Things ed. Czeslaw MiloszMicah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1151606270895620932006-06-29T11:34:00.000-07:002006-06-30T12:37:28.170-07:00Quarrel by Grace PaleyBob and I<br /> in different rooms<br /> talking to ourselves<br /><br />carrying on<br /> last nights<br /> hard conversation<br /><br />convinced<br /> the other one<br /> the life companion<br /> wasn't listeningMicah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30006315.post-1151432403005093252006-06-27T11:12:00.000-07:002006-06-27T11:20:03.016-07:00My Moses, by Carl Dennis from Meetings with TimeMy Moses<br />by Carl Dennis from Meetings with Time<br /><br />Time to praise the other Moses, the one who concludes<br />That the bush isn't really burning, as he first supposed,<br />Just backlit in red by the setting sun,<br />Magnified by the need of a runaway to be pardoned,<br />To pull his shoes off and receive a vision.<br />The Moses who, when he lifts his staff,<br />Can't part the waters, who has to wade in<br />At low tide and hope for the best.<br />Nobody drowns. Nobody's following. The twelve tribes,<br />Sluggish after a hard day in the quarries,<br />Didn't find his lecture on the virtues inspiring.<br />And Pharoah was willing to see him go.<br />Good riddance, what with his praise of creation<br />That gouged the work month with holidays.<br />Now he's wringing his clothes out on the other side,<br />Relieved it hasn't taken him any longer to realize<br />He isn't much of a prophet, that he hasn't the gift.<br />Free now of the journey to the Promised Land<br />And the wars with the natives, he can settle down at once<br />Whenever he pleases, and be happy even here<br />In the country that disappointed Columbus,<br />That wasn't the hoped-for shortcut to spices.<br />Happy even on this block of mine, my neighbor,<br />A civics teacher at the high school,<br />Who leaves the gate to his yard unlocked<br />So the neighborhood children can pick the berries<br />Before the frost comes and leaf smoke rises<br />From small, mute fires he's lit himself.Micah Kelberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00628707395250466109noreply@blogger.com0