Afterlife

--John Burnside

When we are gone

our lives will continue without us

– or so we believe and,

at times, we have tried to imagine

the gaps we will leave being filled

with the brilliance of others:

someone else gathering plums

from this tree in the garden,

someone else thinking this thought

in a room filled with stars

and coming to no conclusion

other than this –

this bungled joy, this inarticulate

conviction that the future cannot come

without the grace

of setting things aside,

of giving up

the phantom of a soul

that only seemed to be

while it was passing.

 

Being and Time

--John Burnside

There are times when I think

of the knowledge we had as children:

the patterns we saw in number, or the spells

and recipes we had

for love and fear;

the knowledge we kept in the bones

for wet afternoons,

the slink of tides, the absolutes of fog,

or how a lapwing’s egg can tip

the scale of the tongue;

how something was always present in the snow

that fell between our parish and the next,

a perfect thing, not what was always there,

but something we knew without knowing, as we knew

that everything was finite and alive,

cradled in warmth against the ache of space,

marsh-grass and shale, and the bloodroot we dug in the woods

that turned our fingers red, and left a stain

we kept for weeks, through snow and miles of sleep,

as if it was meant to happen, a sliver of fate

unstitching its place in the marrow, and digging in.

 

Amongst ‘livestock’

--John Burnside

Nothing is adapted to the fret

of LED and blockwork, snow-drift

gusted over ice into

the hayricks, scraps

of sackcloth, clagging, bodies scabbed with mud

and bedstraw, blotched eyes

searching: finding

nothing; giving in.

 

We know their names

from catalogues and songs; but these

are nothing like, just weather of a sort,

discarnate, eyeless, waiting for a sign:

run of matter blackening the floor,

the ache of rennet, hoofprints in the stone.

 

[ J. R. R. Tolkien’s illustration for ‘Letter From Father Christmas’ ]

 

 

Vertical

--Linda Pastan

Perhaps the purpose of leaves is to conceal

the verticality of trees which we notice in December

as if for the first time: row after row of dark forms

yearning upwards. And since we will be horizontal

ourselves for so long, let us now honor

the gods of the vertical: stalks of wheat which

to the ant must seem as high as these trees do to us,

silos and telephone poles, stalagmites and skyscrapers.

but most of all these winter oaks, these soft-fleshed poplars,

this birch whose bark is like roughened skin against

which I lean my chilled head, not ready to lie down.

 

December

The white dove of winter

sheds its first

fine feathers;

they melt

as they touch

the warm ground

like notes

of a once familiar

music; the earth

shivers and

turns towards

the solstice.

--from The Months; Linda Pastan

 

December 18: for M

--Linda Pastan

At the waning of the century,

with the weather warming

and even the seasons losing their way

listen to me. It is time

to sit still, to tilt your face

to the light and catch the notes of music

which sweeten the tongue

like snowflakes as they fall and melt

this bare December morning.

Your mouth was shaped for lullaby

or hymn, and your refusal

to sing bewilders

whole octaves of air. Enough

abstinence. Each day

that ends is gone, not a leaf is left

and soon enough it will be

time to sleep under the sway

of all that silence.

 

[ The Magpie ; Claude Monet (1868/69) ]

 

 

What the Thrush Said

--John Keats

O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind,

Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,

And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars,

To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.

O thou, whose only book has been the light

Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on

Night after night when Phœbus was away,

To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.

O fret not after knowledge—I have none,

And yet my song comes native with the warmth.

O fret not after knowledge—I have none,

And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens

At thought of idleness cannot be idle,

And he’s awake who thinks himself asleep.

 

Let the fish philosophize the ice away from the Rivers in winter time and they shall be at continual play in the tepid delight of summer. Look at the Poles and at the sands of Africa, Whirlpools and volcanoes – Let men exterminate them and I will say that they may arrive at earthly Happiness –The point at which Man may arrive is as far as the parallel state in inanimate nature and no further – For instance suppose a rose to have sensation, it blooms on a beautiful morning it enjoys itself – but there comes a cold wind, a hot sun – it can not escape it, it cannot destroy its annoyances – they are as native to the world as itself: no more can man be happy in spite, the worldly elements will prey upon his nature – The common cognomen of this world among the misguided and superstitious is "a vale of tears" from which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitrary interposition of God and taken to Heaven – What a little circumscribe[d] straightened notion! Call the world if you Please ”The vale of Soul-making” Then you will find out the use of the world (I am speaking now in the highest terms for human nature admitting it to be immortal which I will here take for granted for the purpose of showing a thought which has struck me concerning it) I say ‘Soul making’ Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence – There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions – but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself.  Intelligences are atoms of perception – they know and they see and they are pure, in short they are God – how then are Souls to be made? How then are these sparks which are God to have identity given them – so as ever to possess a bliss peculiar to each one's individual existence?  How, but by the medium of a world like this? 

--John Keats, from a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, 14 February - 3 May 1819

 

The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy

--John Keats

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing!

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful, a fairy's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

'I love thee true'.

She took me to her Elfin grot,

And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild, wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—'La Belle Dame sans Merci

Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

 

[ Winter (I) ; Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1907) ]

 

Haiku- Autumn 2025

bright colors of mums

as well that smell of something 

dead within the brush

it starts with one leaf-

a memory, willingly,

left to the wayside 

out on the wood porch,

the elderly woman knits

a warm red blanket

 

Toward Overture

The revealing collapse of beech leaves,

another thousand versions of yellow

wobbling sunny rain, unhindered sky,

a time when thought is free to secede

from litany and slide with the months'

diminishments, carry on with clear oxygen,

channel breath through raw elements

like flames of fire for currents of water, 

wind within moments, proposal of words

full as the life from where they arrived

to deepen a privacy that ages into home,

a story where each ending is beginning--

any memory echoed through the hand 

when held to the stars cupping initiation

of cold nothingness can grip a light 

down on through the plexus ground

 

[ Evening Walk ; Lyn Ward (1969) ]

 

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

--Emily Brontë

 

 

No Coward Soul Is Mine

--Emily Brontë

No coward soul is mine

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere

I see Heaven's glories shine

And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

O God within my breast

Almighty ever-present Deity

Life, that in me hast rest,

As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,

Worthless as withered weeds

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by thy infinity,

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone

And suns and universes ceased to be

And Thou wert left alone

Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death

Nor atom that his might could render void

Since thou art Being and Breath

And what thou art may never be destroyed.

 

 

Often rebuked, yet always back returning

    To those first feelings that were born with me,

And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning

    For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;

    Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;

And visions rising, legion after legion,

    Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces,

    And not in paths of high morality,

And not among the half-distinguished faces,

    The clouded forms of long-past history.

I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:

    It vexes me to choose another guide:

Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;

    Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?

    More glory and more grief than I can tell:

The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling

    Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.

--Emily Brontë

 

[ November Afternoon Isleworth ; Ian Archie Beck ]

 

Ash Keys

--Michael Longley

Ghosts of hedgers and ditchers,

The ash trees rattling keys

Above tangles of hawthorn

And bramble, alder and gorse,

Would keep me from pacing

Commonage, long perspectives

And conversations, a field

That touches the horizon.

I am herding cattle there

As a boy, as the old man

Following in his footsteps

Who begins the task again,

As though there’d never been

In some interim or hollow

Wives and children, milk

And buttermilk, market days.

Far from the perimeter

Of watercress and berries,

In the middle of the field

I stand talking to myself,

While the ash keys scatter

And the gates creak open

And the barbed wire rusts

To hay-ropes strung with thorns.

 

The Design

--Michael Longley

Sometimes the quilts were white for weddings, the design

Made up of stitches and the shadows case by stitches.

And the quilts of funerals? How do you sew the night?

 

The Linen Industry

--Michael Longley

Pulling up flax after the blue flowers have fallen

And laying our handfuls in the peaty water

To rot those grasses to the bone, or building stooks

That recall the skirts of an invisible dancer,

We become a part of the linen industry

And follow its processes to the grubby town

Where fields are compacted into window-boxes

And there is little room among the big machines.

But even in our attic under the skylight

We make love on a bleach green, the whole meadow

Draped with material turning white in the sun

As though snow reluctant to melt were our attire.

What's passion but a battering of stubborn stalks,

Then a gentle combing out of fibres like hair

And a weaving of these into christening robes,

Into garments for a marriage or funeral?

Since it's like a bereavement once the labour's done

To find ourselves last workers in a dying trade,

Let flax be our matchmaker, our undertaker,

The provider of sheets for whatever the bed -

And be shy of your breasts in the presence of death,

Say that you look more beautiful in linen

Wearing white petticoats, the bow on your bodice

A butterfly attending the embroidered flowers.

 

[ Haunted by a Fragile Dawn ; Jaroslav Serpan (1947) ]

 

 

For a Farrier

--Matthew Rohrer

Reading a kind of  laborious

poem about rural things

and a horse is shot

for breaking its leg.

I still don’t get it.

Surely there’s a way

to heal a horse.

I text my friend

who is a farrier

(you know—

someone who shoes horses)

I say surely there’s a way

to heal a horse.

                        And I wait

but he doesn’t text back

he’s busy with the pounding

and clanging.

Raising his hammer

over a bright orange horseshoe

and pausing

because in his head

a line by Issa

can be heard.

 

Street Sonnet (Ghost Bike)

--Richard Rohrer

A ghost bike display slows me down for a sec

I think Forgive Me but I can’t bear to learn your name

hardly do I remember all the others

we used to spend all night laughing

on a couch at the end of this street

and in a dream there an alien in the kitchen

spoke to me and handed me a drink

I shake myself, the dream is over, a woman with blue lips

tries to smile walking by, earning a D

bright sunlight in November is a tonic

or something but I choose the side in the shade

and walk for miles and recognize a truck

from hours before, the guy in the cab and I lock eyes

but everything else, the whole world, is in turmoil

 

Poem for Friends

--Matthew Rohrer

On someone else’s estate

running through it to avoid

the outdoor wedding there is a grave

in a little copse of trees

so panting we hang out there

How beautiful to lie down

not to be the dead ones there

their eye sockets filled with dirt

nothing is theirs anymore

you pass me a crumpled joint

swaying a little like a poem

while black birds wail in the air

and the commuter train wails

all we have to do is make tacos

tonight and be friends

 

[ Statue in a Cemetery ; Endre Balint (1959) ]

 

 

The Grave-Digger

--Kahlil Gibran

Once, as I was burying one of my dead selves, the grave-digger came by and said to me, “Of all those who come here to bury, you alone I like.”

 

Said I, “You please me exceedingly, but why do you like me?”

 

“Because,” said he, “They come weeping and go weeping—you only come laughing and go laughing.”

Halloween

--Lindsay Turner

Some yellow sunflowers open down the street,

A ladder is open beneath someone’s apple tree.

Beneath a dead sky the contours are flattened.

So the land of the dead is closer today.

The land of the dead, they say, is closer.

But what if my lot lies with the living?

Out in the yard a long-billed bird eats something from dust.

Its throat has a dark patch in the shape of a smile

But full, as if its throat had been slit open.

But look, the bird is still pecking and alive.

Elsewhere, a sports game, ropes of rain come down and open the earth.

Here it’s so dry they’d just roll off the dust.

But what if my loves, like the bird, are living?

What if my loves, like the bird, are living for now?

Most of the apples have already fallen.

The sunflowers turn into dusty spiked balls.

But what if my land is the land of the living?

The bird from the dust takes flight

Then turns multiple—

A handful of birds rising in the dead sky

Opened to receive them. 

But my loves for now are here and living, and I want more of them.

Like the bird on the ground I pick what I need from the dust.

 

Ghost

--Bruce Bond

The guard dog at the wrecking yard, chained

to a garage, sleeps right through his shift.

He has been briefed, but what do you need

to know. He is a prince of shadows now,

of accidental loss and whatever ghost

comes this way to comb the parking lot

of death machines, looking for survivors.

If anyone, a dog would know. No matter.

In a place like this, all dreams are good

dreams now, however grim and unresolved.

Why howl at the soul who comes and goes.

If not here, where, where if not in the great

hereafter in which, come dawn, a dog will raise

his eye, and sigh, and close it down again.