the ukiaHaiku Festival Sunday, April 29th

Enjoy an afternoon devoted to the Haiku form of poetry. Garry Gay is the keynote speaker.
Winning authors will read their work.

Sunday, April 29th, 2007 2 - 4 p.m.

At the Ukiah Conference Center
200 School Street, Ukiah

www.ukiaHaiku.org

Poetry for April 27

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for April 27

The Well of Grief

David Whyte

Those who will not slip beneath

The still surface on the well of grief

turning downward through its black water

to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink,

the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering

the small round coins

thrown by those who wished for something else.

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for Friday, April 27, 2007

RUMI

Ode 110

Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes

rise into the atmosphere,

and even if the whole world’s harp

should burn up, there will still be

hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.

We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing-art is sea foam.

The graceful movements come from a pearl

somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like the edge of driftwood

along the beach, wanting and wanting!

They derive

from a slow and powerful root

that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the center of your chest,

and let the spirits fly in and out.

(from Rumi, Like This Versions by Coleman Barks)

Poetry for April 26, 2007

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 26, 2007

JOY HARJO

THE PATH TO THE MILKY WAY LEADS THROUGH LOS ANGELES

There are strangers above me, below me, and all around me and

we are all strange in this place of recent invention.

This city named for angels appears naked and stripped of anything

resembling the shaking of turtle shells, the songs of human voices

on a summer night outside Okmulgee.

Yet, it’s perpetually summer here, and beautiful. The shimmer of gods

is easier to perceive at sunrise or dusk,

when those who remember us here in the illusion of the marketplace

turn toward the changing of the sun and say our names.

We matter to somebody,

We must matter to the strange god who imagines us as we revolve

together in the dark sky on the path to the Milky Way.

We can’t easily see that starry road from the perspective of the crossing

of boulevards, can’t hear it in the whine of civilization or taste the

minerals of planets in hamburgers.

But we can buy a map here of the stars’ homes, dial a tone for

dangerous love, choose from several brands of water or a hiss of oxygen

for gentle rejuvenation.

Everyone knows you can’t buy love but you can still sell your soul for

less than a song to a stranger who will sell it to someone else for a profit

until you’re owned by a company of strangers

in the city of the strange and getting stranger.

I’d rather understand how to sing from a crow

who was never good at singing or much of anything

but finding gold in the trash of humans.

So what are we doing here I ask the crow parading on the ledge of

falling that hangs over this precarious city?

Crow just laughs and says wait, wait and see and I am waiting

and not seeing anything, not just yet.

But like crow I collect the shine of anything beautiful I can find.

Ukiah’s Choice for April 26, 2007

Yuma Shaman’s Song

Your heart is good

Shining Darkness will be here.

You think only of sad unpleasant things.

You are to think of goodness.

Lie down and sleep here.

Shining Darkness will join us.

You will think of this goodness in your dream.

Goodness will be given to you.

I will speak for it, and it will come to pass.

It will happen here.

I will ask for your good.

It will happen as I sit by you.

It will be done as I sit here in this place.

Poetry for April 24

Poetry for April 24, 2007

Willits Choice:

124

Yf my deare love were but the child of state,

It might for for fortunes basterd be unfathered,

As subject to times love, or to times hate,

Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered,

No it was buylded far from accident,

It suffers not in smilinge pomp, nor falls

Under the blow of thralled discontent,

Whereto th’inviting time our fashion calls:

It feares not policy that Hereticke,

Which workes on leases of short numbred howers,

But all alone stands hugely politick,

That it nor growes with heat, nor drownes with showers.

To this I witness call the foles of time,

Which die for goodness, who have liv’d for crime.

William Shakespeare, 1609

Ukiah’s Choice

Two by Alice Walker

Dead Men Love War

Dead men

Love war

They sit

Astride

The icy bones

Of

Their

Slaughtered horses.

Grinning.

They wind

Their

Pacemakers

Especially

Tight

&

Like Napoleon

Favor

Green velvet

Dressing

Gowns

On the

Battle

Field.

They sit

In board

Rooms

Dreaming of

A profit

That

Outlives

Death.

Dead men

Love war

They like to

Anticipate

Receptions

& balls

To which

They will bring

Their loathsome

Daughters

Desolation & decay

They like

To fantasize

About

The rare vintage

Of blood

To be served

&

How much company

They are going

To have.

Despite the Hunger

Despite

the hunger

we cannot

possess

more

than

this:

Peace

in a garden

of

our own.

Turn Off Your TV Week

adbusters.org "Turn Off Your TV" 2006 poster

April 23-28, 2007

As part of "Turn Off Your TV Week", Fort Bragg Branch Library is participating in "Day in the Park, a Children's Festival" April 28th 10 am to 2 pm. Come and celebrate the week of the Young Child at the Veteran's Hall and Bainbridge Park. Parade at 11:30 am. Free activities for children and families with lots of food, music and fun!

Event sponsored by Mendocino Coast Association for the Education of Young Children and the Child Abuse Prevention Council.

Poetry for April 21

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 21, 2007 for EARTH DAY

P. K. Page

Planet Earth

It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet,

has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness;

and the hands keep on moving,

smoothing the holy surfaces.

‘In Praise of Ironing’, PABLO NERUDA

It has to be loved the way a laundress loves her linens,

the way she moves her hands caressing the fine muslins

knowing their warp and woof,

like a lover coaxing, or a mother praising.

It has to be loved as if it were embroidered

with flowers and birds and two joined hearts upon it.

It has to be stretched and stroked.

It has to be celebrated.

O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it.

It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet.

The trees must be washed, and the grasses and mosses.

They have to be polished as if made of green brass.

The rivers and little streams with their hidden cresses

and pale-coloured pebbles

and their fool’s gold

must be washed and starched or shined into brightness,

the sheets of lake water

smoothed with the hand

and the foam of the oceans pressed into neatness.

It has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness

and pleated and goffered, the flower-blue sea

the protean, wine-dark, grey, green, sea

with its metres of satin and bolts of brocade.

And sky – such an O! overhead – night and day

must be burnished and rubbed

by hands that are loving

so the blue blazons forth

and the stars keep on shining

within and above

and the hands keep on moving.

It has to be made bright, the skin of this planet

till it shines in the sun like gold leaf.

Archangels then will attend to its metals

and polish the rods of its rain.

Seraphim will stop singing hosannas

to shower it with blessings and blisses and praises

and, newly in love,

we must draw it and paint it

our pencils and brushes and loving caresses

smoothing the holy surfaces.

Ukiah’s Choice for April 21

Dog by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The dog trots freely in the street

and sees realizty

and the things she sees

are bigger than herself

and the things she sees

are her reality.

Drunks in doorways

Moons on trees

The dog trots freely thru the street

and the things she sees

are smaller than herself

Fish on newsprint

Ants in holes

Chickens in Chinatown windows

their heads a block away

The dog trots freely in the street

and the things she smells

smell something like herself

The dog trots freely in the street

past puddles and babies

cats and cigars

poolrooms and policement

She doesn’t hate cops

she merely has no use for them

and she goes past

and past dead cows hung up whole

in front of the San Francisco Meat Market

She would rather eat a tender cow

than a tough policeman

though either might do

And she goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory

and past Coit’s Tower

and past Congressman Doyle

She’s afraid of Coit’s Tower

but she’s not afraid of Congressman Doyle

although what she hears is very discouraging

very depressing

very absurd

to a sad young dog like herself

But she has her own free world to live in

Her own fleas to eat

She will not be muzzled

Congressman Doyle is just another

fire hydrant

to her

The dog trots freely in the street

and has her own dog’s life to live

and to think about

and to reflect upon

touching and tasting and testing everything

without benefit of perjury

a real realist

with a real tale to tell

with a real tail to tell it with

a real live

barking

democratic dog

engaged in real

free enterprise

with something to say

about totology

something to say

about reality

and how to see it

how to hear it

with her head cocked sideways

at streetcorners

as if she is just about to have

her picture taken

for Victor Records

listening for

her Mistress’s Voice

and looking

like a living questionmark

into the

great gramaphone

of puzzling existence

with its wondrous hollow horn

which always seems

just about to spout forth

some Victorious answer

to everything

Poetry for April 20

April 20, 2007 Poetry of the Day; Ukiah’s Choice

Some Days by Billy Collins

Some days I put the people in their places at the table,

bend their legs at the knees,

if they come with that feayture,

and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.

All afternoon they face one another

the man in the brown suit,

the woman in the blue dress,

perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.

But other days, I am the one

who is lifted up by the ribs,

then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse

to sit with the others at the long table.

Very funny,

but how would you like it

if you never knew from one day to the next

if you were going to spend it

striding around like a vivid god,

your shoulders in the clouds,

or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper,

staring straight ahead with you little plastic face?

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 20, 2007

Pablo Neruda

ODA PARA PLANCHAR ODE ON IRONING

La poesia es blanca: Poetry is white:

sale del agua envuelta en gotas, it comes out of the water covered with drops,

se arruga, y se amontona, it wrinkles and piles up in heaps.

hay que extender la piel de este planeta, We must spread out the whole skin of this planet,

hay que planchar el mar de su blancura iron the white of the ocean:

y van y van las manos, the hands go on moving,

se alisan las sagradas superficies smoothing the sanctified surfaces,

y asi se hacen las cosas: bringing all things to pass.

las manos hacen cada dia el mundo, Hands fashion each day of the world,

se une el fuego al acero, fire is wedded to steel,

llegan el lino, el lienzo y el tocuyo the linens, the canvas, coarse cottons, emerge

del combate de las lavanderias from the wars of the washerwomen;

y nace de la luz una paloma: a dove is born from the light

la castidad regresa de la espuma. and chastity re-arises from the foam.

Poetry for April 19

National Poetry Month

National Library Week

Poem for April 19, 2007

Dressmaker
by Éireann Lorsung

Nothing touches like tan velvet touches

the palm. Now the cracks come, because what gives

without taking?—Doesn't exist. Say

you forget what is lanolin, what is raw about fleece

uncarded & unwashed. Say the silver feel

of charmeuse lines your sleep. You've lost

what there was before pins & needles, sound

a scissors makes through cloth on a hardwood floor,

thick waist of the dressmaker's dummy. Don't tell me

any more. Without Burano lace, without cinnabar

strung on a cuff, shantung and satin and netting and swiss:

no rich man, no camel, no needle's threatening eye.

Willits Library National Poetry Month AND National Library Week Poem for April 19

Albert Goldbarth

from Library

This book saved my life…

This is the first book in the world….

This book provided a vow I took….

This is the book I pretended to read one day in the Perry-Castaneda Library browsing

room, but really I was rapt in covert appreciation of someone in a slinky skirt that

clung like kitchen plasticwrap. She squiggled near, and pointed to the book. “It’s upside-down,” she said.

For the rest of the afternoon I was so flustered, that when I finally left the library this is

the book, with its strip of magnetic-code tape, that I absentmindedly walked with

through the security arch on the first day of its installation, becoming the first (though unintentional) lightfingered lifter of books to trigger the Perry-Castaneda alarm, which hadn’t been fine-tuned as yet, and sounded even louder than the sirens I remember from grade school air raid drills, when the principal had us duck beneath our desks and cover our heads – as if gabled – with a book…

This book is inside a computer now…

This book existed in a dream of mine, and only there….

My niece wrote this book in crayon and glitter….

This book, 1,000 Wild Nights, is actually wired to give an electr/YOWCH!

This book I stole from Cornell University’s Olin Library in the spring of 1976.

Presumably, it still longs for its Dewey’d place in the dim-lit stacks….

This book caused a howl/ a stir/ a ruckus/ an uproar.

This book is the Key to the Mysteries….

This Bible is in Swahili.

This book contains seemingly endless pages of calculus – it may as well be in Swahili….

This book doesn’t do anyth / oh wow, check THIS out!

This book, from when I was five, its fuzzy ducklings, and my mother’s voice in the living

room of the second-story apartment over the butcher shop on Division Street. I’m fifty now. I’ve sought out, and I own now, one near-mint and two loose, yellowing copies that mean to me as much as the decorated gold masks and the torsos of marble meant to the excavators of Troy.

I open this book and smoke pours out, I open this book and a bad sleet slices my face, I

open this book: brass knuckles, I open this book: the spiky scent of curry,…I open this book: the wingbeat of a seraph, I open this book: the edgy cat-pain wailing of the damned thrusts up in a column as sturdy around as a giant redwood, I open this book: the travel of light, I open this book and it’s as damp as a wound, I open this book and I fall inside it farther than any physics, stickier than the jelly we scrape from cracked bones, cleaner than what we tell our children in the dark when they’re afraid to close their eyes at night.

And this book can’t be written yet: its author isn’t born yet.

This book is going to save the world.

Poetry for April 18, 2007

Willits Library National Poetry Month AND National Library Week Poem of the Day for April 18, 2007 – with thanks to all our Friends of the Library Book Sale Volunteers!

Edward H. Anderson

Four Quatrains for the Ex-Library Copy

O, thou rubbed, sunned, and smudged relic!

Thou marked, worn, time-spoiled tome!

Thy bent spine, frayed corners, ugly scribbles

But more endear thee to me in thy new home!

Safe from further stains and ravages,

No more shall thy past grandeur fade.

Though ignominiously stamped with “DISCARDED,’

Thou’rt well worth the quarter I paid!

Now enshrined on my safeguarding bookshelf,

Though thou’rt nicked, scuffed, creased, and quite torn –

Thy ex-libris smell I quite savor –

And now canst thy spirit be reborn.

Ne’er more shall numerous dirty fingers,

Tear thy endpages, buckram cover, and soul!

Here close to my heart dwellst thou forever,

Though of thee Time hath taken Her toll.

Poem of the Day – Ukiah Library

Workday

Linda Hogan

I go to work

though there are those who were missing today

from their homes.

I ride the bus

and do not think of children without food

or how my sisters are chained to prison beds.

I go the university

and out for lunch

and listen to the higher-ups

tell me all they have read

about Indians

and how to analyze this poem.

They know us

better than we know ourselves.

I ride the bus home

and sit behind the driver.

We talk about the weather

and not enough exercise.

I don’t mention Victor Jara’s mutilated hands

or men next door

in exile

or my own family’s grief over the lost child.

When I get off the bus

I look back at the light in the windows

and the heads bent

and how the women are all alone

in each seat

framed in the windows

and the men are coming home;

then I see them walking on the Avenue

the beautiful feet,

the perfect legs

even with their spider veins

the broken knees

with pins in them;

the thighs with their cravings,

the pelvis

and small back

with its soft down

the should which bend forward

and forward and forward

to protect the heart from pain.

Poems for April 17th

National Poetry Month

Poem of the Day

April 17, 2007

Ukiah’s choice:

Love is not all

Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

and rise and sink and rise and sink again.

Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

Yet many a man is making friends with death

Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,

pinned down by need and moaning for release

or nagged by want past resolution’s power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It may well be. I do not think I would.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

Willit Library Poem/Prose of the Day

Annie Lamott

On Libraries (from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)

I am going to walk to the library, because my church is too far away to

go on foot. And it’s so beautiful out. The hills of my town are lush

and green and dotted with wildflowers. The poppies have bloomed,

and as summer approaches, five o’clock is no longer the end of the

world. I am going to check out a collection of Goon Show scripts, and a

volume of Mary Oliver poems. Libraries make me think kindly of my

mother. I am not sure if this will lead me directly to the soupcon of

forgiveness, but you never know. You take the action and the insight

follows. It was my mother who taught me how to wander through the

racks of the Belvedere-Tiburon Library, and wander through a book,

letting it take me where it would. She and my father took me to the

library every week when I was little. One of her best friends was the

librarian. They both taught me that if you insist on having a destination

when you come into a library, you’re shortchanging yourself. They read

to live, the way they also went to the beach, or ate tomatoes from old

man Grbac’s garden. My parents, and librarians along the way, taught

me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many

juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a

library, you can find small miracles and truth and you might find

something that will make you laugh so hard that you will get shushed

in the friendliest way. I have found sanctuary in libraries my whole life,

and there is sanctuary there now, from the war, from the storm of our

families, and our own minds. Libraries are like mountains or meadows

or creeks, sacred space. So this afternoon, I’ll walk to the library.

Poetry for April 14

National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 14, 2007

Ukiah Library

Poem of the Day Ukiah Library

Paul Celan - Fugue of Death

"Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss. But it had to go through its own lack of answers, through terrifying silence, through the thousand darknesses of murderous speech. It went through. It gave me no words for what was happening, but went through it. Went through and could resurface, 'enriched' by it all."

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall

we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night

drink it and drink it

we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there

A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes

he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete

he writes it and walks from the house the stars glitter he whistles his dogs up

he whistles his Jews out and orders a grave to be dug in the earth

he commands us strike up for the dance

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night

we drink in the mornings at noon we drink you at nightfall

drink you and drink you

A man in the house he plays with the serpents he writes

he writes when the night falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete

Your ashen hair Shulamith we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there

He shouts stab deeper in earth you there and you others you sing and you play

he grabs at the iron in his belt and swings it and blue are his eyes

stab deeper your spades you there and you others play on for the dancing

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightfall

we drink you at noon in the mornings we drink you at nightfall

drink you and drink you

a man in the house your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Shulamith he plays with the serpents

He shouts play sweeter death's music death comes as a master from Germany

he shouts stroke darker the strings and as smoke you shall climb to the sky

then you'll have a grave in the clouds it is ample to lie there

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night

we drink you at noon death comes as a master from Germany

we drink you at nightfall and morning we drink you and drink you

a master from Germany death comes with eyes that are blue

with a bullet of lead he will hit in the mark he will hit you

a man in the house your golden hair Margarete

he hunts us down with his dogs in the sky he gives us a grave

he plays with the serpents and dreams death comes as a master from Germany

your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Shulamith.

Willits Library

for Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 15

In the concentration camp Ravensbruk, an unknown prisoner wrote this on a piece of wrapping paper and left it on the body of a dead child:

O Lord

remember not only

the men and women of good will

but also those of ill will

But do not remember

all the suffering they have

inflicted on us,

Remember the fruits

we have wrought

thanks to this suffering…

Our comradeship

our loyalty

our humility, our courage

our generosity

the greatness of heart

which has grown out of all this

And when they come to judgment

let all the fruits

which we have borne

be their forgiveness.

Poetry for Friday, April 13

National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for Lucky Friday April 13, 2007

Willits Library

Thich Nhat Hanh

The Good News

They don’t publish

the good news.

The good news is published

by us.

We have a special edition every moment,

and we need you to read it.

The good news is that you are alive,

and the linden tree is still there,

standing firm in the harsh Winter.

The good news is that you have wonderful eyes

to touch the blue sky.

The good news is that your child is there before you,

and your arms are available:

hugging is possible.

They only print what is wrong.

Look at each of our special editions.

We always offer the things that are not wrong.

We want you to benefit from them

and help protect them.

The dandelion is there by the sidewalk,

smiling its wondrous smile,

singing the song of eternity.

Listen! You have ears that can hear it.

Bow your head.

Listen to it.

Leave behind the world of sorrow

and preoccupation

and get free.

The latest good news

is that you can do it.

Ukiah Library for April 13

At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Bord

William Stafford

This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed — or were killed — on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.

April 12 -- Al Young, California Poet Laureate visits Mendocino County

National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 12, 2007

Celebrating the visits to Willits and Ukiah of California Poet Laureate Al Young

WILLITS LIBRARY 10 AM & UKIAH CITY HALL 7 PM with Ukiah Poets Laureate past & present

For Poets

Al Young

Stay beautiful

But don’t stay down underground too long

Don’t turn into a mole

or a worm

or a root

or a stone

Come on out into the sunlight

Breathe in trees

Knock out mountains

Commune with snakes

& be the very hero of birds

Don’t forget to poke your head up

& blink

Think

Walk all around

Swim upstream

Don’t forget to fly

Al Young

Notes on the Future of Love

Meanwhile over in yet another time zone,

somewhere between Iraq and another place

hard hit, the most toxic of gumbos thickens.

To the poisoned Kool-Aid taste of homemade sin,

answers-in-progress stack but don’t add up.

With every putrid breath you take, hope dissolves

into streaming reruns of hell and high water.

In Chinese, in Czech, in Arabic or Albanian,

in Japanese or German, does the Sermon on the Mount

still count? And does it say still: Thou shall not kill?

In your cozy time zone, sandwiched now somehow

between Iraq and another place hard hit,

where do you come down on the future of love?

Poetry for April 11, 2007

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for April 11, 2007

RAIN BELIEF

Linda Noel former Ukiah Poet Laureate

swollen

sky

sing us some rain sway

oak arms shed

your blue clothing let

free you moist flesh flung

against bone windows flaunt

your sleek body fly

above thirsty dreams fall

into my parched canyon throat fill

my river up fool

me into thinking wetness is enough watch

me flood myself feed

the memory

melt mountains

make mud

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 11, 2007

EMILY DICKINSON

Just lost, when I was saved!

Just felt the world go by!

Just girt me for the onset with Eternity,

When breath blew back,

And on the other side

I heard recede the disappointed tide!

Therefore, as One returned, I feel

Odd secrets of the line to tell!

Some Sailor, skirting foreign shores –

Some pale Reporter, from the awful doors

Before the Seal!

Next time, to stay!

Next time, the things to see

By Ear unheard,

Unscrutinized by Eye –

Next time, to tarry,

While the Ages steal –

Slow tramp the Centuries,

And the Cycles wheel!

Poetry for April 10

National Poetry Month

Poem of the Day

April 10. 2007

Ukiah Poet Laureate

David Smith-Ferri

Letter to Rachel

for my (then) seven-year-old daughter

Amara

July 25, 1999

We pass for pilgrims,

dusty, endangered, hangers on,

and a squint-eyed prick of light in the dark night of our minds

passes for a star.

Thus we enter a malnutrition ward of Amara General Hospital

with no gift to offer that gesture of hand cannot summon

or eye to eye bestow.

In this room: eight beds….eight mothers….

eight infants, a single mask of starvation.

***

Seekers, we are searched.

Every mother’s eye beholds us,

and every child’s face, Rachael,

is your face.

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 10, 2007

THE WHEEL

Wendell Berry

At the first strokes of the fiddle bow

the dancers rise from their seats.

The dance begins to shape itself

in the crowd, as couples join,

and couples join couples, their movement

together lightening their feet.

They move in the ancient circle

of the dance. The dance and the song

call each other into being. Soon

they are one – rapt in a single

rapture, so that even the night

has its clarity, and time

is the wheel that brings it round.

In this rapture the dead return.

Sorrow is gone from them.

They are light. They step

into the steps of the living

and turn with them in the dance

in the sweet enclosure

of the song, and timeless

is the wheel that brings it round.

Poetry for April 7

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 7, 2007 – WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S BIRTHDAY – Go Willy!! Donna's Choice

William Wordsworth

from ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARY CHILDHOOD

The Child is Father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore; -

Turn wheresoe’er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more….

V

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day….

XI

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

And one by sister, Dorothy

Eliza's choice

"A Cottage in Grasmere Vale" (composed c. 1805)

Peaceful our valley, fair and green,
And beautiful her cottages,
Each in its nook, its sheltered hold,
Or guarded by its tuft of trees--

Many and beautiful they are,
But there is one that I love best,
A lowly shed in truth it is,
A brother of the rest.

Yet when I sit on rock or hill,
Down looking on the valley fair,
That cottage with its clustering trees
Summons my heart--it settles there.

Others there are whose small domain
Of fertile fields and hedgerows green
Might more entice a wanderer's mind
To wish that there his home had been.

Such wish be his! I blame him not,
My fancy is unfettered, wild!
I love that house because it is
The very mountains' child.

Fields hath it of its own, green fields,
But they are craggy, steep and bare;
Their fence is of the mountain stone
And moss and lichen flourish there.

And when the storm comes from the north
It lingers near that pastoral spot,
And piping through the mossy walls,
It seems delighted with its lot.

And let it take its own delight,
And let it range the pastures bare;
Until it reach that group of trees
It may not enter there.

A green unfading grove it is,
Skirted with many a lesser tree--
Hazel and holly, beech and oak--
A bright and flourishing company!

Precious the shelter of those trees,
They screen the cottage that I love;
The sunshine pierces to the roof
And the tall pine-trees tower above.