Dorianne Laux is a favorite poet of mine, and an even stellar human being. Thanking this universe for having her. Thanking you for reading this.


Savages

Those two shelves, down there.
--Adrienne Rich


They buy poetry like gang members
buy guns -- for aperture, caliber,
heft and defense. They sit on the floor
in the stacks, thumbing through Keats
and Plath, Levine and Olds, four boys
in a bookstore, black glasses, brackish hair,
rumpled shirts from the bin at St. Vincent de Paul.
One slides a warped hardback
from the bottom shelf, the others
scoot over to check the dates,
the yellowed sheaves ride smooth
under their fingers.
One reads a stanza in a whisper,
another turns the page, and their heads
almost touch, temple to temple -- toughs
in a huddle, barbarians before a hunt, kids
hiding in an alley while sirens spiral by.
When they finish reading one closes
the musty cover like the door
on Tutankhamen's tomb. They are savage
for knowledge, for beauty and truth.
They crawl on their knees to find it.

--Dorianne Laux, from "Facts About the Moon"

Nothing can bring me back to Earth, or

take me far, far into the skies as much as receiving the most beautiful letter from the most beautiful Caitlin. Part of our new collaboration that I'd rather not discuss much for fear of ruining the personal space of the art. . .oh, but it's glorious! And it's waking me up! waking me up! waking me up!

new york.

did i ever tell you how much i love this city?
well if not, then i'm telling you now
how much i love this city.

Landscape

Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky--as though

all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.

Mary Oliver