The Net – Babette Deutsch

Into this net of leaves, green as old glass
That the sun fondles, trembling like images

In water, this live net, swung overhead
From branch to branch, what swam? The spider’s thread

Is less passive, where it appears to float
Like a bright hair clinging to the wind’s coat.

Hot at work, history neither schemes nor grieves
Here where the soaking dead are last year’s leaves,

And over them slung, meshed with sun, a net
No creature wove, none frantically tried to fret.

The huge weight of time without its sting
Hangs in that greenly cradling woof. A wing

Has caught there, held. Held. But not to stay,
We know, who, how slowly, walk away.

Cape Cod – George Santayana

The low sandy beach and the thin scrub pine,
The wide reach of bay and the long sky line,—
O, I am sick for home!

The salt, salt smell of the thick sea air,
And the smooth round stones that the ebbtides wear,—
When will the good ship come?

The wretched stumps all charred and burned,
And the deep soft rut where the cartwheel turned,—
Why is the world so old?

The lapping wave, and the broad gray sky
Where the cawing crows and the slow gulls fly,
Where are the dead untold?

The thin, slant willows by the flooded bog,
The huge stranded hulk and the floating log,
Sorrow with life began!

And among the dark pines, and along the flat shore,
O the wind, and the wind, for evermore!
What will become of man?

Between – Marie Ponsot

(for my daughter)

Composed in a shine of laughing, Monique brings in sacks
of groceries, unloads them, straightens, and stretches her back.

The child was a girl, the girl is a woman; the shift
is subtle and absolute, worn like a gift.

The woman, once girl once child, now is deft in her ease,
is door to the forum, is cutter of keys.

In space that her torque and lift have prefigured and set free
between her mother and her child the woman stands
having emptied her hands.

Restless Night – Tu Fu

As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom,
Moonlight fills every corner of our
Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles.
Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren’t.

Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking
Waterbirds begin calling, one to another.
All things caught between shield and sword,
All grief empty, the clear night passes.

From Doctor Drink – J.V. Cunningham

In the thirtieth year of life
I took my heart to be my wife,

And as I turn in bed by night
I have my heart for my delight.

No other heart may mine estrange
For my heart changes as I change,

And it is bound, and I am free,
And with my death it dies with me.