“Science is the same as poetry” Robert Kelly

Science
by Robert Kelly
Science explains nothing
but holds all together as
many things as it can count
science is a basket
not a religion he said
a cat as big as a cat
the moon the size of the moon
science is the same as poetry
only it uses the wrong words.

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“Miracle…half heard” Linda Gregg

Now I Understand
by Linda Gregg
Something was pouring out. Filling the field
and making it vacant. A wind blowing them
sideways as they moved forward. The crying
as before. Suddenly I understood why they left
the empty bowls on the table, in the empty hut
overlooking the sea. And knew the meaning
of the heron breaking branches, spreading
his wings in order to [...]

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“You are the music/While the music lasts” T.S. Eliot

It is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts
from “Dry Salvages” by T.S. Eliot
“What is pushed to the back of the mind makes its way forward somehow. Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. They cast strange shadows… ” Flannery O’Connor
Careful, a night set on edge
the European tradition [...]

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“I have loved it without knowing why.” Claribel Alegria

Rain
by Claribel Alegría
Translated by Margaret S. Peden
As the falling rain
trickles among the stones
memories come bubbling out.
It’s as if the rain
had pierced my temples.
Streaming
streaming chaotically
come memories:
the reedy voice
of the servant
telling me tales
of ghosts.
They sat beside me
the ghosts
and the bed creaked
that purple-dark afternoon
when I learned you were leaving forever,
a gleaming pebble
from constant rubbing
becomes a comet.
Rain [...]

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“Keeping Things Whole” Mark Strand

Keeping Things Whole
by Mark Strand
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

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“We need some pines to assuage the darkness” Marvin Bell

Around Us
by Marvin Bell
We need some pines to assuage the darkness
when it blankets the mind,
we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly
as a plane’s wing, and a worn bed of
needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind,
and a blur or two of a wild thing
that sees and is not seen. We [...]

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