Of Nature

i really have nothing, witty or otherwise, by way of introduction to these pieces. you'll note that cummings is represented again--unsurprising as i believe he is supplanted in my heart by only the pearl-poet, and perhaps kittens. the other works are simply remarkable, especially nemerov's and stevens', for various reasons... the dickinson piece particularly for being one of her few that cannot be sung readily to the theme from gilligan's island, and for being the only one of hers that i truly enjoy.

gasp!

i know. i'm a rat bastard for not loving the ED. perhaps i need medication to correct it.

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The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

(William Blake, 1794)

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To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

(Emily Dickinson, unknown)

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Nomad Exquisite

As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth
The big-finned palm
And green vine angering for life,

As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth hymn and hymn
From the beholder,
Beholding all these green sides
And gold sides of green sides,

And blessed mornings,
Meet for the eye of the young alligator,
And lightning colors
So, in me, comes flinging
Forms, flames, and the flakes of flames.

(Wallace Stevens, 1923)

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The Panther

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down though the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

(Rainer Maria Rilke, 1927)

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l(a

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness

(E. E. Cummings, 1958)

-----

Because You Asked about the Line
between Prose and Poetry

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Ridding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn't tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

(Howard Nemerov, 1980)

-----

End of April

Under a cherry tree
I found a robin's egg,
broken, but not shattered.

I had been thinking of you,
and was kneeling in the grass
among fallen blossoms

when I saw it: a blue scrap,
a delicate toy, as light
as confetti.

It didn't seem real,
but nature will do such things
from time to time.

I looked inside:
it was glistening, hollow,
a perfect shell

except for the missing crown,
which made it possible
to look inside.

What had been there
is gone now
and lives in my heart

where, periodically,
it opens up its wings,
tearing me apart.

(Phillis Levin, 1996)