"Clean and Even Music" (to the tune of) - Emperor Li Yu

 Li Yu, the last Emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty, only ruled for fourteen years, but during his reign, his support of the arts made his kingdom an important cultural center.   Personally talented as a musician, painter, and calligrapher, he is recognized for his contributions to a lyric form of poetry which the succeeding Song Dynasty further developed.  It was also a poem that caused his death at the age of forty-one, when he was ordered to drink poisoned wine by first emperor of the Song Dynasty, who had conquered and imprisoned him.  (Li's poem, to the tune "Beauty Yu", had been sung by the Song Emperor's own female court musicians!  Not hard to see how that could have annoyed him....)   I include here as it is a - real - killer of a poem....

Today is also the anniversary of my father's passing, eleven years ago. He suffered a massive heart attack and died in a hospital emergency room with me at bedside.   He was eighty-four years old at the time.  I chose the poem below because lamentation for a loss applies also to filial love.  And because the line about someone being so far away that not even a dream can reach them is particularly meaningful: he is infrequently now in my dreams, though I think of him regularly and keep his memory.  I miss him and am now more glad than mortified when I recognize him in how I speak or laugh a certain way sometimes.
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 “Clean and Even Music”  (to the tune of)

Since you left, Spring is half gone

and everything I see breaks my heart:

a chaos of plum petals falling by steps like snowflakes.

I brush them off and they cover me again.

Migrating wild geese bring me no word of you.

The road is so long that my dream cannot reach you.

The grief of departure is like spring grass

-- the farther you go, the deeper it grows.

                                                                       Emperor Li Yu (aka Li Houzhu “last ruler”)

And the killer poem:


"Beauty Yu:  (to the tune of)

 Will Spring blooms and autumn never end?
These memories are too much.
Last night east wind pierced my narrow tower again,
and I saw lost kingdoms in the clean bright moon.
The carved railings and jade steps must still be there,
though lovely faces must have aged.
How much sorrow do I feel?
Like river water in spring, it flows to the east.

When I Think About Why - Anonymous, Korean

"Anonymous" has always been a prolific author across the centuries.... This one is from 16th century Korea.  Given how hand fans were used by both men and women, one should pause before assuming it's a woman speaking.  That ambiguity is one reason I like it.  The other is how it says so much in so few words and uses very simple imagery to speak about so much.  (Think about all the questions you have after reading!)  And it has that wistful melancholy that is very Asian and familiar (to me).

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When I Think About Why

                                                   transl. V O. Baron and Chung Seuk Park

When I think about why

You sent that fan to me,

I wonder if you meant

For me to blow out the fire in my heart.

How could I put out a fire with a fan

When teardrops failed?

                                                Anonymous – 16^th Century  Korean

Nineteen Ancient Poems - #2 - Anonymous (Chinese)

 The "Nineteen Ancient Poems" are the earliest extant poems in the five-character meter that was the longest lasting form of Chinese poetry.  They date back almost 2000 years, author(s) unknown.  Translations, as I keep repeating, are - at best - like seeing an object through a prism, at least in terms of getting at the essence of the original.  There have been different schools of thought about translating from the Chinese, from rhyming and meter schemes that simulated and emulated the original, to the one below, which attempts to capture some of the rhythm and sing-song repetition in the original.  Over the years, my yard-stick is whether it conveys the overall atmosphere and tone by which our emotional reaction is created.  For me, this one succeeds and that's why it's included: that sorrow and moodiness of a loss observed and felt is a theme that recurs in later Chinese poetry.  Remember: this was written almost 2000 years ago....

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Nineteen Ancient Poems - #2

Green, so green is the river grass,

thick so thick are the garden willow’s leaves.

Beautiful, so beautiful is the lady upstairs.,

shining as she stands by the window, shining.

Pretty in her powdered rouge, so pretty

with her slender, slender white hands.

Once she was a singing girl,

but now is the wife of a womanizer.

He travels but rarely comes home.

So hard to sleep in an empty bed.

                                Anonymous – Chinese, Han Dynasty, 206 BCE – 220 CE

Nameless Journey

An Israeli poet who immigrated to Palestine in 1935 when she was in her early twenties, Goldberg had a distinguished academic career at Hebrew University in Jerusalem until her death in 1970.  She wrote children’s books and translated European authors.  I don’t know much about her, finding this in an anthology of women poets.   I chose this image from ones available, as the years were not kind to her youthful beauty.

This poem has a long “runway” leading to the last two lines, which, at least for me, were a surprise at first reading.  The gender in the last line could be either.  In subsequent readings, it’s clearer that the trail to it was marked..  (Don’t cheat and skip to the end!).  This appealed to the same part of me that likes jokes with an unexpected punch line.  The “runway” also made for - like a good wine - a longer (emotional) finish. And the effect of more readings, like more sips of that wine, uncovers more of its depth.  (A Grand Crus St. Emilion like Château Le Dome would be right: like this poem, it’s better than its classification.) 

———————————————————-
 From Nameless Journey 

                               Transl. by Raman Commanday
                                             
II

My room is so small
that the days sneak in, humiliated.
I, too, live that way,
in the smell of smoke and apples.
At night the neighbors turn on lights
on the other side of the yard.
They shine quietly
through the branches of the tall birch,
through the windows facing me.
At night sometimes it is difficult to remember
that once
somewhere
there was my own window.

III

These have been weeks when no one
calls me by name, and this is very simple:
the parrot in the kitchen of my house
has not yet learned it.
People the breadth of the city
don’t know it.
It has no voice, no sound or note.
Days, I go without a name
in the street whose name I know.
I sit for hours without a name
before the tree whose name I know.
Sometimes I think without a name
of him whose name I don’t know.

                                                    Leah Goldberg
                                           https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/bordeaux-wine-producer-profiles/bordeaux/st-emilion/le-dome/

Places, Loved Ones - Philip Larkin

The fifth selection by Philip Larkin and the one that most disturbs the Romantic - capital "R", not lower case - in me. His place and talent in the 20th century English poets' pantheon is secure, but I venture that his private life and "success" in love relationships was neither carefree or smooth.  His "love" poems, while personally affecting - in particular the truths in "Talking In Bed" - require thought, reflection, and multiple readings.  They manage to get to the heart, but not by a straight path.   This one "bothers" me the most.  It has some lines, like the last four in the first verse,  that are just perfection in a few words.  And the entire second verse.  But then, he smacks you with the concluding verse, which makes you ponder.... everything.  Brilliant, effective, and ...... frightening.  (Your thoughts?)
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Places, Loved Ones

                         

No, I have never found

The place where I could say

This is my proper ground,

Here I shall stay;

Nor met that special one

Who has an instant claim

On everything I own

Down to my name

To find such seems to prove

You want no choice in where

To build, or whom to love;

You ask them to bear

You off irrevocably,

So that it’s not your fault

Should the town turn dreary,

The girl, a dolt.

Yet, having missed them, you’re

Bound, none the less, to act

As if what you settled for

Mashed you, in fact;

And wiser to keep away

From thinking you still might trace

Uncalled-for to this day

Your person, your place.

                                                              Philip Larkin - English

Sonnets - Actualities - I - e.e. cummings

 The fifth selection from cummings.  I have a concern that it may be harder to understand by someone whose first language isn't English, but I believe in "stretching" when it comes to reading.  It's not a BIG poem, but one that captures well that state of anticipation waiting for the appearance of the loved one.  Check out the John Berryman Sonnet 23: it's another take on that "in waiting" state, which sometimes is more exciting than what happens after the arrival.  Everything is perfect when waiting, yet we have all had the experience of the actual time together be the total opposite.....   This one also made it here because it has lines describing the physical effect on the heartbeat created by the  presence of one's love.   Just like  the Inuit language is supposed to have 20 or more words for snow,   I am intrigued by how many different ways poets describe a heart beat in love. There should be one more than there are for describing a heart in pain....
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Sonnets – Actualities

                        I

when my love comes to see me it’s

just a little like music,  a

little more like curving colour (say

orange)

                 against silence, or darkness……….

the coming of my love emits

a wonderful smell in my mind,

you should see when I turn to find

her how my least heart-beat becomes less.

And then all her beauty is a vise

whose stilling lips murder suddenly me,

but of my corpse the tool her smile makes something

suddenly luminous and precise
-- and then we are I and She ………

what is that the hurdy-gurdy’s playing

                                                                     e.e. cummings - American

A Mutual Lullaby - Yehuda Amichai

With this one, I think Amichai takes the lead with most poems here....  And is it any wonder? PLEASE read some of the others and you'll see why.  It's worth learning Hebrew just to get their full impact!

As for including this one..... read it.  

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A Mutual Lullaby


For a while I've been meaning to tell you to sleep
but your eyes won't let sleep in, and your thighs
won't either. Your belly when I touch -- perhaps.
Count backward now, as if at a rocket launching,
and sleep. Or count forward,
as if you were starting a song. And sleep.
Let's compose sweet eulogies for each other as we lie together in the dark.
Tears remain longer than whatever caused them.
My eyes have burned this newspaper to a mist
but the wheat goes on growing in Pharahoh's dream.

Time isn't inside the clock
but love, sometimes, is inside our bodies.
Words that escape you in your sleep
are food and drink for the wild angels,
and our rumpled bed
is the last nature preserve
with shrieking laughter and lush green weeping.
For a while I've been meaning to tell you
that you should sleep
and that the black night will be cushioned
with soft red velvet - as in a case
for geometrical instruments --
around everything that's hard in you.

And that I'll keep you, as people keep the Sabbath,
even on weekdays, and that we'll stay together always
as on one of those New Year's cards
with a dove and a Torah, sprinkled with silver glitter.
And that we are still less expensive
than a computer. So they'll let us be.

                                                                                     Yehuda Amichai - Israeli

See?  I didn't want to ruin it for you, dear reader, with extraneous comments/observations.

A Decade - Amy Lowell

 Amy Lowell (1874-1925) came from a privileged and wealthy background, a true-blue "Boston Brahmin" who became an influential figure in championing and publicizing the Imagist movement exemplified by Ezra Pound.   While her dedication and energy to furthering poetry made T.S. Eliot call her "the demon saleswoman of poetry", Pound, after he and Lowell had a falling out, called her "hippopoetess", a reference to her large size.   Educated by tutors, private schools and self-guided reading, Amy wrote from an early age and was published in numerous journals besides being an editor, critic and lecturer.  She won a Pulitzer in 1925 for her collection of poems, What's A Clock.  Somewhat forgotten after her death, interest in her revived with the interest in women/lesbian writers during the emergence of the women's movement in mid-late 20th century.  While she did live with a woman for the last decade or so of her life AND her poetry could be erotic (as the one below), there is no "smoking gun" about her sexual orientation since her lov... er, companion burned all the personal papers.  Regardless, "A Decade" is a jewel, for a man or a woman.  I particularly like how it speaks to both the immediate experience and how it transforms as it repeats over time into something sustaining as well for "a decade"...
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A Decade

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

                                                                                              Amy Lowell

The Embroidery - Harrison Tao

Today is the 20th anniversary of my mother's passing away from melanoma, and I am taking "license" to post my elegiacal poem to her.   We had a complex relationship strained by the clashes caused by the challenges of raising me in two Western cultures (Brazilian and American) so dissimilar from our ancestral one.  Regardless, my own maturing (and a good therapist) has given me peace and perspective.  She loved me as best she knew how (and could) in a life that saw huge transformations and losses, and where her own needs and dreams went largely unfulfilled.  My mother was a strong and passionate person who deserved an easier and more rewarding emotional life than she ultimately lived.  She died angry and "raging against the dying of the light" (Dylan Thomas).   Whereas I was perturbed at the time, I now view the witnessing of her last breath as a gift. I love her and I miss her.  

As I get closer to - perhaps - "seeing" her again, I focus on how much love and affection she showed her only grandchild, my daughter.   Here is a link to a longer commentary.
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The  Embroidery 
                                  to Lee Pik-Yuen (Lily Tao), 1916 - 1990

What song for a life of sorrows?

What sorrows steep within a tea?

What tea for partings without the proper song?

In less-than half the heartbeats you carried me within,

an obscene rebellion tunneling beneath the skin
collapsed all the familiar contours:

your body now a ladder of bones

in an emptying hospital room,

and the high-collar Shantung dresses,

slit-to-the-knee brocaded sheaths

of an abrupted youth and Shanghai sweets,                                                 

become an anonymous sheet

I would not let be pulled over your face.

So much was hidden already:

the kneelings by the carved chest

left in Brazil,

your tai chi-smooth splitting of the twin brass-locks

to raise the fishermen, the village,

the pavilion in the cloud,

to furlough from a scented darkness,

song-birds straining their silk threads,

two  dazzling butterflies

flightless, though unpinned.

Contemplated for a pot or two,

yet always re-folded, never displayed,

you always camphored it away,

the creases deepening

unsmoothable as the choices made:

strength to a weary husband,

solace from a tended rose-bush: 

yourself a muted nightingale 
in an unlocked cage.

Your face still now, 
moon-mottled and breath-less,

the eyes tranquil seas, finally,

this son, twice-born without a voice,

unfurls it now, pennant and shroud,

to sing you homeward

with words you would not recognize,

to return your ashes into steps.

Though there is no more pleasing,

I take the silence as approval:

I drink my fill, 

and call it tea.

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The embroidery seen in the first photo hung in the space (the cinder-blocks with the black strip) between the two windows - the two pieces of plywood - in my bedroom.  (The fire started below it along that wall.)  The first photo is the only evidence it ever existed.  So it goes.... 

Forever Parted: Graveyard. - Gu Cheng

Walking on East 41st St. just east of Fifth Avenue, this poem stared up at me as I stared down at my feet.  Embedded on the sidewalk, it’s one of 96 such plaques with poems and literary quotes selected in the 1990s and placed there on the two blocks leading to the New York City’s main public library - the one with the famous flanking lions.  

I couldn’t recall either the poet or the poem but it connected, as it had that very Chinese “voice” and language that is so appealing: deceptively simple in imagery yet complex in how it joined disparate ones.  I was intrigued, especially as his birth-year (1956) would make him my generation.  Was he a Chinese-American, born there or here, but writing in English? A Mainland Chinese still there (or here) translated into English?  Researching led to the unexpected.

First, the plaque needs to be updated: Gu Cheng (male) died on Oct 8, 1993, in New Zealand, hanging himself after having killed his wife with an axe.  They - her name was Xie Ye - had immigrated to New Zealand after leaving China in 1987, after he had become a literary celebrity following the end of the Cultural Revolution.  A prominent member of a group of modernist writers (“The Misty Poets”, a pejorative - meng dong - by the authorities meaning “obscure” or “hazy” ), his poetry was well-known and popular, his poems being both surreal and grounded in every day life and appealing to a generation tired and disaffected by the dullness and propaganda of official writers..  

A poet’s death, particularly one with the tabloid drama of a murder and/or suicide, will always add an * to their work, becoming an unavoidable filter or lens through which it will be interpreted.  I only knew the poem and the poem met my criteria for inclusion.

As for the poem itself, picture the poet, in loss and mourning, visiting the grave of the loved one, unable to use his medium and the tools of his trade to express…

Sonnet LXIX - 100 Sonnets of Love - Pablo Neruda

Regardless, of how this poem arrives on your physical (or virtual) doorstep - by dogsled, singing messenger,  snail-mail, spam, or even in a blog you stumble upon, it should be taken very, very seriously as a reminder that life is short and The Beatles had it almost right: Love may not be all you need, but without it, what is the rest?  And if it arrives by carrier pigeon with a flash-drive attached to a leg or delivered by Federal Express, you would be a fool NOT to run - not walk - to the person who sent it.  How much more could you ask for from someone IF their other actions match the ardor, passion, and devotion in these words???

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Sonnet LXIX
                                          transl. - Stephen Tapscott

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,

without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence: without your coming
suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,
gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we’ll be.

                                                                                              Pablo Neruda

Sonnet LXVI - I do not love you - Pablo Neruda

As promised, another from Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets.  I wish you could read it in Spanish: some of the passion is diluted in translation, as I hold firmly that certain love-poetry can only be "pulled off" in their origin.  This one is a declaration of love that speaks true, as it acknowledges that when we love someone, we at once see him/her perfectly well AND, simultaneously, not at all, in order to love them and their shortcomings.  (If YOU are loved THAT well, pay attention!)
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Sonnet LXVI
                                         transl. by Stephen Trascott

I do not love you – except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
from waiting to not waiting for you
my heart moves from the cold into

the fire. I love you only because it’s you
I love; I hate you no end, and hating you
bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
is that I do not see you but love you

blindly. Maybe the January light will comsume
my heart with its cruel
ray, stealing my key to true

calm. In this part of the story I am the one who
dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you
because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.

                                                                                         Pablo Neruda

Sonnet LXV (100 Sonnets) - Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda needs no introduction, least of all by me, as THE giant and most popular South American poet writing in Spanish.  I could easily post all 100 of his love sonnets, one per day, and no reader would have reason to complain that either the subject (Love) or "mission" of this blog was shortchanged.  But that would cheat you from your own discovery of their range and passion.  I will, however, post a few, one after the other beginning with this one (in addition to the four already posted over the last few months), so that a grouping can give a better flavor than a single one.  Call it a tasting bite.  Neruda divided the "100 Sonnets of Love" into sections called Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and Night.  This one is from Evening and needs no explanation.   
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Sonnet LXV
                                      transl. Stephen Tapscott

Matilde, where are you? Down here I noticed,
under my necktie and just above my heart,
a certain pang of grief between the ribs,
you were gone that quickly.

I needed the light of your energy,
I looked around, devouring hope.
I watched the void without you that is like a house,
nothing left but tragic windows.

Out of sheer taciturnity the ceiling listens
to the fall of the ancient leafless rain,
to feathers, to whatever the night imprisioned;
so I wait for you like a lonely house
till you will see me again and live in me.
Till then my windows ache.

                                                                Pablo Neruda

Eight Sonnets - III - Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950) didn't live long enough to see the feminist movement of the 60s, but conducted her life with the integrity of being her own person in a time when most women could not and did not, thus serving as a great role model for those that followed.  Born in Maine, "Vincent" (as she was called by friends) parlayed an early poem, with encouragement from her mother, into a scholarship to Vassar.  It was off-to-the-races then to a literary life as a poet and playwright in New York City, to Greenwich Village where she lived on the brink of poverty but with great zest.  Her fourth volume of poetry garnered a Pulitzer in 1923.  She continued writing poetry (and plays) for the rest of her career and was widely known through the many public readings she gave.  Though openly bisexual, "Vincent", was in an open marriage until her husband of twenty-six years died a year before her own.  This sonnet, the third in a group of eight, has always intrigued me by how it is set up.
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Eight Sonnets

III

I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.

                                                                                        Edna St. Vincent Millay

No Road - Philip Larkin

Another by Philip Larkin.  (Bio info, etc. with earlier ones.  Click on "Talking in Bed": it will speak to you.)   Larkin is known for his control of form and language: consider how the extended metaphor in this one is so concisely written.   And how much is dealt with in so few lines.  The first verse illustrates that quote from the French philosopher Blase Pascal: "The heart has its reasons, of which Reason knows nothing about", that the best rational decisions about a relationship don't stand a chance against what the heart feels.  The second verse is a warning that, when the traffic is one way, even that heart can only take so much neglect before the artifices of Reason will win.  The closing verse is a peek into a future that can yet be prevented....but only if the warning is heeded and the effort to keep the road open is equal and mutual.  The last four lines have always made me shudder: so powerful in conveying the real pain but false power in the outcome..
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No Road

Since we agreed to let the road between us
Fall to disuse,
And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us,
And turned all time’s eroding agents loose,
Silence, and space, and strangers – our neglect
Has not had much effect.

Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown;
No other change.
So clear it stands, so little overgrown,
Walking that way tonight would not seem strange,
And still would be allowed. A little longer,
And time will be the stronger,

Drafting a world where no such road will run
From you to me;
To watch that world come up like a cold sun,
Rewarding others, is my liberty.
Not to prevent it is my will’s fulfillment.
Willing it, my ailment.

                                                                                              Philip Larkin

Wild Oats

This is the fifth poem by Larkin in this anthology and it’s one that straddles my self-imposed/copied categories.  One could call it an  “Intimations” poem as much as a “Separations” or “Desolations” one.  It really doesn’t fit neatly in any, but it belongs in this anthology precisely because it mirrors real life: sometimes it’s just impossible to categorize a relationship (or its place) in the “love relationship pantheon”.  I’ve “liked” it because of how compresses the whole arc of a seven year into just a few lines, but the sparseness of details does not deter one from absolutely “getting” what it was to the writer.  There is a sadness in how desultory it was or meaningful (or not) to him.  He isn’t quite a cad but certainly not a noble soul.  And he doesn’t seem to have learned anything from the years it took of his (and her) life, even while “reflecting” through this account of the relationship.  It leaves me both sad for him and wondering how many of us have had his kind of experience. 

BY PHILIP LARKIN

About twenty years ago

Two girls came in where I worked—

A bosomy English rose

And her friend in specs I could talk to.   

Faces in those days sparked

The whole shooting-match off, and I doubt   

If ever one had like hers:

But it was the friend I took out,

And in seven years after that   

Wrote over four hundred letters,   

Gave a ten-guinea ring

I got back in the end, and met   

At numerous cathedral cities   

Unknown to the clergy. I believe

I met beautiful twice. She was trying   

Both times (so I thought) not to laugh.

Parting, after about five

Rehearsals, was an agreement   

That I was too selfish, withdrawn,   

And easily bored to love.

Well, useful to get that learnt.   

In my wallet are still two snaps

Of bosomy rose with fur gloves on.   

Unlucky charms, perhaps.

Words for the Wind

This is the sixth of Roethke’s poems included here and one of his great love poems—lush, sensual, and mystical.  I wrestled with its inclusion because of thelength, but it’s worth taking the time to read.  And reread because the imagery is so rich and - sometimes - so rewiring of common words together for something fresh, that it takes some time and effort to fully appreciate what he has done. It’s a sustained lyric meditation on the subject.  The ending has always struck me as quintessential Roethke. Love is not simply admiration or desire; it’s a way of discovering oneself in another consciousness.

So, get a glass of your favorite beverage for reading poetry, get comfortable, and enjoy!  

 WORDS FOR THE WIND

                                          Theodore Roethke 

1

Love, love, a lily's my care,
She's sweeter than a tree.
Loving, I use the air
Most lovingly: I breathe;
Mad in the wind I wear
Myself as I should be,
All's even with the odd,
My brother the vine is glad.

Are flower and seed the same?
What do the great dead say?
Sweet Phoebe, she's my theme:
She sways whenever I sway.
"O love me while I am,
You green thing in my way!"
I cried, and the birds came down
And made my song their own.

Motion can keep me still:
She kissed me out of thought
As a lovely substance will;
She wandered; I did not:
I stayed, and light fell
Across her pulsing throat;
I stared, and a garden stone
Slowly became the moon.

The shallow stream runs slack;
The wind creaks slowly by;
Out of a nestling's beak
Comes a tremulous cry
I cannot answer back;
A shape from deep in the eye 
That woman I saw in a stone 
Keeps pace when I walk alone.

2

The sun declares the earth;
The stones leap in the stream;
On a wide plain, beyond
The far stretch of a dream,
A field breaks like the sea;
The wind's white with her name,
And I walk with the wind.

The dove's my will today.
She sways, half in the sun:
Rose, easy on a stem,
One with the sighing vine,
One to be merry with,
And pleased to meet the moon.
She likes wherever I am.

Passion's enough to give
Shape to a random joy:
I cry delight: I know
The root, the core of a cry.
Swan-heart, arbutus-calm,
She moves when time is shy:
Love has a thing to do.

A fair thing grows more fair;
The green, the springing green
Makes an intenser day
Under the rising moon;
I smile, no mineral man;
I bear, but not alone,
The burden of this joy.

3

Under a southern wind,
The birds and fishes move
North, in a single stream;
The sharp stars swing around;
I get a step beyond
The wind, and there I am,
I'm odd and full of love.

Wisdom, where is it found? 
Those who embrace, believe.
Whatever was, still is,
Says a song tied to a tree.
Below, on the ferny ground,
In rivery air, at ease,
I walk with my true love.

What time's my heart? I care.
I cherish what I have
Had of the temporal:
I am no longer young
But the winds and waters are;
What falls away will fall;
All things bring me to love.

4

The breath of a long root,
The shy perimeter
Of the unfolding rose,
The green, the altered leaf,
The oyster's weeping foot,
And the incipient star 
Are part of what she is.
She wakes the ends of life.

Being myself, I sing
The soul's immediate joy.
Light, light, where's my repose?
A wind wreathes round a tree.
A thing is done: a thing
Body and spirit know
When I do what she does:
Creaturely creature, she! 

I kiss her moving mouth,
Her swart hilarious skin;
She breaks my breath in half;
She frolicks like a beast;
And I dance round and round,
A fond and foolish man,
And see and suffer myself
In another being, at last.

1958