The Past

What is past -- the past -- does not, nor will it, detach itself and remain where it was (or where it might have been intended to have remained) but it must bring itself forward, and smilingly, or otherwise, present itself as an old friend.

Joseph Newington Carter 1835-71

Poem of the One world

Poem of the One world
by Mary Oliver

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself. 

"Poem of the One world" by Mary Oliver, from A Thousand Mornings. © The Penguin Press, 2012

From "Song Of The Turkey Buzzard"
by Lew Welch

Hear my last Will & Testament:

                          Among my friends there shall always be 
                          one with proper instructions
                          for my continuance.

                                      Let no one grieve.
                                      l shall have used it all up 
                                      used up every bit of it.

                                      What an extravagance! 
                                      What a relief!

                          On a marked rock, following his orders, 
                          place my meat.

                                      All care must be taken not to
                                      frighten the natives of this 
                                      barbarous land, who
                                      will not let us die, even, 
                                      as we wish.

                          With proper ceremony disembowel what I 
                          no longer need, that it might more quickly 
                          rot and tempt

                          my new form

Vertical

Vertical
by Linda Pastan

Perhaps the purpose
of leaves is to conceal
the verticality
of trees
which we notice
in December
as if for the first time:
row after row
of dark forms
yearning upwards.
And since we will be
horizontal ourselves
for so long,
let us now honor
the gods
of the vertical:
stalks of wheat
which to the ant
must seem as high
as these trees do to us,
silos and
telephone poles,
stalagmites
and skyscrapers.
But most of all
these winter oaks,
these soft-fleshed poplars,
this birch

whose bark is like
roughened skin
against which I lean
my chilled head,
not ready
to lie down.

"Vertical" by Linda Pastan, from Traveling Light. © Norton, 2010. 

How clear, how lovely bright

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
  Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
  Soars the delightful day.

Today I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
  Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
  I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
  Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
  Falls the remorseful day.

A.E. Housman