There Once Was a Guineable Ami-pig

Yesterday at the Hole-in-the-Wall used book store I found a copy of Beatrix Potter's Nursery Rhyme Book. This was a favorite of my daugher's when she was very young. We used to read them together until she knew them by heart. She liked to say, "There once was a guineable ami-pig." instead of "There once was an amiable guinea-pig" and it cracked us both up. Is there anything more fun than discovering your child has a sense of humor?

Two poems for my daughter:


There once was an amiable guinea-pig,
Who brushed back his hair like a periwig—

He wore a sweet tie
As blue as the sky –

And his whiskers and buttons
Were very big.

Beatrix Potter


Appley Dapply, a little
brown mouse,
Goes to the cupboard in
some-body’s house.

In somebody’s cupboard
There’s everything nice,
Cake, cheese, jam, biscuits,
-- All charming for mice!

Appley Dapply has little
sharp eyes,
And Appley Dapply is so fond
of pies.

Beatrix Potter

The Sunday Paper

I was going to write about the plumbing leak that ruined my kitchen ceiling, but after reading the Sunday paper I don't like to complain. Most of the world is so much worse off than I am.



Charles Simic
Something Large Is in the Woods

That's what the leaves are telling us tonight.
Hear them frighten and be struck dumb
So that we sit up listening to nothing,
Which is always more worrisome than something.
The minutes crawl like dog fleas up our legs.
We must wait for whatever it is to identify itself
In some as-yet-unspecified way
As the trees are rushing to warn us again,
The branches beat against the house to be let in,
And then change their minds abruptly.
Think how many leaves are holding still in the woods
With no wish to add to their troubles
With something so large closing upon us?
It makes one feel vaguely heroic
Sitting so late with no light in the house
And the night dark and starless out there.



Wislawa Szymborska
The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.

Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.

Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.

Someone has to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone has to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.

No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.

The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.

Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens, nodding
his unshattered head.

But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who'll find all that
a little boring.

From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.

Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.

The Maple Tree

I have a maple tree in the front yard. It's too close to the driveway and to the power lines. The roots come up through what's left of the grass. It doesn't shade the house, only the yard, preventing me from growing grass or anything else. And, the bottom limbs are too low so I bump my head on it when I'm trying to mow. So I should have it taken out.

I know some tree guys who would be happy to remove it (for a price, of course). The main tree guy says maple trees are just the weeds of the tree world anyhow. But still, it's a tree. It's a living thing. Can I really just have it chopped down for my own convenience? What would the other trees think?

The Hawthorne Tree

Side by side, not
hand in hand: I watch you
walking in the summer garden—things
that can’t move
learn to see; I do not need
to chase you through
the garden; human beings leave
signs of feeling
everywhere, flowers
scattered on the dirt path, all
white and gold, some
lifted a little by
the evening wind; I do not need
to follow where you are now,
deep in the poisonous field, to know
the cause of your flight, human
passion or rage: for what else
would you let drop
all you have gathered?


Louise Gluck

Three Poems

I get some of my best poems from the Sunday Washington Post Book World. Here are two I found recently and loved.

The first makes reference to "folding chairs":

Moving Day

Scraps and small reminders said the scissors to the shelf
Why do I feel empty said the oven to itself
Some of us are hungry said can opener to tin
Tell me said the radio how much you want to win
And take us along when you go.

All the way from Thailand said the topmost row of cans
Rise and turn around again explained the standing fan
None of us are broken said the tumblers to the towel
Scratch me up or polish me said banister to dowel
And take us along when you go.

When they come to get you said a carton to its box
Count your lucky hours said a doorjamb to its locks
Will she will he will she sang the plumbing to the void
Did you mean to build me will I ever be destroyed

Carpet said to ceiling Can I offer any more
Nothing I can give you said the lintel to the door
You always overlook me said the baseboard to the stair
Board games valise said the attic and a folding chair
And take us along when you go.

Stephen Burt

Don't think about this next poem too hard - just enjoy.

Pumpkin Envy

How many hours did I lie in bed, thought stapling
my sixteen-year-old arms to the sheets,
thought’s curare, when I finally did dial Tami Jamison,
numbing my lips too much to speak?

How often did I think, “I’m dead,” feeling
my strength leak away, phlegm drown my lungs,
sarcoma thrust like red toads up out of my skin
in the three days between the blood-drawing

and the doctor’s benediction: “Negative.”
Thought is a rope that pulls the kite out of the sky—
a cramp that locks the boxer’s chin as fists hiss
toward his head. “What sharks?” my friend demands,

launching the sea-kayak that gives him so much fun.
How many odes would Keats have traded for one
night with Fanny Brawne? What did understanding do
for Nietzsche, but make him more insane?

Thought is more deadly than crack or heroin.
Its pipe to my lips, the needle in my vein.
I loll in my dark room, and envy pumpkin vines.
Whatever’s in their way, they overrun. Unafraid

of blight, birds, drought, or humans’ being
they stretch out in the heat, let their roots drink deep
and—never giving a thought to anything—
make a million copies of the sun.

Charles Harper Webb

And one final poem from Billy Collins.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins

Instructions

I read two books recently by Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere and Stardust. They were rather sweet fantasies, with a touch of whimsy, and I enjoyed them very much. Thank you to my daughter for sending them to me. Nowhere was the darker of the two. I enjoyed the author playing with the names of the London subway stations, and with the homeless who seek shelter there. A man falls into an alternate reality where he becomes part of the community of street people living below London. He is suddenly invisible to those in his previous life, including his former co-workers and former fiance, even when he is standing right in front of them. At the same time his life is more real than it ever was before.

Just in case you ever drop into another reality:

Instructions
by Neil Gaiman

Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never
saw before.
Say "please" before you open the latch,
go through,
walk down the path.
A red metal imp hangs from the green-painted
front door,
as a knocker,
do not touch it; it will bite your fingers.
Walk through the house. Take nothing. Eat
nothing.
However, if any creature tells you that it hungers,
feed it.
If it tells you that it is dirty,
clean it.
If it cries to you that it hurts,
if you can,
ease its pain.

From the back garden you will be able to see the
wild wood.
The deep well you walk past leads to Winter's
realm;
there is another land at the bottom of it.
If you turn around here,
you can walk back, safely;
you will lose no face. I will think no less of you.

Once through the garden you will be in the
wood.
The trees are old. Eyes peer from the under-
growth.
Beneath a twisted oak sits an old woman. She
may ask for something;
give it to her. She
will point the way to the castle.
Inside it are three princesses.
Do not trust the youngest. Walk on.
In the clearing beyond the castle the twelve
months sit about a fire,
warming their feet, exchanging tales.
They may do favors for you, if you are polite.
You may pick strawberries in December's frost.
Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where
you are going.
The river can be crossed by the ferry. The ferry-
man will take you.
(The answer to his question is this:
If he hands the oar to his passenger, he will be free to
leave the boat.
Only tell him this from a safe distance.)

If an eagle gives you a feather, keep it safe.
Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that
witches are often betrayed by their appetites;
dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always;
hearts can be well-hidden,
and you betray them with your tongue.

Do not be jealous of your sister.
Know that diamonds and roses
are as uncomfortable when they tumble from
one's lips as toads and frogs:
colder, too, and sharper, and they cut.

Remember your name.
Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found.
Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped
to help you in their turn.
Trust dreams.
Trust your heart, and trust your story.
When you come back, return the way you came.
Favors will be returned, debts will be repaid.
Do not forget your manners.
Do not look back.
Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall).
Ride the silver fish (you will not drown).
Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur).

There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is
why it will not stand.

When you reach the little house, the place your
journey started,
you will recognize it, although it will seem
much smaller than you remember.
Walk up the path, and through the garden gate
you never saw before but once.
And then go home. Or make a home.
And rest.

And, another bit of fantasy:

Song
by John Donne

Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me, where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’ stinging
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be’est born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
Nowhere
Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find’st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet,
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come to two, or three.