by Brenda Hillman         

          We had a grief
we didn’t understand while
          standing at the edge of
  some low scrub hills as if
humans were extra
  or already gone;—

what had been in us before?
         a life that asks for mostly
   wanting freedom to get things done
in order to feel less
         helpless about the end
of things alone—;

when i think of time on earth,
  i feel the angle of gray minutes
         entering the medium days
   yet not “built-up”:: our
work together: groups, the willing
   burden of an old belief,

          & beyond them love, as of
   a great life going like fast
creatures peeling back marked
   seeds, gold-brown integuments
   the color time
 will be when we are gone—

by Eric Gamalinda 

You are running away from everyone
who loves you,
from your family,
from old lovers, from friends.

They run after you with accumulations
of a former life, copper earrings,
plates of noodles, banners
of many lost revolutions.

You love to say the trees are naked now
because it never happens
in your country. This is a mystery
from which you will never

recover. And yes, the trees are naked now,
everything that still breathes in them
lies silent and stark
and waiting. You love October most

of all, how there is no word
for so much splendor.
This, too, is a source
of consolation. Between you and memory

everything is water. Names of the dead,
or saints, or history.
There is a realm in which
—no, forget it,

it’s still too early to make anyone understand.
A man drives a stake
through his own heart
and afterwards the opposite of nostalgia

begins to make sense: he stops raking the leaves
and the leaves take over
and again he has learned
to let go.

Of course they are empty shells, without hope of animation.
Of course they are artifacts.

Even if my sister and I should wear some,
or if we give others away,

they will always be your clothes without you,
as we will always be your daughters without you.

Fragile like a child is fragile.
Destined not to be forever.
Destined to become other
To mother. Here I am
Sitting on a chair, thinking
About you. Thinking
About how it was
To talk to you.
How sometimes it was wonderful
And sometimes it was awful.
How drugs when drugs were
Undid the good almost entirely
But not entirely
Because good could always be seen
Glimmering like lame glimmers
In the window of a shop
Called Beautiful
Things Never Last Forever.
I loved you. I love you. You were.
And you are. Life is experience.
It’s all so simple. Experience is
The chair we sit on.
The sitting. The thinking
Of you where you are a blank
To be filled
In by missing. I loved you.
I love you like I love
All beautiful things.
True beauty is truly seldom.
You were. You are
In May. May now is looking onto
The June that is coming up.
This is how I measure
The year. Everything Was My Fault
Has been the theme of the song
I’ve been singing,
Even when you’ve told me to quiet.
I haven’t been quiet.
I’ve been crying. I think you
Have forgiven me. You keep
Putting your hand on my shoulder
When I’m crying.
Thank you for that. And
For the ineffable sense
Of continuance. You were. You are
The brightest thing in the shop window
And the most beautiful seldom I ever saw.

I’ll go among the dead to see my friend.
The place I leave is beautiful: the sea
Repeats the winds’ far swell in its long sound,
And, there beside it, houses solemnly
Shine with the modest courage of the land,
While swimmers try the verge of what they see.

I cannot go, although I should pretend
Some final self whose phantom eye could see
Him who because he is not cannot change.
And yet the thought of going makes the sea,
The land, the swimmers, and myself seem strange,
Almost as strange as they will someday be.

I buried my father
in the sky.
Since then, the birds
clean and comb him every morning  
and pull the blanket up to his chin  
every night.

I buried my father underground.  
Since then, my ladders
only climb down,
and all the earth has become a house  
whose rooms are the hours, whose doors  
stand open at evening, receiving  
guest after guest.
Sometimes I see past them
to the tables spread for a wedding feast.

I buried my father in my heart.
Now he grows in me, my strange son,  
my little root who won’t drink milk,  
little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,  
little clock spring newly wet
in the fire, little grape, parent to the future  
wine, a son the fruit of his own son,  
little father I ransom with my life.

I’m petrified

by dead leaves,

by meadows

full of dew.

I’ll sleep.

If you don’t wake me,

I’ll leave beside you my cold heart.

‘What’s that sound

so far away?’

'Love.

The wind on the panes, 

my love!’

Round your neck I placed

the gems of dawn.

Why do you desert me 

on this road?

If you go off so far

my bird sobs,

and the green vineyard

won’t give its wine.

'What’s that sound

so far away?’

'Love.

The wind on the panes, 

my love!’

You’ll never know 

how much I’d

have loved you,

snow-sphinx,

in those dawns 

when it rains so hard

and the nest comes apart 

on the dry branch.

'What’s that sound

so far away?’

'Love.

The wind on the panes,

my love!’