Here's to that wild November full moon!

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We drove to the slough and walked briefly

along the uneven path.

There are plants here

you see nowhere else,

you said.

Pickleweed?  Duckweed?

Branching pipettes.

         *

Among twenty brown hills

the only moving thing

was the Coca-Cola truck.

Rae Armantrout

Two for Turkey Day!

 Thanksgiving

Thanks for the Italian chestnuts—with their

tough shells—the smooth chocolaty

skin of them—thanks for the boiling water—

itself a miracle and a mystery—

thanks for the seasoned sauce pan

and the old wooden spoon—and all

the neglected instruments in the drawer—

the garlic crusher—the bent paring knife—

the apple slicer that creates six

perfect wedges out of the crisp Haralson—

thanks for the humming radio—thanks

for the program on the radio

about the guy who was a cross-dresser—

but his wife forgave him—and he

ended up almost dying from leukemia—

(and you could tell his wife loved him

entirely—it was in her deliberate voice)—

thanks for the brined turkey—

the size of a big baby—thanks—

for the departed head of the turkey—

the present neck—the giblets

(whatever they are)—wrapped up as

small gifts inside the cavern of the ribs—

thanks—thanks—thanks—for the candles

lit on the table—the dried twigs—

the autumn leaves in the blue Chinese vase—

thanks—for the faces—our faces—in this low light.

Tim Nolan

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Bless Their Hearts

At Steak 'n Shake I learned that if you add
"Bless their hearts" after their names, you can say
whatever you want about them and it's OK.
My son, bless his heart, is an idiot,
she said. He rents storage space for his kids'
toys—they're only one and three years old!
I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned
into a sentimental old fool. He gets
weepy when he hears my daughter's greeting
on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came
someone else blessed her office mate's heart,
then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts
of the entire anthropology department.
We bestowed blessings on many a heart
that day. I even blessed my ex-wife's heart.
Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting
much tip, for which, no doubt, he'd bless our hearts.
In a week it would be Thanksgiving,
and we would each sit with our respective
families, counting our blessings and blessing
the hearts of family members as only family
does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please
bless us and bless our crummy little hearts. 

Richard Newman

You will be missed Jack Gilbert...

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.

Jack Gilbert

1925-2012

What Begins Bitterly Becomes Another Love Poem

The earth has a taste for us, in its unknowing
appetite there yet resides a hunger, incompletion
that draws all life to its dark self. What, then,
shall we say of the flesh's own desire, distal
thumb-brush at evening? There is nothing to say,
the vowels cluster uncertain in the beautiful vase
the throat makes, fricatives corralled behind
ridge of gum and bone-splinter. Flesh and earth:
fire is an illusion, to which water is the antidote.
The day was a bright one, there seemed no need
to move about with mirrors, the usual circumspection
and indirect approach. The abundance of small life
argued some measure of clemency, likewise
the Jerseys lowing in the paddock breeze, tender
shoots of cress and sweetpea spiralling upward.
But fire is a cruel hoax: now you see it,
now you don't, the object of your affection
cast in carbon on the hard ground which will,
in time, receive. Roadside the irises bloomed
two or three feet max above soil's surface,
rough tongue resting lightly on each leaf, each
violet exclamation. In full sun your hand guided mine
to the wound. A small one. Water and blood,
like the nurse said: prestidigitation of the body.
We stood without shadows on asphalt at midday.
What we call patience is only fire again, compressed.
I remember: your face flushed, stray petal lodged
in the damp whorl of your dishevelled hair.  

G.C. Waldrep