The mist of the morning is torn by the peaks

  Old towers gleam white in the ray,

And already the glory so joyously seeks

  The lark that’s saluting the day.

Then smile away, man, at the heavens so fair,

  Though, were you swept hence in the night,

From your dark, lonely tomb the owlets would stare

  At the sun rising newly as bright.

But out of earth’s trammels your soul would have flown

  Where glitters Eternity’s stream,

And you shall have wake ‘midst pure glories unknown,

  As sunshine disperses a dream.

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

by Monica Youn

Angels are unthinkable

in hot weather

except in some tropical locales, where

from time to time, the women catch one in their nets,

hang it dry, and fashion it into a lantern

that will burn forever on its own inexhaustible oils.

But here—shins smocked with heat rash,

the supersaturated air. We no longer believe

in energies pure enough not to carry heat,

nor in connections—the thought of someone

somewhere warming the air we breathe

that one degree more … .

In a packed pub during the World Cup final,

a bony redhead woman gripped my arm

too hard. I could see how a bloke might fancy you.

Like a child’s perfect outline in fast-melting snow,

her wet handprint on my skin, disappearing.

The crowd boiling over, a steam jet: Brrra-zil!

And Paris—a heroin addict

who put her hypodermic

to my throat: Je suis malade.

J’ai besoin de medicaments.

Grabbing her wrist, I saw

her forearm’s tight net sleeve of drying blood.

I don’t like to be touched.

I stand in this mammoth parking lot,

car doors open, letting the air conditioner

run for a while before getting in.

The heat presses down equally

everywhere. It wants to focus itself,

to vaporize something instantaneously,

efficiently—that shopping cart, maybe,

or that half-crushed brown-glass bottle—

but can’t quite. Asphalt softens in the sun.

Nothing’s detachable.

The silvery zigzag line

stitching the tarmac to the sky around the edges

is no breeze, just a trick of heat.

My splayed-out compact car half-sunk

in the tar pit of its own shadow—

strong-shouldered, straining

to lift its vestigial wings.

Philip Davis pleasures his brain with shifting Shakespearean syntax, measures the results on an electroencephalogram, and finds evidence that powerful writing can literally change the ways in which we think …

Fascinating stuff.

From too much love of living,

From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

Whatever gods may be

That no life lives for ever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life’s decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.

 by Anna Akhmatova

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.