May 1

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

— Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

[T]the future is no excuse for an abdication of your own personal responsibilities towards yourself and your job and your love. “Ring the bells that still can ring”: they’re few and far between but you can find them. “Forget your perfect offering”, that is the hang-up, that you’re gonna work this thing out. Because we confuse this idea and we’ve forgotten the central myth of our culture which is the expulsion from the garden of Eden. This situation does not admit of solution or perfection. This is not the place where you make things perfect, neither in your marriage, nor in your work, nor anything, nor your love of God, nor your love of family or country. The thing is imperfect. And worse, there is a crack in everything that you can put together, physical objects, mental objects, constructions of any kind. But that’s where the light gets in, and that’s where the resurrection is and that’s where the return, that’s where the repentance is. It is with the confrontation, with the brokenness of things.

— Leonard Cohen, discussing the meaning of the lyrics he’d written

May 2

I met a doctor, no longer young, who spoke of the desire to live among the old–even the incurably sick. When he was young, he told me, he was an intern in a hospital for the incurable. “Why do you want to live?” he asked them once. (I suppose only a very young man would have been inconsiderate enough to ask the question.) One of them answered, “To see the daylight.”

— Charles Reznikoff, “Character Sketches in Prose”

May 3

And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”

And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.

— Luke 2: 25-38, from the King James Version of the Bible

May 4

It is a sensitive relationship, that between the ear and the tongue, one susceptible to tropisms and atmospheric pressures of all kinds. A solo week on the High Plains can work major linguistic shakedowns. Those driving days of relative isolation and asocial silence sift the language into new or forgotten old formations. The alternate, transactional voices will slough off, the ventriloquial will shrivel and drop away. After a few days the language-pack will reduce and clarify itself to the point that it is palpably there, like oxygen tanks on a diver. The vocabulary is rested, reshuffled, and shined; the syntax relaxed and coiled. You pull up at a gas station for the first human intercourse in ten hours and speak well marbled unmistakable words.

Often they will be words from deep in the speech beds, old words from the fossil-rich layers of first childhood absorption with its eccentricities of application and tiny but ineradicable pronunciation miscues, up through the social-educational amplification of vocabulary and the heady extent of its music and variety and power, from the thousand books and bombardment by the thousand voices. It is a dense soil, bur one day given motion and silence the old words will surface, bob up and shine, and you will, if necessary, go out and seek someone to use them on after a long non-vocal afternoon–stop at a store for something you hardly need in order to speak a word or two your mother used 30 years ago. … Wapper-jawed. Hellion. Stem to gudgeon.

You can detect early on in people’s faces and in their speech whether their past is intact, whether they are even aware of their speech beds. Those prairie bowlers, lank men and their lank boys, likely had vocabularies hardly disturbed since childhood. …

To hear with that amazing depth of understanding, even once to realize the reverberations and source of a companion’s words, enhances the act of speech forever, enriches the verb. It is no longer simply to speak; the tongue is more active than that. In a real sense, for a moment there when, knowingly and partakingly, we speak from that lingual main channel, we are also spoken.

— Merrill Gilfillan, Magpie Rising

May 5

There are, then, certain words which contain more intelligence and beauty than our richest ideas. Respectful and careful, we can enter into their glory if speak of all their susceptibilities with proper care.

And first, let us rediscover them. Let us care for our palette. This is a condition of literary beauty: we must select the words which add to thought.

— Francis Ponge, “Fragments Metatechniques”

May 6

Bob said that art is a process of getting people ready for something else, so that they appreciate the cosmic situation they’re in … And that the best thing that could happen as a result of art would be that everyone would gasp when they see a butterfly.

He said that recently in art there has been a cult of the personality of the artist, but that it is time for that to be over and that everyone (artists, poets) should just do their work like scientists, work – and be a part of a working community, getting strength from a tradition and contributing to that tradition. He said that when you read about scientists’ lives you don’t get the same stories of depressions and ego problems that you get when you read about artists’ lives and he thinks it’s because artists have been too concerned with questions of ego instead of simply the work and being able to do the work and being committed to doing it steadily.

Bob said that now he has a stronger feeling of silence than he used to have and that he doesn’t begin to write until it is the silence speaking. He said silence is the natural state of man and also gives a standard by which to judge. I asked if he meant by which to judge one’s own writing or writing by others. He said, “Both. And everything.”

— John Levy, writing about Robert Lax in Two Masters

May 7

there are four-&-twenty
changes in a linnet’s song
it’s one of the beautifullest
song-birds we’ve got it
sings toys as we call
them sounds we distinguish in
the fancy as the tollock
eeke eeke quake le wheet
single eke eke quake wheets
or eek eek quake chowls
eege pipe chowl laugh eege
poy chowls rattle pipe fear
pugh & poy fear is
a sound like fear as
if they was frightened laugh
is a kind of shake
nearly the same as the
rattle this seems like Greek
to you sir but it’s
tunes we use in the
fancy I know the sounds
of all the English birds
& what they say I
could tell you about the
nightingale the black cap hedge
warbler garden warbler petty chat
red start a beautiful songbird
the willow wren little warblers
they are linnets any of
them I’ve got their sounds
in my ear & my mouth

— John Seed, “Pictures from Mayhew” (found poetry taken from things published in a 19th century English newspaper chronicling the lives of London’s working poor)

May 8

Yes, it should be heard, and yes, made my own:
This bubbling spring, this cry of joy, which
Surges early and strong from among life’s
Stones, then weakens and goes blind.

But writing is not having, nor is it being,
For within it the tremblings of joy
Are mere shadows, although the brightest ones,
In words still remembered

From the multitude of things that time
Raked long and hard with its talons,
–Thus I can only tell you
What I am not, except in my desire.

A way of taking: that of ceasing
To be oneself in the act of taking,
A way of telling: that of making it
Impossible to be alone in language.

— from Yves Bonnefoy’s “The All, The Nothing,” translated by Lisa Sapinkopf

May 9

The new patient, an alcoholic, was brought in because he had a heart attack. … The day the alcoholic arrived the doctor connected him to a portable heart monitor. The nurses and doctors never even glance at the monitor. Nevertheless, the patient, pale and weak a few days ago, looks much better now. he has stopped cursing. This afternoon, while Leslie was there and each of the three patients had a group of visitors, he suddenly said loudly, “Look at that!” He smiled and pointed at his monitor. “My heart’s like a ship.” He touched one of the peaks on the graph. “There’s the smokestack, and it’s going over the waves. No, it’s mountains and trees. Look at those tall trees. My heart is full of tress because I come from a village with lots of trees.”

— John Levy, We Don’t Kill Snakes Where We Come From

May 10

Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.

— Psalm 1: 1-3, from the New International Version of the Bible

May 11

So absolutely unique
(veins, hues). Alone
only itself, alone.

Leaf, a single glance
separates you from the rest and makes you unique.
(Or the glance found you unique … were you?)
Were you, before it saw you, you and no one else?

A leaf in the hand
not in the foliage
not in the wind
bur rather, here, in this instant
the double light of sun and eyes
looks at you, enfolds you
silhouettes you, raises you up …
The door to being opens.

You are.

— Circe Maia, “Hoja [Leaf],” translated by Jesse Lee Kercheval

May 12

Take as an example the things of our ordinary surroundings. These are realities we encounter in persona. The table, the typewriter, the landscape, the brook, the forest are there before me as themselves, not as represented by our subjective impressions, whenever I perceive them as present. … Phenomenology reveals something important, that the thing, the real thing itself, in persona, is the thing of our perception and of our immediate practice–as opposed to its mere presentation, memory, verbal allusion when we merely speak of it, without its living presence; the thing with its practical qualities–the road as fit for walking or driving, the landscape that beckons us, the night forest with its terrifying and mysterious solitude, the joyful or the merciless blue of the sky above, these are the things themselves, not only their traits or qualities but their “expressive cast” as well, their mutual references, their contiguity of form that makes for the close solidarity of the “appearance” and the presence of each of them–all those are originary characteristics, not “inserted” secondarily into impressions. For things as they appear to us are aspects of the world in its relation to us, in dialogue with us, they are what we meet of the world and in the world, what suits us or repels us, simply what of it we understand and what “addresses us” directly as meaningful, and this grasping of a given meaning, continuing in indefinitum, this anticipation which is constantly being confirmed or denied, continuing through corrections, in surprising or tedious but ever ready twists, is the perceiving of things–the most important task in which the world manifests itself to us and coexists with us, continuously, ever anew, ever making a claim on us. The constitution of the thing is this achievement, continuous, spreading out endlessly.

— Jan Patočka, An Introduction to Husserl’s Phenomenology, translated by Erazim Kohák

May 13

And when you do become angry, be ready to apply this thought, that to fly into a passion is not a sign of manliness, but rather, to be kind and gentle, for in so far as these qualities are more human, they are also more manly; and it is the man who possesses such virtues who has strength, nerve, and fortitude, and not one who is ill-humoured and discontented; for the nearer a man comes in his mind to impassibility, the nearer he comes to strength, and as grief is a mark of weakness, so is anger too, for those who yield to either have been wounded and have surrendered to the enemy.

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

May 14

Over the very long term, Western culture has associated the idea of the stripe with that of impediment, prohibition, punishment. To stripe is to exclude, and, for a very long time, all those who have worn striped clothes have been outcasts from society. All the same, it is also possible that this exclusion has sometimes been considered not so much a privation of rights or freedoms as a protection. The striped costume medieval society gave to fools and the insane is certainly an ignominious mark, a sign of exclusion, but it can also be a barrier, a gate, even a filter that protects them from evil spirits and diabolical creatures. … So that the insane not become possessed [by the devil], it is useful, if it isn’t too late, to dress him in a protective suit, a costume that serves as filter or barrier: a striped costume. There’s no reason not to think that the belief in the protective virtues of such dress stripes has more or less endured into the contemporary era. Aren’t our pajamas striped to protect us during the night, while we rest, fragile and pathetic, from all bad dreams and interventions by the devil? Our striped pajamas, our striped sheets, our striped mattresses, aren’t they grills, cages?

… To stripe is to make tracks and rank, to inscribe and orient, to mark and organize. It is also to fertilize, because all organization, all orchestration … is a factor in creation. The comb, the rake, and the plow, which stripe all they touch, have been symbols of fertility and richness since earliest times. … What is striped is not only something marked and classified. It is also something created, constructed, like fabric and all structures imitating fabric. …

From here we can better understand why, over the course of centuries, Western man has never stopped marking with stripes anything bearing some relation to disorder. It was a matter, of course, of signaling this disorder, of protecting oneself from it, of warning, but also of putting it back in order, purifying it, reconstructing it. The striped clothes imposed on madmen and convicts are both grills meant to isolate them from the rest of society and stakes, supports, rectilinear routes meant to put them back “on the right track” and “on the straight and narrow path.” The stripe is not disorder; it is a sign of disorder and means of restoring order. The stripe is not exclusion; it is a mark of exclusion and an attempt an reintegration. In medieval society, those outcasts considered irredeemable (pagans, for example) are very rarely required to wear striped clothing. On the other hand, all those for whom there is hope of conversion, like heretics and sometimes Jews or Muslims, may be assigned them.

— Michel Pastoureau, The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric, tranlsated by Jody Gladding

May 15

They are all endowed with bodies
of naturalness, emptiness, & infinity.
–Kyogyoshinsho

when every
body

has
buddha’s
body

we’ll all
wonder
who’s who

— from John Martone’s So Long

May 16

BYZANTINE FACES

i won’t believe
i’m really
alive

until i’m gladder
to be alive
here now
than to have
been alive
there then

living in greece
i may be
thinking
i am, was
alive there
then

some byzantine
time
some classical
time

why think
that good?

i should
know better

i think good
any time except
the eighteenth
century

(not too bad)

the nineteenth
century

(bad enough)

or the twentieth

really, i’m
glad to be
alive in the
twentieth

not only glad
to be just
alive

but even to
be alive
just now
right now

yes, but i keep
remembering
a light in the
eyes of certain
figures in
frescoes

certain figures
in mosaics
that made
me wish
i was living
then

as though
living then

were to
live

forever

some life
some liveliness
in the eye
that seemed
eternal

eternally
alive
eternally
infinitely
joyous
& penetrating

(warm with
the warmth
of life
exploding,
even, with
the joy of life)

yet there
forever

– Robert Lax, from A Thing That Is

May 17

No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.

The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.

Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

— Luke 11:32-36, from the King James Version of the Bible.

May 18

You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,

you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon

making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,

wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.

How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.

— W.H. Auden, from section I of “Sext” in “Horae Canonicae”

May 19

One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

May 20

The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men, for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.

Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very difficult not to think about the impression which they will produce on men and not to form them accordingly. But deeds you can do quite unknown to men, only for God. And such deeds are the greatest joy that a man can experience. …

I think that the changes in our life must come from the impossibility of living otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience, and not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life

— Leo Tolstoy, in a letter to Percy Redfern, March 1903

May 21

The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, duties, and pursuits of men and women. Women will not become less gentle and graceful, but men will become more so. Women will not neglect the care and education of their children, but men will find themselves ennobled and refined by sharing those duties with them; and will receive, in return, co-operation and sympathy in the discharge of various other duties, now deemed inappropriate to women. The more women become rational companions, partners in business and in thought, as well as in affection and amusement, the more highly will men appreciate home.

— Lydia M. Child, Letters from New-York, Vol. 1

May 22

The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman’s soul. History tells us that every oppressed class gained true liberation from its masters through its own efforts. It is necessary that woman learn that Iesson, that she realize that her freedom will reach as far as her power to achieve her freedom reaches. It is, therefore, far more important for her to begin with her inner regeneration, to cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions, and customs. The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved. Indeed, if partial emancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is synonymous with being slave or subordinate. It will have to do away with the absurd notion of the dualism of the sexes, or that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds.

Pettiness separates; breadth unites. Let us be broad and big. Let us not overlook vital things because of the bulk of trifles confronting us. A true conception of the relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror and conquered; it knows of but one great thing: to give of one’s self boundlessly, in order to find one’s self richer, deeper, better. That alone can fill the emptiness, and transform the tragedy of woman’s emancipation into joy, limitless joy.

— Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

May 23

This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness … they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die.

— Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

May 24

But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

— 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, from the King James Version of the Bible

May 25

Nur Suryani Mohd Taibi of Malaysia, competing while eight months pregnant, was 34th in the field of 56, and was relieved not to go into labor during the 75-minute qualifying. “She kicked only three or four times,” she said. “I told her to behave herself, and she always listens to me.”

— from an ESPN story about Olympic Qualification for a shooting event

May 26

And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful; whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter.

So it came to pass, when the king’s commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together unto Shushan the palace, to the custody of Hegai, that Esther was brought also unto the king’s house, to the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women.

And the maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness of him; and he speedily gave her her things for purification, with such things as belonged to her, and seven maidens, which were meet to be given her, out of the king’s house: and he preferred her and her maids unto the best place of the house of the women. …

Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, was come to go in unto the king, she required nothing but what Hegai the king’s chamberlain, the keeper of the women, appointed. And Esther obtained favour in the sight of all them that looked upon her.

So Esther was taken unto king Ahasuerus into his house royal in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti. Then the king made a great feast unto all his princes and his servants, even Esther’s feast; and he made a release to the provinces, and gave gifts, according to the state of the king. …

So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom.

Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king’s damage. …

And Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he was unto her. And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. And Esther spake yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his device that he had devised against the Jews. Then the king held out the golden sceptre toward Esther. So Esther arose, and stood before the king and said, “If it please the king, and if I have favour in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews which are in all the king’s provinces: For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?”

— Esther 2: 7-9, 15-18; 7: 1-4; 8: 1-4

May 27

Sitting at this table, the balcony to my right,
as usual,
I think about my daughter and the name we gave her,
me and her father, when she was born

A name is something spoken, a word,
as substantial as those leaves which, had they eyes,
would be staring at me from that vase,
asking me why there were given that name

But I didn’t choose the name of the flower
to which those leaves belong:
the name was already there, someone else invented it
long before me, probably from the Latin,
later on; and it stuck

But there’s nothing natural about a name:
like a dress, a habit, usually made to last a lifetime,
all it does is cover
the nakedness with which we were born

With my daughter,
the most beautiful thing, the greatest blaze
of love–was looking into her eyes,
feeling the stamen-soft touch
of those most delicate of fingers

those fingers as yet unnamed,
but of such unfettered
entire                 perfection

— Ana Luisa Amaral, “What’s Not In a Name,” translated by Margaret Jull Costa

May 28

New to each other, still a little body-shy
we walk into the restored growth, become
submerged in grasses, thistles, dry stalks,
the shells of flowers. We move slow, lift high
our feet, taking and giving care. Birds scatter,
wing-whispering seeds into the tangle. Awe-glossed,
each sense enraptured, we scribble the names:
beardtongue, cinquefoil, dropseed, arrowhead aster,
rough blazingstar, little blue stem, rattlesnake master.

I had not known how your hair,
gleaming in the light, curling
under ear and over neck’s nape
would call to me: warmth and glow.
Laughing, I brush my hand
against your black skirt. A sudden
leap of breath, the near electric
surge of tenderness awaking.

We split open milkweed pods, tickle the silk
against our cheeks. We take yellow coneflower
into our palms. Thumb-crushed and rubbed
the smell lingers, fills our lungs, sings out.
You close your eyes and smile, remembering
an old New Mexican apothecary, some precious jar.
Watching your bright teeth, the red muscle of your tongue
I know at once what I want. I wait for your eyes
to open, then meet them. We see each other clearly.

How all we harvested that day
took root, has grown, still sprawls and flowers.
How what we planted, little seeds,
have ripened as a sustaining stalk, its needs
tended by a mercy which exceeds our powers.
Blessed be all that blossoms in this sun-rich clay.

— Steel Wagstaff, “Prairie (For Laurel)”

May 29

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Letter to three students”

May 30

The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men, for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.

Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very difficult not to think about the impression which they will produce on men and not to form them accordingly. But deeds you can do quite unknown to men, only for God. And such deeds are the greatest joy that a man can experience. …

I think that the changes in our life must come from the impossibility of living otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience, and not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life

— Leo Tolstoy, in a letter to Percy Redfern, March 1903

May 31

In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,
laughter and tears, musings and deeds.
Love, like a carefully loaded ship,
crosses the gulf between the generations.
Therefore, we do not neglect the ceremonies
of our passage: when we wed, when we die,
and when we are blessed with a child;
When we depart and when we return;
When we plant and when we harvest.
Let us bring up our children. It is not
the place of some official to hand to them
their heritage.
If others impart to our children our knowledge
and ideals, they will lose all of us that is
wordless and full of wonder.
Let us build memories in our children,
lest they drag out joyless lives,
lest they allow treasures to be lost because
they have not been given the keys.
We live, not by things, but by the meanings
of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords
from generation to generation.

— Antoine du Saint-Exupery, “Generation to Generation”