91. Thank Youse VI

Thank you James Schevill
"She lies with Joyce in the exile's wind,
Molly's Yes singing through damp graves
The promise of warm flesh for bitter bones,
A Renoir for Ireland as winter raves."

Thank you James Wright
"She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom."

Thank you Jane Kenyon
"There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away."

Thank you Jane Kenyon
"Who is it who asks me to find
language for the sound
a sheep's hoof makes when it strikes
a stone? and who speaks
the words which are my food?"

Thank you Kathleen Raine
"Who could have thought that men and women could feel,
With consciousness so delicate, such tender secret joy?
With finger-tips of touch as fine as music,
They greet one another on viols of painted gold
Attuned to harmonies of world with world."

Thank you Lawrence Raab
It's what we want for ourselves,
wary of starting a fight, anxious
to avoid another scene, having suffered
through too many funerals and heard
how eloquently the dead are praised
who threw their lives away.

Thank you Louis Simpson
"When we went down the river on a raft
So smooth it was and easy it would seem
Land moved but never we. Clouds faded aft
In castles. Trees would hurry in the dream
Of water, where we gazed, with this log craft
America suspended on a gleam."

Thank you Marilyn Krysl
"Three things quickly - pineapple, sparrowgrass, whale -
and then on to asbestos. What I want to say tonight is
words, the naming of things into their thing,
yucca, brown sugar, solo, the roll of a snare drum,
say something, say anything, you'll see what I mean."