“They Are Not Long” by Ernest Dowson

They Are Not Long

by Ernest Dowson

Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam.

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses,
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

The Latin reads, “The shortness of life prevents us from entertaining far-off hopes.”

Horace, (Odes 1.4.15).

Image: “The path at the Hermitage” by Casey Wolf

“Another Birthday”

We were talking yesterday, my cancer buddies (who are also writing buddies) and I, about the way most people seem to fear or even hate old age, and how some, who are fighting to make another birthday, see every extra year as a tremendous gift.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I am grateful I am still alive, but I do fear the lack of independence that many of us, especially those with no money, face as age or infirmities increase. I think that, even more, I fear dying before I have managed to polish off my roughest edges and be the kind of person I know myself to be underneath the crust. Someone who can really embrace life.

So this is what I wrote.

Another Birthday

I don’t want one more birthday

I want a thousand

ten thousand

I want to live so long and so well

that all my fears die of old age

and I wait my stiffness out

outlast all infirmity

lose interest in whether I’m

remembering right or not

tire my fatigue

bore my hesitation

give flight to every

impulse toward life I ever have

and spend my days protecting insects

nurturing plants

feeding   giving water

giving shelter and a sense that is

the absence of all panic

to birds   and rats   and dogs

I want to live so long my crusts

crack and split and fall away

till I respond with tenderness to those

as brittle as that near-forgotten me

Image: "A woman's 78th birthday on 4th December 2005. Ardencraig Care Home (Glasgow)" by I Craig from Glasgow, Scotland.   Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

“Searching for the Moon” by Casey June Wolf

on the first night of darkness

I searched the sky for her

my thoughts

noisy as the river in spring

on the second night

the finch betrayed her presence

busy in the moon’s thin glimmer

with unexpected song

on the third

with my own eyes I saw her

knelt to earth in welcome

and delight

as she grew   so I grew

at the moment of

her greatest girth

a herd of sharp-tined stars

traversed the sky

the waters in the river’s bed

spurred on by the moon

swelled to overflowing

I danced in glad elation

in her white woodlet

thanks to you

moon of strength and stillness

thanks to the reeling waters

whose blessings churn and rise

Image: “My first shot with my new Canon 350D, a solitary leaf hanging in the cold winder sky. Shot in Melbourne, Australia,” by Lachlan Donald from Melbourne, Australia (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

“what wolf cubs need” by Casey June Wolf (poem)

what wolf cubs need

brown and curled and wet with mother's dew

each cub slides into this world

cleaned   tongued   nuzzled

until the mewling starts

until the new wolf waves her helpless nailed paws

into the air

against her mother's cheek

until the sealed eyes and questing mouth

find their way to her white-filled source

every cub needs her mother

her brothers and sisters, too

to lean against in slumber

tumble over

tweak in play

to run with

growling

growing smart   gleeful   strong

each cub needs her father

warm against the night

gambolling when mother's gone to hunt

stretched out calm and watchful

running quick and eager

barking against those who'd pull her down

those cubs who have them are the lucky ones

cubs with "aunts" and "uncles"

who wrestle long with them

who sleep with   eat with

bring treats to them

you are my uncle wolf

caring when you need not care

bringing me the long red leg of a fallen deer

to chew   and fight   and chew

you are my brother wolf

wrestling   playing

barely conscious of the cougar on the hill

you are my comrade wolf

and i walk with you contented

safe as i can be

on this long expanse

of snow

Copyright: Casey June Wolf. 3 June 1993.

Image: Timber Wolf Cub - Colchester Zoo, Colchester, Essex, England - Saturday July 21st 2008. By Keven Law. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Genericlicense.

Your Death Full of Flowers

by Wild Grace

A very special collection of poems is being released into the world, like sun-bright bees zigging off to their meadows—Your Death Full of Flowers.

Slippery Elm is editor, and he has done loving translations of each poem between English and Spanish. He and his compadres have seen the project through from idea to fruition, in each detail choosing not what is easiest, or least expensive, or quickest, but what they determined to be best, and I am eagerly awaiting my package of books. For I am one of twenty-one writers whose work is contained (oh, lucky me) in these artisanal works, each "[p]rinted and bound by a family of artesanal leather workers from Ubrique, Andalusia, Spain."

Here is what Slippery Elm says about the book on the website:

Your Death Full of Flowers

A bouquet of poems arranged and translated by Slippery Elm

The thread that ties this bouquet together is that of the story of Blodeuwedd from the Mabinogion. A woman composed of flowers, who sought to kill her husband, and was thereby transformed into an owl. Blodeuwedd meaning flower-face, and the owl said to have been called blodeuwedd in the Welsh of yore. 

Just as the wizard Gwydion gathered blossoms of broom, meadowsweet, and trefoil, the editor gathers the poems to conjure something greater, a something that then goes on to wing the poetry out into the world. A deadly and nefarious agenda in the eyes of the princes of our age, or of those who are their followers and find no love or meaning but in their expendable busts. 

In the garden of these pages we encounter the whimsy and abandon of the eccentric who goes through life, toothless and in colourful rags, giving out flowers just because. Who heard the patter of Death’s slippers by their nightstand and received him with a bouquet. Who throws flowers at grooms and graves, and awoke suddenly as the rose’s final petal fell. We encounter the lyric and litany, the poison, the perfume, the lament, the laughter, and the eschatological love poem. The flowers that open above us. 

Flowers have been plucked from a well pick’d troop of poets, poets of the other breath, of the diverse brushstroke and the obscure melody. Major figures in English, Spanish, Arabic, American, and Welsh literatures, as well as newly emerging voices. Poets both young and old, and poets dead as much as living. Poets who have proven themselves worthy of the appellation, not just through prizes, accolades or infamy but through a certain generosity of the spirit and a marked commitment to the Poetry. This almost spiritual pedigree, of wise innocence, of beatific inspiration, might be boiled down into two words, which in some ways, are each a reflection of the other. For the old: trust. For the young: bravery. 

All poems appear in English and Spanish, and one in Arabic. The two languages form a dialectic in which meaning is generated in the space between them. It is in this hermeneutic tension between the Yes and the No, at the interstice between the two different tongues, between the dead nettle and white archangel, right in the centre of the book, that the beginning of an answer is given to the riddle of all riddles. 

_________________________________________

This book is a fairy dart tipped with a draught to re-enchant a chantless world. That the lector remember his or her mortality and live all the more fully for it. Our aim is true. We swear by all flowers.

300 exemplars

Pocket hardback bound in three shades of green leather: holm oak, mugwort, and wild ivy; and in two shades of blue leather: bavarian gentian, and belladonna berry. Stamped in gold. Magenta and cerulean endpapers. Printed and bound by a family of artisanal leather workers from Ubrique, Andalusia, Spain. As the leather work is done by hand, no two copies are exactly alike. 

440 pages. 65 poems by 21 poets.

Contents

*

Elf Shot

Blooms Cast Upon a Tomb

Flowers of Flight

Flowers of God Making

‘Where the Bee Sucks there Suck I’

Women of Gardens and Gore

Your Final Roses

*

The poets:

Adler Frischauer

Antler

Casey June Wolf 

David ap Gwilym

Elena Botica

Emilio Montaño

Erynn Rowan Laurie

Giles Watson

Ian Kappos

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

MAAM (Maria de los Angeles Argote Molina)

Mahmoud Darwish

Mike Mahoney

Nicolas Ramajo Chiacchio

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus

Robert Graves

Ruby Sara

Scott Ramsay

Slippery Elm

Steven Posch

Tanya Fader

Victor Anderson

Your Death Full of Flowers can be ordered here: 

http://www.swamplanternbooks.com/books/your-death-full-of-flowers