Still, a Kind of Realism

[Image: “Still as Rain,” by Tim Sackton. (Discovered on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!)]

From whiskey river (italicized portion):

And the Moon on Its Stem Will Steal You Away

That’s a good one, the idea of the moon having a stem and somehow
stealing you, whoever you are, kind of like Persephone or Orpheus,
portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture
including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting. And it kind of fits
my mood this morning, something vaguely cartoonish and devoid
of real gravitas, but still, a kind of realism, even so. And the area
around is the void, outer space, nothing, because explaining things
is never as interesting as wanting them, the desire to know, set against
a backdrop of black velvet and rhinestones. Let’s say that you wake up
one day and realize you don’t remember anything that happened
yesterday. Maybe for five minutes or so. And for those five minutes
you’re thinking, as I was thinking this morning, that this is it. Car keys.
The word for when you really want something and work for it.
Your dog’s name. There are not enough blank pages for all this
forgetting, like debris falling back to earth, you and yours hiding in
the underbrush with hopes of your own, of rescue or escape.
When you don’t remember why you’re hiding in the underbrush,
you’ve been hiding in the underbrush forever. This whole other
existence leaps forward in possibility. And then the five minutes
are up, and it’s oh yeah, eggs, Saturday. Some day that was.
A chemist once told me luminol was her favorite color. It glows
a beautiful greenish-blue when it comes into contact with blood
by reacting to the iron in hemoglobin, looking a bit like the sky
this morning. It’s a kind of truth of blue, that uncovers, that
remembers. It’s used by investigators to detect blood at crime scenes
where no blood is visible. There are so many things to forget,
to lose, and in so many different ways. But even so, one can be wrong
about the past, and deduce from error, but still be right about
the future or the present. And when you don’t remember what day
it is, happy birthday. Despite all our best efforts, there’s a wolf
on the horizon making a movie of your approach, and it’s
a shipwreck playing across me as I’m pouring sugar into my cup.

(John Gallaher [source])

…and (italicized stanzas):

The Face

Is there a single thing in nature
that can approach in mystery
the absolute uniqueness of any human face, first, then   
its transformation from childhood to old age—

We are surrounded at every instant   
by sights that ought to strike the sane   
unbenumbed person tongue-tied, mute   
with gratitude and terror. However,

there may be three sane people on earth   
at any given time: and if
you got the chance to ask them how they do it,   
they would not understand.

I think they might just stare at you
with the embarrassment of pity. Maybe smile
the way you do when children suddenly reveal a secret   
preoccupation with their origins, careful not to cause them shame,

on the contrary, to evince the great congratulating pleasure   
one feels in the presence of a superior talent and intelligence;   
or simply as one smiles to greet a friend who’s waking up,
to prove no harm awaits him, you’ve dealt with and banished all harm.

(Franz Wright [source])

Not from whiskey river:

We Are All Whitman: #30: Animal Song
(excerpt)

I think I could turn and live with animals, 
they are so placid and self-contained. 
[…] They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
Walt Whitman (32)

Who does not marvel at the spider’s creative saliva,
the ant’s perfection,
the butterfly’s unsettled elegance,
that the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven?

I used to fly into high dudgeon
with the insult “beast”;
now in my soul I honor it
in spite of extravagant haughtiness.

As when I pet Babe, my placid sheepdog,
my animal-companion,
who rejoices in my arrivals,
licks me in the time of solitude,
plays, begs, offers me therapy,
understands me, guides;
to the point, as he barks, of seeming to call out in a wondrous language,
paying heedless attention to incongruent commands,
and at each goodbye howling his sentiments
with an authentic whimper.

Also my girlfriend’s cat and T. S. Eliot’s practical ones
pull it off with their spoiled ways,
the rogue Mistoffelees, mysterious
Macavity dissembling his smooth crime.

Our follies do not begin to match their stratagems;
they are all indisputable circus performers.
Recently in the zoo’s theater
the audience enjoyed a sea lion’s applause,
its ball-handling skills, and other acrobatics.
I witnessed, wonderstruck,
in the oceanic snow of the Patagonian Steppe,
a rage of penguins
and their solemn march.
We are touched by the mama’s promenades with her ducklings
and the melody of puppy love still moves us.
Little rabbits with their ears’ alert softness
share our patios.
The splendor of spirited stallions
fresh and responsive to my caresses,
with their bodies that tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.

[…]

There they stand, with the donkey, in the manger.

They accept what they are and what they have
with neither resentment nor complaints.
They don’t need mirrors to fashion their beauty.
They live naked, unshod, in the hours’ Eden.
They sing the breaking of day with a trilling not learned in school.
Elk and other species snort when surprised
or watch you without fuss, contemplating your presence.
They move away, peaceful, toward forest and the wisdom of its trees.
They comprehend their place in the vastness of the universe.
They sleep in peace. They don’t trouble themselves over blame or sin;
nor worries about money
or the corruption of more distant ambitions.

They seem contented in their proper niches
of plants, earth, air, fields, and rocks.

Who would not trade their qualities
for some human ones that afflict us?

What library did tigers’ eyes or lions’ noontide golden
color suggest to Borges?

(Luis Alberto Ambroggio [source])