[Image: “Aerial,” by Shane Taremi. (Found on Flickr; used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!) According to the photographer, this is an aerial portrait of his wife’s face — evidently produced with the help of dozens (hundreds?) of other people. (I like to think his wife’s name is “Ariel,” but, well, no idea.) Can’t see the portrait? Shrink the browser window a bit narrower, or just move back a foot or two from the screen.]

From whiskey river:

Rising in Perilous Hope

What can I hold in my hands this morning
that will not flow through my fingers?

What words can I say that will catch
in your mind like burrs, chiggers that burrow?

If my touch could heal, I would lay my hands
on your bent head and bellow prayers.

If my words could change the weather
or the government or the way the world

twists and guts us, fast or slow,
what could I do but what I do now?

I fit words together and say them;
it is a given like the color of my eyes.

I hope it makes a small difference, as
I hope the drought will break and the morning

come rising out of the ocean wearing
a cloak of clean sweet mist and swirling terns.

(Marge Piercy [source])

…and:

To Sleep
(excerpt)

It’s dangerous to lie down
mid-day, late March and dark,
a heavy, wet snow falling from the sky
or rising from the ground, it’s hard
to say, the day a blur
as you drift off toward sleep
rather than keeping your eye on
the great world around you
where it should be if you are
to earn the right to be
called a poet, attentive to
the details of everyday life—
the quality of light, the specific
gravity of the snow, the exact
weight of birdsong and wing.

(Ronald Wallace [source])

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