July 2007
1
Sun day summer day Sun-
day news & views more civilians
killed than soldiers Afghans around
their shoulders handsome dogs in these
our own United States so named on this
summer day our dogs bark but maybe some
day the sun the day the Lord hath made
2
Made in the day-old USA,
by the Laws of Nature and Nature’s
God
and then this morning the yolk
of the sun: full, I said, as if I spoke
of the moon,
as if my country, our
country, wrote all, wrote equal—
Life, Liberty and the pursuit
pursuit of happiness guaranteed
by much of the paper, ads for more
designer purses perfume shoes
for some of the people, those
who can, for us this summer
ocean bed view love our
summer’s not for all
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all are created equal endowed by Creator
while they were finishing midday prayers
bombs bursting in fireworks bombs
charred bodies had no faces
bright stars the rockets red
could not protect
our Lives our sacred Honor
Honor the sun that sheds the light
that falls upon us, honor the clouds
that gather and make the rain
that falls upon us, honor the earth
that holds and keeps us, honor
That Which made us, gave us
honor, the sun, the hurting earth.
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Earth: mantled mother big
blue marble pale blue dot not
blue until we got out there we
thought talked green forgot
the water now we let green
go cut it burn it turn it into
stuff, junk, shall her bones live?
Live from our own
dawn air, featuring song
sparrow, cardinal, mourning
dove, alive and well
in our bed my love, his slow
sleeping breathing, low continuo
entered into this summer score
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Score one for sea, one for sky, blue
meets blue, line, tie,
one for sand,
now exposed, turning tide,
leaving sand,
birds for all, least
terns hover, dart, piping
plovers scurry,
can we all agree
with these on earth sea sky?
Sky items: Yesterday I disturbed
the nesting terns, they charged
like planes,
in May the osprey flew
away from the camera raised
to count eggs,
today NATO planes
killed 105 in a village, today
clouds, then rain, then—
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Then he said love and by
that summer we were settled
months before the Wall fell and we
said peace, years before the Towers
fell and we said war Iraq Iraq Iraq
Afghanistan Darfur how to save
what’s been lost oh little world
World’s with us, we
are world, 6.6 billion, 194 countries not
counting, 19 major religions not counting—
conflicts across borders shifting indefinite
porous unmanaged within among
stateless races religions cultures—
Earth’s with or without us, was never center.
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Centered, surrounded by pines, one
could forget the uncentered world
except for the parallel cables and wires
scratching the landscape, the cloudless sky,
stretching all the way to a vest strapped
to a six-year-old boy who is told that flowers
will spray out if he touches, here, this button.
Button of bird, ribbon
of song sparrow notes
and trill, notes and trill, over
and over,
early sun jeweling
the pines, gilding the sea beyond
the pines,
news to come of
news of over and over
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Over time, the President says, sustained
period, time is not right, progress
is being made—
No creation without
destruction, said Anaximander, everything
moves, nothing remains—
But must that mean
no Revolution without Terror, no peace
without creating more reasons for war?
wars and rumours of wars
flag and (un)furling of flag
body and breaking of body
bone and gnawing of bone
earth and (re)turn to earth
birds and songs of birds
sun and rising of sun
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Sun at the center, even when, through a wound
in deep blue clouds, ooze of pink becoming
the clouds, sea of pink above our own
tinged sea, from a slash of fire, it seems,
as onto a stage, as in the tabernacle He made
for it, to rise, fire itself, red then gold, laying
a shimmering path on our sea, our star the sun.
Sun was moving around again:
Copernicus spurned, Bruno burned
The world is stablished it cannot be moved
But Galileo looked through a telescope, found
the Milky Way was stars, Jupiter had moons,
earth had to move. Mathematics,
he said, is the language which God . . .
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God-named, they named
our days, those wandering
stars, and then we were one
too, moving between Love
and War, making love war (bit
off her lip), war love (came
to kill), making our days.
Daily Meditations . . . Begun July 19, 1666.
By Philip Pain: Who lately suffering
Shipwrack, was drowned: the first
published American verse: This World
a Sea of trouble is . . . . The billows beat,
the waves are angry, he wrote the first
day of Quotidian Preparations for Death.
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Deaths of civilians hit by convoys,
shot at checkpoints: the open hand
they thought meant Come! meant Stop!
. . . his open hand, my closed-around-
him hand, our more-than-hands . . .
600,000 civilians, British doctors say,
almost a third by coalition, ours
Our summer house, key under the mat
On the porch, his children’s girl
and boy, their little trucks and cars
On the ledge, robins nesting again
On the tiny stones that are sand,
generations of waves in a minute,
castles and forts washed daily away
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Away from the roof where we sit
streamers of rose silver gold, west
and east, sunset pinks the whole sky
The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name
But: He maketh wars to cease, to the end of the earth
The earth the Lord has made, this into-light
The breaking of the surf, the mourning dove
Dove each morning, sun, my love
beside me in our summer bed
beside me in our afternoon
Can we love well our own
without owning the world?
My love, well, each night
o moon oh oh
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o o, no no, no a, no the
being nothing’s some-
thing else: nothing’s
peace, blessèd
(one lone loon)
if of mind perhaps
between perhaps among
Among the fledged terns testing
their wings, over the sand,
between
breaking waves with shining
heads of seals up down up and
cliff with bas-relief of little
hills carved by the sea,
we walk
a little while, our little while.
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While we were sleeping, earth
was moving, earth as planet, earth
as element, earth as dirt
in my hands, my hands as dirt.
Body heart soul prepared to go
with pitch pine, chickadee, but how
to prepare for the death of all, the earth?
earth as it is
in heaven: sky
on sky, better country,
stars as they are:
more than we knew: space-
time, all one, at once, uni-
multiverse, Amen.
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Amen before the heretics burned, before
the white was hanged but not the black.
We can’t just bomb them, she said
into her cellphone, standing beside
the trendy shop, we have to annihilate them.
The mathematics of war: not x
not equals, naught for naught.
Not only the dead Monarchs
on the beach, lashed
by the waves,
or the gray
clouds passing over, clouding
the page of white clouds,
but
also, for a moment, an O of sun,
nothing, oh! silvering sea
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Seeing things is changing things
I wrote, meaning Better, but could
be worse, not to mention blur—
Blink, shift, and the white tiles
become black, the black white
We work in the dark, we do . . .
our poor eyes, our little lights
Light’s given, earth receives, beside
me in our summer, through her cover,
thinned, holed. Earth’s disturbed.
But eppur si muove: whether,
recanting, he said it or not,
our earth still moves, is moving
still, around, and around our sun.