Three Versions of Ikkyu passion's red thread is infinite like the earth always under me * nobody knows I'm a storm I'm dawn on the mountain twilight on the town * stand tiptoe on the tip of a needle like a grain of sand flashing in sunlight Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481) Versions by Stephen Berg Excerpts from Crow With No Mouth: Ikkyu by Stephen Berg. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen Berg. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368. For Friendship For friendship make a chain that holds, to be bound to others, two by two, a walk, a garland, handed by hands that cannot move unless they hold. Robert Creeley (b. 1926) "For Friendship" from The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley 1945-1975 by Robert Creeley. Copyright © 1983. Reprinted with the permission of the author and the University of California Press. 'Hope' is the thing with feathers 'Hope' is the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— And never stops—at all— And sweetest—in the Gale is heard— And sore must be the storm— That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm— I've heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest Sea— Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb—of Me. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) "Hope is the thing with feathers" Emily Dickinson from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted with the permission of The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Heat O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters. Fruit cannot drop through this thick air— fruit cannot fall into heat that presses up and blunts the points of pears and rounds the grapes. Cut the heat— plough through it, turning it on either side of your path. H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961) "Heat" from Collected Poems 1912-1944 by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). Copyright © 1982 by the Estate of Hilda Doolittle. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. from Brotherly Love And they shall come together in a city, City of lovely purposes upholding balconies espaliered on walls and windows reeling with cerulean light— where each breath's an anthem and each glance a hymn, here is the spirit's home. Daniel Hoffman (b. 1923) "Brotherly Love (#40)" (excerpt) from Brotherly Love by Daniel Hoffman. Copyright © 1981. Reprinted by permission of the author. from Antigone (lines 879-886) CHORUS: Love, never conquered in battle Love the plunderer laying waste the rich! Love standing the night-watch guarding a girl's soft cheek, you range the seas, the shepherds' steadings off in the wilds— not even the deathless gods can flee your onset, nothing human born for a day— whoever feels your grip is driven mad. Sophocles (ca. 496-406 B.C.) Translated from the Greek by Robert Fagles "Antigone" (excerpt) from Three Theban Plays by Sophocles. Translated by Robert Fagles, translation copyright © 1982 by Robert Fagles. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc. from Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime. I do not know which to prefer, the beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after. Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" from Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens. Copyright © 1923 and renewed 1951. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. from The Choice Sundays, she listened to the church choir hold their long whole notes. Everything had a knack for hanging on. Even the old refrigerator by the kitchen table, though it shook with noise like a train, wasn't going anywhere. But in the tailor shop downstairs where things are made right, garments were left hanging, what is human set free again from the arms of cloth. Elaine Terranova (b. 1939) "The Choice" (excerpt) from Damages by Elaine Terranova. Copyright © 1995. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368. from A Tin Roof Song The music is a tap dancer's sliding soft shoe, a regimen of holy roller churches where pastors hold the pulpit swinging the other hand freely, receiving the Holy Ghost descending. In the house the music settles frazzled, black farmers—in Africa under the stupor, the glaze of hunger, in America under a driving will to be. Music from rain incites us to dance, clay-stained, black toes wiggle in sleep to thunder. Lightning cracks on far sides of fields, splitting edges of forests, lighting tree tops. An unfamiliar ritual has begun, a past is incarnate, a West African mask with eyes like black lips mounted on a sleek, doll body for its divination— it is the soul of our fathers and mothers. Afaa Michael Weaver (b. 1951) "A Tin Roof Song" (excerpt) from Water Song by Michael S. Weaver. Copyright © 1985. Reprinted by permission of University of Virginia Press and the author. from Those Who Come After But when they say of us what we have done, perhaps they will speak kindly of those who, near the century's end, pried open the hand; of the way the wind lifted the lovely gray spirals of ash, until our hands were empty as a cloudless sky, empty as altars whose offerings had been acceptable; perhaps they will say that there were those who took down the harps hung in the sorrowing trees, having lost the taste for conquest or revenge, and made a song that rose in the air as smoke rises— Eleanor Wilner (b. 1937) "Those Who Come After" (excerpt) from Otherwise by Eleanor Wilner. Copyright © 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.