Morning Practice
Morning Practice
Laugh in the morning
Dance in the morning
Harder than it seems
Bob Schwartz
Tag: poetry
April 23, 2017
April 18, 2017
Pantry (Morning Explorer)
Pantry (Morning Explorer)
In the beginning is
The same breakfast
Or so it starts.
But the pantry shelves
Are so full of wholesome ingredients
It seems impossible to ignore.
It isn’t the prospect of a new tasty dish
It is the possibility the morning sun offers
Who am I
Creative cook and diner
To ignore it?
© Bob Schwartz 2017
Note: Yes, it is the last morning of Passover, and yes, it has been a week since breakfast was pancakes, and yes, this should be a picture of matzo brei. But this poem containing a breakfast metaphor arose spontaneously today, and Passover or not, pancakes are a beautiful breakfast sight. Tomorrow.
April 17, 2017
Ugly Building
Ugly Building
Having built a thing
So ugly and misshapen
I cannot expect
Satisfaction or praise
Who would admire such a thing
Who would live in it?
Yet there it is
And there it remains
Until the forces of
Weather disaster and time
Bring it to ruin.
In the right light
The right time of day or night
Its qualities appear
And if weary
You will find a place
To rest or sleep.
© Bob Schwartz 2017
April 14, 2017
Skyscraper
Skyscraper
I marvel at those
Who mined iron
Forged steel
Built buildings
That would stand
A thousand years.
I scrape along the ground
Finding rocks
That could be fool’s gold or ore.
Never a skyscraper
But here look
This is the real thing!
© Bob Schwartz 2017
April 13, 2017
Ghosts
Ghosts
The thoughts dark and bright
Just ghosts to be whisked away
By a wisp of wind
April 11, 2017
The Mountain and the Cross
The Mountain and the Cross
How is the view
From up there?
Can you see
How you got there?
Others look
At every act you took
Word you spoke
Song you sang
Pull them apart
Put them together
A journey
That never seems to end.
For you it ends here
For a time
On the mountain and the cross.
A privileged child
A prince
A prodigy
A champion of the people
An enemy
A wise man
A miracle worker embarrassing mere magicians
A leader
A rebel
How did that rebellion go
How is it now?
One mistake after another
Has cost you everything
Won you something
But what in the end
Did it all mean?
(Jesus wonders
If he might have lived longer
Not one hundred twenty
But more than thirty three.
Moses has no complaint
About the number
And would not trade places
Sitting on a mountain
Not hanging from a cross
But regrets having to survey
An unreachable destination.)
You were just infants
Too young to remember
How it began.
Leave it to others
To imagine that past
And future.
You have no choice
But to let them see and speak for you
As you saw and spoke for others.
Now your eyes and mouth are closed
In dark silence from a height.
© Bob Schwartz 2017
April 9, 2017
Sunday Birds
Sunday Birds
I heard the birds chattering in the trees
About weather and breakfast
About which service
They might attend
What they might wear
This Sunday morning.
So many decisions
And opinions
So much music.
© Bob Schwartz
April 5, 2017
Thought Gone North
Thought Gone North
The most clever thought
That might change the world
Interrupted
By spring geese loudly returning
Gone north
And now
The world will just have to
Change itself
April 4, 2017
Walt Whitman – Song of Myself
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, LI
Song of Myself, I
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy
Note: Not much to say about Walt Whitman that isn’t already said. Above is a picture of the Walt Whitman Bridge, connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey across the Delaware River. Besides bridges, Whitman also inspired modern poetry and pieces of modern life. The Body Electric that he sung is what he lived, envisioned and wrote, and is still more than we understand. Please read Walt Whitman.
April 3, 2017
The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse
From The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse (Shihwu) (1272-1352), translated by Red Pine:
Here in the woods I have lots of free time. When I don’t spend it sleeping, I enjoy composing poems. But with paper and ink so scarce, I haven’t thought about writing them down. Now some Zen monks have asked me to record what I find of interest on this mountain. I have sat here quietly and let my brush fly. Suddenly this volume is full. I close it and send it back down with the admonition not to try singing these poems. Only if you sit on them will they do you any good.
40
A thatch hut in blue mountains beside a green stream
after so many years visits are now up to me
a few peach and plum trees blooming red and white
a green and yellow field of vegetables and wheat
all night I sit in bed listening to rain
when it clears I open the window and doze off watching clouds
nothing in life is better than being free
but getting free isn’t luck
Bob Schwartz 