Sources of Inspiration
Mary Oliver, the journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --though the whole house
began to tremble and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!" each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--determined to save
the only life that you could save.
Elizabeth Gordon Mckim, directions
Hold
it. Warm
it with your own life.
Listen to its near and far
pulse. The sounds. The messages.
Find out where it was born.
The year. The time. And who
was there and why. Find out the nature
of its fear. What cave or cliff or curve
of tide has touched it tended it
mended it. Find out the nature
of its fear. What cave or cliff or curve
of tide has touched it tended it
mended it. find out what
losses it’s sustained
what endings
it has suffered through
what midnight tune it listens to
find out what mother tongue has touched
and tasted it find out what it can know of parents
what song and language it was taught
and if it has a friend an enemy
a tribe a family
what stains and bruises
marks and cracks distinguish it
what surface opens to the air
what inside heart is hiding there
and learn the way it lives
and breathes the fire it knows
and how it moves upon
this earth.
Fred LaMotte, My Ancestry DNA Results
My Ancestry DNA results came in.
Just as I suspected, my great great grandfather
was a monarch butterfly.
Much of who I am is still wriggling under a stone.
I am part larva, but part hummingbird too.
There is dinosaur tar in my bone marrow.
My golden hair sprang out of a meadow in Palestine.
Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin,
but I didn't get his dimples.
My loins are loaded with banyan seeds from Sri Lanka,
but I descended from Ravanna, not Ram.
My uncle is a mastodon.
There are traces of white people in my saliva.
3.7 billion years ago I swirled in golden dust,
dreaming of a planet overgrown with lingams and yonis.
More recently, say 60,000 B.C.
I walked on hairy paws across a land bridge
joining Sweden to Botswana.
I am the bastard of the sun and moon.
I can no longer hide my heritage of raindrops and cougar scat.
I am made of your grandmother's tears.
You conquered rival tribesmen of your own color,
chained them together, marched them naked to the coast,
and sold them to colonials from Savannah.
I was that brother you sold, I was the slave trader,
I was the chain.
Admit it, you have wings, vast and golden,
like mine, like mine.
You have sweat, black and salty,
like mine, like mine.
You have secrets silently singing in your blood,
like mine, like mine.
Don't pretend that earth is not one family.
Don't pretend we never hung from the same branch.
Don't pretend we don't ripen on each other's breath.
Don't pretend we didn't come here to forgive.
E. E. Cummings, i carry your heart with me, (i carry it in my heart)
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
