What is required?

"And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to
love mercy
and to walk humbly with
your God."

Micah 6:8

Doesn't seem God is asking for a lot, so why don't we do it?
Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name

May 33, 2011

Brooding on Circumstance: Poem 1
By Zhang Jiuling
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Brooded over by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name

A swan on its own comes flying inland
Too lofty to prey on ponds of the weak,
And sees askance two lavish kingfishers
Nesting proud on a pearl-tree's peak:
Atop their treasure-tree, high as if mighty,
When don't they fear the bronze bullets' flight?
For wearers of wealth are worn down in the crosshairs
And grandeur will crowd the gods to spite.

And I now roam far beyond range of men's eyes.
So what shall the fowl-hunter's heart now prize?

Far and Away

by Fanny Howe
copied and pasted by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name

The rain falls on.
Acres of violets unfold.
Dandelion, mayflower
Myrtle and forsythia follow.

The cardinals call to each other.
Echoes of delicate
Breath-broken whistles.

I know something now
About subject, object, verb
And about one word that fails
For lack of substance.

Now people say, He passed on
Instead of that. Unit
Of space subtracted by one.
It almost rhymes with earth.

What is a poet but a person
Who lives on the ground
Who laughs and listens

Without pretension of knowing
Anything, driven by the lyric's
Quest for rest that never
(God willing) will be found?

Concord, kitchen table, 1966.
Corbetts, Creeley, a grandmother
And me. Sweater, glasses,
One wet eye.

Lots of laughter
Before and after. Every meeting
Rhymed and fluttered into meter.
The beat was the message. . . .