Fast Day 38 February 22, 2008 {Studying For The Bar Exam}

To My Daughter Studying For The Bar Exam

Old Guitars

In the deepest strength of winter,
you are the fire of sunshine.
Our hearts are like guitars in storage
that have lost their strings;
so weave to us your music
on a loom of your studious solitude!

Fast Day 37 February 15,2008 {Valentine's Day}

Note: Amalthea's Horn was the cornucopia or the horn of plenty.


Valentine's Day


Like a flower of
one thousand crowns,
your love is like
Amalthea's horn:
honey fountains of the plains,
petty cakes with saffron,
lentils boiled and parched,
carrot laden chickpeas broomed
with the hyssop of new dill!

Fast Day 36 February 9,2008 {Winter Haiku}

Winter Haiku

1
The snow falls slowly;
mountain imperceptible;
Quick! My car is stuck!


2
The beard of Santa,
hidden within the closet;
imagination.




( I actually intend to add to these...)

Fast Day 35 February 2, 2008 {To My Daughter}

It is Groundhog Day and I hope that the film "Groundhog Day" will be showing all day.
I stuck my head out and saw that the War was still going on.
There is an old saying that runs:

"On Candlemas ( or Groundhog Day or February 2 ),

If a durn fool sees bombs a-goin' off, the War will last fer 100 years!

If the durn fool doesn't see bombs a-goin' off, the War will last fer only a century!"


Having thus added to the total amount of Dark Matter in the Universe, I segue into another lost cause: the pursuit of peace through poetry and fasting.


To My Daughter


The sun comes up in the East just where she is.
Which brilliant is the brighter star?
An angel comes to her bearing waxen wings:
Put them on! Put them on!

Eagle by artifice, she flies into the sky.
Joy fills her heart.
She will not come down for many years...
Queen of the Air!

Mother and I, we saw her circling
in the night-time deep
along the sea, along the sand...
long ago before creation.

No visible wings, a mere child then;
footprints in the dark.
She glowed in the soft light of
the front porch lantern.

The sun always comes up now in the East
in golden mimicry
just where she flies.