If Desires Fly by Like Shadows

If desires fly by like shadows,
If vows are empty words,
Is it worth it to live in this fog of delusion,
Is it worth it to live if the truth is dead?

Does one need eternity for useless striving,
Does one need eternity for deceptive words?
What is worthy of life lives without doubts,
A higher power knows no bonds.

Knowing one's own higher power,
Why wail on about childish dreams?
Life is just an exploit, and the living truth
Shines like immortality in moldering graves.

---Vladimir Solovyov



Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

Slabs

Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

March 8

March 8

Every so often my father comes over for a visit
he hangs his overcoat and hat on my hat rack
I brief him on recent developments
and serve us coffee
he is surprised that I like to cook
once when he made an omelette
he flipped it in the air much to my delight
and it landed on the floor
yes that was the summer of 1952,
he remembered the high breakers
and how fearless I was running into the ocean
anyway the important thing is to see you
doing so well he said
and took his coat and hat and left
before I remembered he was dead.

--David Lehman

Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

The Love of Morning

The Love of Morning

It is hard sometimes to drag ourselves
back to the love of morning
after we've lain in the dark crying out
O God, save us from the horror . . . .

God has saved the world one more day
even with its leaden burden of human evil;
we wake to birdsong.
And if sunlight's gossamer lifts in its net
the weight of all that is solid,
our hearts, too, are lifted,
swung like laughing infants;

but on gray mornings,
all incident - our own hunger,
the dear tasks of continuance,
the footsteps before us in the earth's
beloved dust, leading the way - all,
is hard to love again
for we resent a summons
that disregards our sloth, and this
calls us, calls us.

--Denise Levertov



Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

In the wilderness

In the Wilderness

I sit alone on the rocks trying to prepare
a man to teach what the laws of life are.
Sunlight and silence, nurses against disease,
are busy fighting my infirmities.
The life is simple, you could not say rough,
a stream, some cans and firewood are enough
to live on; but a hostile shift of weather
would bring me sharply up on the short tether
of endurance. We haven't survived by strength alone.
We have neither fur nor fangs. I will go home,
just as I rise from sleep, eat and get dressed.
This is one more resort, not last or best.

A teacher in the wilderness alone
learns to make bread and sermons out of stone.

--James Simmons



Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

Paul Lake

Paul Lake Talking to Lord Newborough

(Lt. William Charles Wynn, 1873-1916,
4th Baron Newborough, whose grave overlooks
the Vale of Ffestiniog in North Wales)

I'd perch beside your gravestone years ago,
a boy who thought you old at forty-three.
I knew you loved this quiet place, like me.
We'd gaze towards Maentwrog far below,
kindred spirits, and I'd talk to you.

Sometimes I asked what it was like to die--
were you afraid? You never did reply,
and silence rested lightly on us two.

These days the past is nearer,
so I came to our remembered refuge on the hill,
expecting change yet finding little there:
my village and the Moelwyns look the same,
Saint Michael's Church commands the valley still--
but you, old friend, are younger than you were.

David Anthony

Lent 2012

Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo

Temptation

Temptation

Under a starry sky I was taking a walk,
On a ridge overlooking neon cities,
With my companion, the spirit of desolation,
Who was running around and sermonizing,
Saying that I was not necessary, for if not I, then someone else
Would be walking here, trying to understand his age.
Had I died long ago nothing would have changed.
The same stars, cities, and countries
Would have been seen with other eyes.
The world and its labors would go on as they do.

For Christ's sake, get away from me.
You've tormented me enough, I said.
It's not up to me to judge the calling of men.
And my merits, if any, I won't know anyway.

--Czeslaw Milosz



Copyright (c) 2012, Israel Galindo