Planting the Meadow - Mary Makofske

I leave the formal garden of schedules
where hours hedge me, clip the errant sprigs
of thought, and day after day, a boxwood
topiary hunt chases a green fox
never caught. No voice calls me to order
as I enter a dream of meadow, kneel
to earth and, moving east to west, second
the motion only of the sun. I plant
frail seedlings in the unplowed field, trusting
the wildness hidden in their hearts. Spring light
sprawls across false indigo and hyssop,
daisies, flax. Clouds form, dissolve, withhold
or promise rain. In time, outside of time,
the unkempt afternoons fill up with flowers.

The Suitor- Jane Kenyon

We lie back to back. Curtains

lift and fall,

like the chest of someone sleeping.

Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;

they show their light undersides,

turning all at once

like a school of fish.

Suddenly I understand that I am happy.

For months this feeling

has been coming closer, stopping

for short visits, like a timid suitor.

The Socks- Jane Kenyon

While you were away

I matched your socks

and rolled them into balls.

Then I filled your drawer

with tight dark fists.

Fool Me Good -- Billy Collins

I am under the covers
waiting for the heat to come up
with a gurgle and hiss
and the banging of the water hammer
that will frighten the cold out of the room.

And I am listening to a blues singer
named Precious Bryant
singing a song called "Fool Me Good."

If you don't love me baby, she sings,
would you please try to fool me good?

I am also stroking the dog's head
and writing down these words,
which means that I am calmly flying
in the face of the Buddhist advice
to do only one thing at a time.

Just pour the tea,
just look into the eye of the flower,
just sing the song --
one thing at a time

and you will achieve serenity
which is what I would love to do
as the fan-blades of the morning begin to turn.

If you don't love me, baby,
she sings
as a day-moon fades in the window
and the hands circle the clock,
would you please try to fool me good?

Yes, Precious, I reply.
I will fool you as good as I can,
but first I have to learn to listen to you
with my whole heart,
and not until you have finished

will I put on my slippers,
squeeze out some toothpaste,
and make a big foamy face in the mirror,

freshly dedicated to doing one thing at a time --
one note at a time for you, darling,
one tooth at a time for me.

The Livin' is Easy - Letter from the Editors

Dear Inklers,

Summer is here and if you're anything like us you're spending those warm summer nights on the patio with a book and an Anchor Steam. We just want to wish you a relaxing summer filled with good writing, and if you happen to stumble upon anything breathtaking, be sure to send it our way!

Your sunkissed editors,
Megan & Katy

Home from College - Patricia McMillen

"He died," she says-- like that, as if it's just
another word. Then that long sigh, long
slow ride down Willow Road, landfill one side,
wet baseball field the other. I won't cry

in front of her. The road bucks up, car floats
over the bridge; then a flash of neon
shocks my stoned eyes: sunset on the strange-
ly calm half-timbered storefronts of childhood.

Stopped for the crosswalk, Mom still doesn't
look at me. "Drugs," she says at last. Suicide,
foul play-- she can't, won't, guess. All she knows
is what the cops told her: his body of the floor,

an unmade bed, my letter on his desk. I had
not wanted to marry him anyway. Next day
I take the car, drive past his house, but I can't
knock. I spend July writing on steno pads,

trying to get it right: that flash of light and how,
last time we talked, he'd seemed relieved rather
than hurt. Mom begs, but I can't snap out of it:
I write and write, as if I could revise.

This poem was originally published in After Hours, the 10th Anniversary Issue, along with poems by our very own Katy Renz.

You Reading This, Be Ready-- William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life -

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

Submitted by Haley S.

who knows if the moon's - e e cummings

who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where

always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

An Old Story - Bob Hicok

It’s hard being in love
with fireflies. I have to do
all the pots and pans.
When asked to parties
they always wear the same
color dress. I work days,
they punch in at dusk.
With the radio and a beer
I sit up doing bills,
jealous of men who’ve fallen
for the homebody stars.
When things are bad
they shake their asses
all over town, when good
my lips glow.

Personal - Tony Hoagland

Don’t take it personal, they said;

but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;

the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—

And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,

the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,

with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,

with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness

Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said

at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t

believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture

served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all

and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure

while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds

and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me

for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon

disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;

barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else

to take it personal too.

Perhaps the World Ends Here- Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

The Red Son- Carl Sandburg

I love your faces I saw the many years
I drank your milk and filled my mouth
With your home talk, slept in your house
And was one of you.
But a fire burns in my heart.
Under the ribs where pulses thud
And flitting between bones of skull
Is the push, the endless mysterious command,
Saying:
"I leave you behind--
You for the little hills and the years all alike,
You with your patient cows and old houses
Protected from the rain,
I am going away and I never come back to you;
Crags and high rough places call me,
Great places of death
Where men go empty handed
And pass over smiling
To the star-drift on the horizon rim.
My last whisper shall be alone, unknown;
I shall go to the city and fight against it,
And make it give me passwords
Of luck and love, women worth dying for,
And money.
I go where you wist not of
Nor I nor any man nor woman.
I only know I go to storms
Grappling against things wet and naked."
There is no pity of it and no blame.
None of us is in the wrong.
After all it is only this:
You for the little hills and I go away.

Sunset - Nathan B.

His eyes were lost
in the distance.
He did not see her
before him,
her form a silhouette
in the grandeur of
the flames of the setting sun.
It set the sky
on fire. It made
the oceanblack,
burning the sky down,
’til all was burnt black
in the fire of the sun.

There was light beyond her,
bursting forth
from the horizon,
powerful and pure.

His eyes fixated upon the vision,
’til she dissolved into oblivion.
Stepping through her, he
dissolved into the vision:

All became one,
a focused unit,
the illumined sky,
the black ocean,
the blazing sun,
himself,
the sun igniting the sky,
the ocean drinking in the sun,
the sky enveloping the flame,
his sight filling with vision.

In - Andrew Hudgins

When we first heard from blocks away

the fog truck’s blustery roar,

we dropped our toys, leapt from our meals,

and scrambled out the door

into an evening briefly fuzzy.

We yearned to be transformed—

translated past confining flesh

to disembodied spirit. We swarmed

in thick smoke, taking human form

before we blurred again,

turned vague and then invisible,

in temporary heaven.

Freed of bodies by the fog,

we laughed, we sang, we shouted.

We were our voices, nothing else.

Voice was all we wanted.

The white clouds tumbled down our streets

pursued by spellbound children

who chased the most distorting clouds,

ecstatic in the poison.

A Letter - Kathryn H.

Cold, I am cold, cold
straining for the sun
old, I feel old, old
tired and undone.

Talk to me of happy things:
the shift of smells that autumn brings
beaches, dunes, and whispered sands
swans and gulls and sunny lands.

Though why I ache is not quite clear
I feel much better with you near
I'm not alone when in my ear
your optimism sounds

I eagerly await the day
When all earth is in heaven's sway
and friends will never go away
and life is without bounds

But Emmy dear, it's rather clear
though nigher draws this higher day
and though I'd love to fly away
and see you where you are,

we must each take the life we make
and form it to its finest shape;
I only hope that when I wake
that love won't feel so far,
that love won't feel so far.

[as freedom is a breakfastfood] - e. e. cummings

as freedom is a breakfastfood

or truth can live with right and wrong

or molehills are from mountains made

—long enough and just so long

will being pay the rent of seem

and genius please the talentgang

and water most encourage flame

as hatracks into peachtrees grow

or hopes dance best on bald men’s hair

and every finger is a toe

and any courage is a fear

—long enough and just so long

will the impure think all things pure

and hornets wail by children stung

or as the seeing are the blind

and robins never welcome spring

nor flatfolk prove their world is round

nor dingsters die at break of dong

and common’s rare and millstones float

—long enough and just so long

tomorrow will not be too late

worms are the words but joy’s the voice

down shall go which and up come who

breasts will be breasts thighs will be thighs

deeds cannot dream what dreams can do

—time is a tree(this life one leaf)

but love is the sky and i am for you

just so long and long enough

Joyce Sutphen on Poetry

Poet Joyce Sutphen told Contemporary Authors: "Here's what happens when I sit down to write a poem. I think that I will say something about this, but I end up writing about that. I have a catch in my heart (lump in my throat? whatever it is that Robert Frost says gets the poem going), and I am thinking about my brothers and sisters and all of the musical instruments they can play. My mind is filled with trombones, saxophones, trumpets, and drums. The brass glints, the black and white piano keys appear, and I begin caressing words: embouchure, vibrato, andante, and resin. I think of fingerings and positions, of tonguing and sustaining the last sweet note. I never realized how much music is like sex—how the technical aspects of music and sex share a vocabulary. I have a different poem in mind now from the one I was going to write, but to be honest I probably wouldn't have gotten this far.

"I don't always come away with a poem. Sometimes all I have is a notebook filled with starts, a few lines here, lots of crossed out lines there, a space and another couple of lines. In the last year or so my pages are filled with the funny marks I use to keep track of the poem's meter. Sometimes—but only rarely—there are columns of rhyming or slant rhyming words down the side of a page. Other times there are phone numbers, names of songs I heard on the radio, directions to a party in double-lined boxes. 'This is not a poem!' the boxes say, 'this is a reminder,' but sometimes when I go back to read them, they have become more like poems.

"Sometimes I go back to thinking that it's all nothing but what the preacher called it: vanity, vanity. These thoughts dissolve quickly when I remember what life was like without poetry, when all I had was the holy hush of ancient sacrifice. Poetry makes the world real for me.

"Two reasons keep me coming to the empty page: the desire to make a place for the glinting shard, the divine detail, and the hope that this caressing, this pressing against the visible will reveal the invisible. In the end, it isn't hard: when I sit down to write a poem, one thing just leads to another."

Annabel Lee - Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

To My Son's Girlfriend- Michael Milburn

I'm tempted to ask
what you see in him.
Although you probably
see the good that I see
I wonder if you realize
how much he is my handiwork,
or which of the qualities
you daydream about in class
are the ones that I take pride in,
his cordiality, for example,
or love of silliness.

It's uncomfortable for me
to think of anyone else
loving him the way I do,
possessing him in a way
that only his mother and I
have ever possessed him,
and I can't deny being jealous,
not so much reluctant
to share or relinquish him
as resolved to remind you
that he's been around
longer than your love,
under construction if you will,
and that each cute trait
or whatever occurs to you
when you hear his name
I feel proprietary about,
like a woodworker
who makes a table
intending to sell it
but prays that no buyer
will recognize its worth.

VLOG - Inklings in Pajamas!

This is our first attempt at making a video of a true-to-life Inklings meeting... mostly. Please excuse the rough editing, we are poetry editors, not video editors. Megan reads the poem we've posted this week, and Katy keeps it real.