XIII - Stephen Crane

IF THERE IS A WITNESS TO MY LITTLE LIFE,

TO MY TINY THROES AND STRUGGLES,

HE SEES A FOOL ;

AND IT IS NOT FINE FOR GODS TO MENACE

       FOOLS.

THE SPELL OF THE YUKON - Robert W. Service

I wanted the gold, and I sought it ;

   I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.

Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it ;

   I hurled my youth into a grave.

I wanted the gold, and I got it— 

   Came out with a fortune last fall,— 

Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,

   And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No !    There’s the land.   (Have you seen it?)

   It’s the cussedest land that I know,

From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it

   To the deep, deathlike valleys below.

Some say God was tired when He made it ;

   Some say it’s a fine land to shun ;

Maybe;  but there’s some as would trade it

   For no land on earth—and I’m one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason);

   You feel like an exile at first ;

You hate it like hell for a season,

   And then you are worse than the worst.

It grips you like some kinds of sinning ;

   It twists you from foe to a friend ;

It seems it’s been since the beginning ;

   It seems it will be to the end.

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow

   That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim ;

I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow

   In crimson and gold, and grow dim,

Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,

   And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop ;

And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,

   With the peace o’ the world piled on top.

The summer—no sweeter was ever ;

   The sunshiny woods all athrill ;

The grayling aleap in the river,

   The bighorn asleep on the hill.

The strong life that never knows harness ;

   The wilds where the caribou call ;

The freshness, the freedom, the farness—

   O God !  how I’m stuck on it all.

The winter !  the brightness that blinds you,

   The white land locked tight as a drum,

The cold fear that follows and finds you,

   The silence that bludgeons you dumb.

The snows that are older than history,

   The woods where the weird shadows slant ;

The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,

   I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t.

There’s a land where the mountains  are  nameless,

   And the rivers all run God knows where ;

There are lives that are erring and aimless,

   And deaths that just hang by a hair ;

There are hardships that nobody reckons ;

   There are valleys unpeopled and still ;

There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,

   And I want to go back—and I will.

They’re making my money diminish ;

   I’m sick of the taste of champagne.

Thank God !  when I’m skinned to a finish

   I’ll pike to the Yukon again.

I’ll fight—and you bet it’s no sham-fight ;

   It’s hell ! —but I’ve been there before ;

And it’s better than this by a damsite—

   So me for the Yukon once more.

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting ;

   It’s luring me on as of old ;

Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting

   So much as just finding the gold.

It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,

   It’s the forests where silence has lease ;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

   It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

“The earth is too wide” - Al-Shanfara (translation)

The earth is too wide

for a free man

to put up with humiliation

      or hatred.

“I should not have waited.” - Lady Akazome Emon (translated by Kenneth Rexroth)

I should not have waited.

It would have been better

To have slept and dreamed,

Than to have watched night pass,

And this slow moon sink.

The Clothes Pin - Jane Kenyon

How much better it is

to carry wood to the fire

than to moan about your life.

How much better

to throw the garbage

onto the compost, or to pin the clean

sheet on the line

with a gray-brown wooden clothes pin!

Next Second, You Were Gone - Randall Stephens

I heard about an old broken phone box
Where people would go to have imaginary conversations
At first, I found it foolish
And then I joined the queue.

When my turn came, I dialled your old number.
There was no ringtone, but I told you everything
and I waited in silence
as if you might respond. 

I thought I heard you breathe. 
Then I remembered they told me my life should go on. 
One second, you were here.