With Roses (6:30 a.m.)<br><br><br>I'm empty. Quench me with song.<br>I'm guarded. Open me as the undine.<br>I'm sleepy. Awaken me to strum.
<br>I'm clipped and shorn of night. With each note brighten me.<br><br>Let the eight-stringed harp hallow Your name.<br>I'm thirsty with praise. Let this golden net manna me in Your Majesty.<br><br>The leaves of the sycamore wave their shade through my window
<br> in my underwater sun they dapple my page.<br>Through me the voice of the sparrow.<br>Through my song the dying heave of the hooked bluefish<br> its ribboned gills—the color of bleeding roses.<br>In its last gasps in the punishing air—so like its birth—it praises You.
<br><br>What hook have You placed in my lip?<br><br>I seek You in the syllable sighs of the sycamore that sings Seek more.<br>I hear You in the mimosa that murmurs My Moses.<br>I have sought Your face in the faces of strangers who jostle me at the market.
<br>I have glimpsed You in my son's squint and in my husband's ironic grin.<br>I have sought You in the late-blooming rose of Sharon.<br>I have found You in the spider that makes its web in my kitchen corner.<br>
I have seen You in the inchworm caught in its web and in the one scaling my arm.
<br><br>O the world is filled with those who bait the hook and those who are caught<br> and You alone know which one we will become<br> and when You will catch us up in Your celestial net.<br><br>And all at the moment of birth and at the moment of bloom
<br> and still all at the scissored instant of death<br><br>When the good are trampled upon<br> and it is difficult to muster my faith into song<br><br>When I waver I pray<br><div> You will set me on the highest rock
<br></div><div><div>For even my doubt is holy and drum-taps Your praise.<br><br><br><br>Green Laddered Thanksgiving (11 a.m.)<br><br><br>At forest-green at rungs as trees<br><br> at shore-rim of shadow-green
<br><br>(on one high step on mixing bowl » dish towel<br><br> pegged<br><br> to archway) to Japanese maple » ample<br><br> leaves climbing I am climbing<br><br>
to read Nature's book in this nook<br><br> in this 21st century kitchen light » at chin height<br><br> And all I can do is give thanks » thanks<br><br> for the bull frog by my door
<br><br> give thanks for the cicada's » dada<br><br> its persistent IS for these limbs » that limn<br><br>that I can still swim » on a whim<br><br> in the green pond exceeding thanks » for seeding me »
<br><br> ceding me Samuel my son<br><br> whose name means You heard<br><br> prophet anointer of kings » rejoicer in all things<br><br> who believes in You<br><br>
<i> (How else could the whole world<br><br> have been created)</i><br><br>More thanks for Sono (know who is)<br><br> the red Griffon » fond I am fond of<br>
<br>
his beard-face to look upon is to laugh » bark against bark<br><br> whose patience is devotion » won't shun<br><br> risks drowning swimming out to me
<br><br><br>Abundant gratitude in every latitude<br><br></div></div> for my marry » my helpmate<br><br>(not made like me) in his stoic calm<br><br>as the morning page of the pond » (my im » ponderable)<br>
<br><br> Thank You for fashioning me as I am
<br><br>a woman (no woe-man— not wombed man)<br><br>morning-slow (mourning, low) who kneels »<br><br> making patterns quickening with words »<br><br> (consorts with orts)
<br><br> May all these lines praise You<br><br> rays raise You<br><br> thanks give<br><br> for each day's eleventh hour return
<br><br> (my sojourn)<br><br> the gathering bright haze.<br><br><br><br>Blackberry City and Sundial Talk (4 p.m.): Time<br><br><br>takes all but memories in the end
<br> (takes time) takes even those<br><br>of our tailboned ancestors this<br>the purplest late-fall sun of my lover's ways (of my own)<br><br>of the buildings torn down to make way of those ghosting my dreams
<br>of the bridges packed with smeared people walking away<br><br>of other bridge walks to hear<br>"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" the ceremony<br><br>of marriage even of the brightest<br>blood birth at the sunset hour of 4:59
<br><br>when I pushed and strained<br>forth a child of his immediate gaze<br><br>and suckle of stinging milk-breast urge its taste<br>of my blackberry blood<br><br>of that first Brooklyn day outside after
<br>many child-feverish days of racing<br><br>down the exhilarating alleyway<br>into the spangled street of sweating in the City of<br><br>Fountains (of drinking at one dipping<br>my feet in another) of each ecstatic
<br><br>swim when I once fell in got snow up my nose<br>of the first time I picked blackberries<br><br>in Ithaca and bit in of lavender smell of the last time<br>I kissed his sleepy face<br><br>
or held her grasp: Is <i>forgetting</i><br>the soul dying finally with the body?<br><br>O Blessed One<br> may it never be so.<br><br><br>Sharon Dolin is the author of three books of poems: Realm of the
<br>Possible (Four Way Books, 2004), Serious Pink (Marsh Hawk Press,<br>2003), and Heart Work (The Sheep Meadow Press, 1995), as well as five<br>poetry chapbooks. Her latest book, Burn and Dodge, is the winner of<br>the Donald Hall Prize in Poetry and forthcoming from the University of
<br>Pittsburgh Press. Dolin is Poet-in-Residence at Eugene Lang College,<br>The New School for Liberal Arts. She directs The Center for Book Arts<br>Annual Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition and is a Curator for<br>
their Broadsides Reading Series, and teaches at the 92 Street Y in NYC.<br><br><br>~<br><br>Frequent <a href="http://www.realpoetik.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">www.realpoetik.blogspot.com</a> for poems;<br><a href="http://www.realpoetikblog.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">
www.realpoetikblog.blogspot.com</a> for news!<br><br>Editor Ana Bozicevic-Bowling's chapbook Document now on sale from Octopus Books:<br><a href="http://www.octopusbooks.net/main.html">http://www.octopusbooks.net/main.html
</a><br><br><br>