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Were beeth they biforen us weren, Houndes ledden and hawkes beren, And hadden feeld and wode? The riche ladies in hir bowr, That wereden gold in hir tressour, With hir brighte rode, Eten and drunken, and maden hem glad; Hir lif was al with gamen ylad, Men kneeleden hem biforen; They beren hem wel swithe hye. And in a twinkling of an ye Hir soules weren forloren. Where is that laughing and that song, That trailing and that proude gong, Tho hawkes and tho houndes? Al that joye is went away, That wele is comen to weylaway, To manye harde stoundes. Here paradis hy nomen here, And now they lien in helle ifere; The fuir hit brennes evere: Long is “ah!” and long is “oh!” Long is “wy!” and long is “wo!” Thennes ne cometh they nevere. Drey here, man, thenne, if thou wilt, A litel pine that me thee bit; Withdraw thine eyses ofte. They thy pine be unrede, And thou thenke on thy mede, It shall thee thinken softe. If that fend, that foule thing, Thorou wikke roun, thorou fals egging, Nethere thee haveth icast, down Up, and be good chaunpioun! Stond, ne fall namore adoun For a litel blast. Thou tak the rode to thy staf, And thenk on him that thereonne gaf His lif that wes so lef. He hit gaf for thee; thou yelde it him; Agein his fo that staf thou nim, And wrek him of that thef. Of righte bileve thou nim that sheld, The whiles that thou best in that feld, Thin hond to strengthen fonde, And kep thy fo with staves ord, And do that traitre seyen that word. Biget that murie londe. Thereinne is day withouten night, Withouten ende strengthe and might, And wreche of everich fo; Mid God himselven eche lif, And pes and rest withoute strif, Wele withouten wo. Mayden moder, hevene quene, Thou might and const and owest to bene Oure sheld agein the fende: Help us sunne for to flen, That we moten they sone iseen, In joye withouten ende.

A little candlewax on the thumbnail, liquid at first, slipping, then stalled to an ice-hood. Another layer, another, and the child lies back, his thumb a hummock, his small knuckle buckled with cracks. No snow yet, but the last white meadows of switchwort and saxifrage mimic it. Already the bears brush back through the dwarf willows—Hubbart Point, Cape Henrietta Maria, the bay's deep arc flattening, lessening as land extends through the fast-ice and the seam of open leads stretches, withdraws. They have come for the pack floes, for the slow rafting. And repeat on their white faces, the boy thinks, the low strokes of the borealis: violet mouths, madder blue at the eyelids. Perhaps he will walk to the shoreline—no shore, of course, just miles of land-fast ice stretched over water, stretched out to water, the line where each begins a filament, a vapor. By then the bears will be sailors, or, far to the north, stalled in their waxy sleep. He yawns, looks down at his slipper, his floormat of braided fleece. By then the lights will be thicker, greens and magentas flashing, rolling in at times like fog.To go where nothing lives. He turns, settles. To extend a little breath out over that ice—the white, cumbersome bodies migrating in reverse with the others, dragging between them a lifeline, plump and intricate, like a net, like purse seiners dragging a cork net, its great arc spiraling, tighter, tighter, now green in those lights, now blue, now pink as the boy's ear, where all night a line of cold traces the rim, the lobe, circles down, chills, and recedes.

With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, We sailed for the Hesperides, The land where golden apples grow; But that, ah! that was long ago. How far, since then, the ocean streams Have swept us from that land of dreams, That land of fiction and of truth, The lost Atlantis of our youth! Whither, ah, whither? Are not these The tempest-haunted Orcades, Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar, And wreck and sea-weed line the shore? Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle! Here in thy harbors for a while We lower our sails; a while we rest From the unending, endless quest.

Novel unbegun, half-loaf rising, lighthouse northward and anchor south. Lemon to grapefruit, you sleep-step sidewise, turnover, pop-up, tongue in the mouth.

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

When I push your button you fly off the handle, old skin and bones, black bat wing. We're alike, you and I. Both of us resemble my mother, so fierce in her advocacy on behalf of the most vulnerable child who'll catch his death in this tempest. Such a headwind! Sometimes it requires all my strength just to end a line. But when the wind is at my back, we're likely to get carried away, and say something we can never retract, something saturated from the ribs down, an old stony word like ruin. You're what roof I have, frail thing, you're my argument against the whole sky. You're the fundamental difference between wet and dry.

Ode’iminibaashkiminasiganke She makes strawberry jam ginagawinad wiishko’aanimad, waaseyaagami mixing sweet wind and shining water miinawaa gipagaa nibwaakaa, with thick wisdom bigishkada’ad, dibaabiiginad pounding, measuring gakina gaa zhawenimangidwa everything we’ve cared for gakina gaa waniangidwa everything we’ve lost nagamowinan waa nagamoyaang the songs we have not yet sung miigwanag waa wawezhi’angidwa the feathers yet to decorate ezhi-zhoomiingweyaangoba and all the ways we’ve smiled mooshkine moodayaabikoong into jars filled to the brim ji-baakaakonid pii bakadeyaang. to be opened when we are thin.

The street I walk along I often see As if I'd long since left the moving surface Of the world for the endless other side that disperses Us all some day without return but free Of care. I apply myself so well to this fragile proceeding That very quickly my gaze ceases to be Part of the cloudy clump of hope and memory I'll have given my name to. But for this to succeed, A feeling of absolute happiness has to make Itself felt, as if from outside me, so much That at that moment the very street has a hunch That it, the entire city, and its uncertain space Have become one with the mobile but faithful pattern Of phrases written by our steps when we move about. I no longer know who's walking and marking out The ground, bit by bit, to the corner. My gaze then patterns Itself on tomorrow's unknown eyes, which will shine When from the roofs, posthumous and vague, mine glow, And my invisible trace on the asphalt below Might guide the élan of hardier passersby. Will they know what I sometimes suspect: what appears To be the distracted gaze with which we see The world is the world itself?—It sees and hears Itself through the thin transparency of our screens.

I was looking for your hair, black as old lava on an island of white coral. I dreamed it deserted you and came for me, wrapped me in its funeral ribbons and tied me a bow of salt. Here’s where I put my demise: desiring fire in a web of tide, marrying the smell of wet ashes to the sweet desert of your slate. My intelligent mammal, male of my species, twin sun to a world not of my making, you reduce me to the syrup of the moon, you boil my bones in the absence of hands. Where is your skin, parting me? Where is the cowlick under your kiss teasing into purple valleys? Where are your wings, the imaginary tail and its exercise? Where would I breed you? In the neck of my secret heart where you’ll go to the warmth of me biting into that bread where crumbs crack and scatter and feed us our souls; if only you were a stone I could throw, if only I could have you.

There is no I in teamwork but there is a two maker there is no I in together but there is a got three a get to her the I in relationship is the heart I slip on a lithe prison in all communication we count on a mimic (I am not uncomic) our listening skills are silent killings there is no we in marriage but a grim area there is an I in family also my fail