The Door

Miroslav Holub

Go and open the door.

Maybe outside there’s

a tree, or a wood,

a garden,

or a magic city.

Go and open the door.

Maybe a dog’s rummaging.

Maybe you’ll see a face,

or an eye,

or the picture

of a picture.

Go and open the door.

If there’s a fog

it will clear.

Go and open the door.

Even if there’s only

the darkness ticking,

even if there’s only

the hollow wind,

even if

nothing

is there,

go and open the door.

At least

there’ll be

a draught.

-o0o-

No Man is an Island

John Donne

No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent,

a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend’s

or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind;

and therefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls;

it tolls for thee.

-o0o-

Beautiful Old Age

David Herbert Lawrence

It ought to be lovely to be old 

to be full of the peace that comes of experience 

and wrinkled ripe fulfilment. 

The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life 

lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies 

they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins 

in their old age. 

Soothing, old people should be, like apples 

when one is tired of love. 

Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft 

stillness and satisfaction of autumn. 

And a girl should say: 

It must be wonderful to live and grow old. 

Look at my mother, how rich and still she is! - 

And a young man should think: By Jove 

my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life!

-o0o-

The Bright Field

R.S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field

for a while, and gone my way

and forgotten it. But that was the

pearl of great price, the one field that had

treasure in it. I realise now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

-o0o-

The Red Dress

Myra Schneider

My first reaction is: I want it,

can’t wait to squeeze into

a scarlet sheath that promises

breasts round as russet apples,

a waist pinched to a pencil,

hips that know the whole dictionary

of swaying, can’t wait 

to saunter down an August street

with every eye upon me.

But the moment I’m zipped in

I can’t breathe and the fabric 

hugging my stomach without mercy

pronounces me a frump.

Besides, in the internet café,

where you can phone Tangiers

or Thailand for almost nothing

fourteen pairs of eyes

are absorbed by screens.

No one whistles when I smile

at boxes of tired mangoes 

and seedy broccoli heads 

outside the Greek superstore.

By now I’m in a fever to undo

the garment and pull it off.

And for all its flaws, for all

that it only boasts one breast,

I’m overjoyed to re-possess

my body. I remember I hate 

holding in and shutting away.

What I want is a dress easy

as a plump plum oozing

juice, as a warm afternoon

in late October creeping 

its ambers and cinnamons into

leaves, a dress that reassures 

there’s no need to pretend, 

a dress that’s as capacious 

as generosity, a dress that willingly

unbuttons and whispers in the ear:

be alive every minute of your life. 

-o0o-

Before Dawn

Penelope Shuttle

I used to wake early, and weep.

Now I wake just as early,

calm as a cloud

in the moony sky outside.

Even thinking about unpaid bills

doesn't make me weep,

though I used to weep and weep.

4.30 a.m. No way of getting back

to sleep so I listen in

to the silence of a world dark and at rest.

I know other women

wider awake than me.

I hear the silence beyond their weeping,

streetlamps outside their windows

won't blank out for hours and hours yet.

I used to wake early, etc. . .

Now I let my old friend Sleep

go his own sweet way,

listen to whoever is wide awake in me,

running the flats of her hands

over the rough walls of the world,

looking for what?

A way in? A way out?

You tell me.

-o0o-

When I have baked white cakes

Amy Lowell

When I have baked white cakes

And grated green almonds to spread upon them;

When I have picked the green crowns from the strawberries

And piled them, cone-pointed, in a blue and yellow platter;

When I have smoothed the seam of the linen I have been working;

What then?

To-morrow it will be the same:

Cakes and strawberries,

And needles in and out of cloth.

If the sun is beautiful on bricks and pewter,

How much more beautiful is the moon,

Slanting down the gauffered branches of a plum-tree;

The moon,

Wavering across a bed of tulips;

The moon,

Still,

Upon your face.

You shine, Beloved,

You and the moon.

But which is the reflection?

The clock is striking eleven.

I think, when we have shut and barred the door,

The night will be dark

Outside.

-o0o-