We are here,
no matter what, we are here,
and
never stop,

We are here to try and
desire.

If the desire for life is not burning inside your heart
go in the flower fields, lie down in the green grass
deepen your hands în the black earth,
squeeze its juices,
let it drain through your fingers,
meet the sun rising, lt it be your guiding light
flow with the waves of the sea, give a hug to someone
and dream, dream, dream ...

After,

if we are tempted, We can try again,
if help is needed, We can help,
We can share, if the heart opens for sharing,
After,
if we are tempted, We can try one more time

all We do here is try ...

-attributed to Stalin
           in a note forbidding the arrest of Boris Pasternak

Stalin and Caesar had no use for dreamers
Stern men of destiny prefer strong tools
To execute their leader’s will, and yet
They cry and beg when they are eventually shot

Cloud-dwellers camouflage themselves with words
And shift their sails but not their souls, and keep
Their little ships on course straight to the stars
Straight on until the dawn they help to light

Courage is in your dreams and words and works
May it please God that Stalin has no use

For you

Some Year’s Day

What century is it outside?

-Boris Pasternak

It’s a fair question: what century is this?
There was fog in the morning, this first day
Of the new year, and later overcast
There was nothing new in any of that

The fat grey squirrel raided the bird-seed at dawn
Which is why he is fat, and dampness dripped
From the roof eaves onto the long-dead leaves
There was nothing new in that, either

The first cup of coffee, the same old news -
It’s a fair question, it is: what century?

Spring**

How many sticky buds, candle ends
sprout from the branches! Steaming
April. Puberty sweats from the park,
and the forest’s blatantly gleaming.

A noose of feathered throats grips
the wood’s larynx, a lassoed steer,
netted, like a gladiatorial *****,
it groans steel-piped sonatas here.

Poetry! Be a Greek sponge with suckers,
among green stickiness drenched,
I’ll consent, by the sopping wood
of a green-stained garden bench.

Grow sumptuous pleats and flounces,
**** up the gullies and clouds,
Poetry, tonight, I’ll squeeze you out
to make the parched sheets flower.