Poetry Blast Aug 14 2011

The other day I saw two baby birds on the ground under a tree. Alive, fully feathered, but blinking in the light, like they were stupefied at no longer being in the nest. Were they ready to fly? When I came outside at the end of the day, one of them was dead, the other standing a few feet away. The next day as I arrived to work, there were two young boys and two women trying to rescue a kitten from the same tree. They got it down and, after cooing over it, let it go and it ran into the dry ditch. This morning, observing the hummingbirds buzz-bombing each other at the feeder, I am (laughing at them, but also) thinking: this is a brutal world. For now, you can escape with Octavio Paz and George Jones: Madrigal Octavio Paz, translated by Eliot Weinberger More transparent than this water dropping through the vine’s twined fingers my thought stretches a bridge from yourself to yourself Look at you truer than the body you inhabit fixed at the center of my mind you were born to live on an island Poet’s Epitaph Ocatvio Paz, translated by Muriel Rukeyser He tried to sing, singing not to remember his true life of lies and to remember his lying life of truths. George Jones--The Bird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St2sxHF-Zx8 P.S. Flying away to the Atlantic ocean--see you in September! ...and here are the Paz poems in Español: Epitafio para un Poeta Quiso cantar, cantar para olvidar su vida verdadera de mentiras y recordar su mentirosa vida de verdades. Madrigal Más transparente que esa gota de agua entre los dedos de la enredadera mi pensamiento tiende un puente de ti misma a ti misma Mírate más real que el cuerpo que habitas fija en el centro de mi frente Naciste para vivir en una isla. "The crucial test of good vocal music is the intrinsic merit of the music when separated from the words, and that merit consists in the beauty of musical thought." From the Musician's Book of Days. Entry for May First.

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