“The Pomegranate,” by Eavan Boland

The only legend I have ever loved is
the story of a daughter lost in hell.
And found and rescued there.
Love and blackmail are the gist of it.
Ceres and Persephone the names.
And the best thing about the legend is
I can enter it anywhere. And have.
As a child in exile in
a city of fogs and strange consonants,
I read it first and at first I was
an exiled child in the crackling dusk of
the underworld, the stars blighted. Later
I walked out in a summer twilight
searching for my daughter at bed-time.
When she came running I was ready
to make any bargain to keep her.
I carried her back past whitebeams
and wasps and honey-scented buddleias.
But I was Ceres then and I knew
winter was in store for every leaf
on every tree on that road.
Was inescapable for each one we passed.
And for me.
It is winter
and the stars are hidden.
I climb the stairs and stand where I can see
my child asleep beside her teen magazines,
her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit.
The pomegranate! How did I forget it?
She could have come home and been safe
and ended the story and all
our heart-broken searching but she reached
out a hand and plucked a pomegranate.
She put out her hand and pulled down
the French sound for apple and
the noise of stone and the proof
that even in the place of death,
at the heart of legend, in the midst
of rocks full of unshed tears
ready to be diamonds by the time
the story was told, a child can be
hungry. I could warn her. There is still a chance.
The rain is cold. The road is flint-coloured.
The suburb has cars and cable television.
The veiled stars are above ground.
It is another world. But what else
can a mother give her daughter but such
beautiful rifts in time?
If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift.
The legend will be hers as well as mine.
She will enter it. As I have.
She will wake up. She will hold
the papery flushed skin in her hand.
And to her lips. I will say nothing.

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Vespers
by Louise Glück

In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.

From The Wild Iris, published by The Ecco Press, 1992. Copyright © 1992 by Louise Glück.

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from An Essay on Criticism
Alexander Pope

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
‘Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o’er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus’ varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

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The Last Time I Saw Paris, by Tom Disch

Will I never see Paris again? It may well be.
Or Salina Cruz? Almost certainly.
But London: surely I’ll live that long.
And Ischia, Naples, Capri—I must see them again,
Although I don’t know when.
Not tomorrow, but soon.

And which are the disches I have unwittingly
Tasted a final time? Stewed tripe? I can live
With that. Various fruits peculiar to Brazil.
But not, I beg of fate, Aunt Cece’s lemon pudding.
For I mean to make some more.
Not tomorrow, but soon.

And which are the friends I’ll see no more,
Whether by their demise or mine,
Or merely through the slow attrition
Of concern: what are their names?
If I knew, I’d phone.
Not tomorrow, but soon.

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My poem “Symmetries” appears in the new issue of Ducts, an online magazine of “personal stories.” Head over and have a look at the new issue.

Symmetries
Ernest Hilbert

Love, when mingled with doubt, runs much quicker,
And despair rivals delight at each turn.
The sudden bled juices of early May
Add thrills to life. Such persuasive liquor,
When dried on the wick, primes it to burn.
Something tugs night up like a sheet from day.
Bacchus, with a six-pack, comes for Sibyl,
And the hermit misses the city’s strife.
We blank out one future each time we decide.
The fulcrum of time demands so little:
Only that we give some portion of life
To love, or surely we have already died.
Death balances love on scales; goes up, then
What raises it pulls it back down again.

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