Since Czeslaw Milosz’ very personal anthology of poetry, A Book of Luminous Things, jumped into our hands a couple of months ago, it dwells on our table to open anywhere for an unexpected view. It’s made us realize that when we read a poem, it starts a conversation within us and with other things. This morning “Living” by Denise Levertov started vibrating our heart and head:

The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.

The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.

A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily

moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.

A few hours after later, W.S. Merwin’s “To This May” appeared on gallerist Brett Gorvy’s instagram, where he often pairs poems with artists and/or their work. It accompanies Marina Adams work in her show “What Are You Listening To“?

They know so much more now about
the heart we are told but the world
still seems to come one at a time
one day one year one season and here
it is spring once more with its birds
nesting in the holes in the walls
its morning finding the first time
its light pretending not to move
always beginning as it goes

 

Together the two poems root us in THIS moment….

…………..always beginning as it goes….. Each minute the last minute...

A Book of Luminous Things

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