Liebesgedicht by Ellen Bryant Voigt.

Liebesgedicht

I love you as my other self, as the other

self of the tree is not the pale tree

in the flat hand of the river, but the earth

that holds, is held by, the root of the tree.

This is how the earth loves the river,

and why its least fold solicits each

impulsive stream until the gathered water

makes of earth a passage to the sea.

I’d like to draw a lesson from this figure,

and find some comfort in the way the larger

world rings with such dependencies.

But if I see ourselves in earth and water,

I also see one taken from the other,

the rivening wind loosed against the tree.

.. by Ellen Bryant Voigt.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz: Book review.

The book is a collection of stories of a Dominican family across three generations. The story about Abelard (1944–1946), the grandfather, the first generation, is mostly about the nasty rule of Rafael Trujillo and it's impact on our lead family at the end of which the daughter is orphaned and lost.

The second generation story is about the daughter, Hypatía Belicia Cabral, who is later on discovered and rescued from a very horrible life by her immediate surviving relative, La Inca, a cousin of her father. This part is more about Hypatía's need for being loved and her affair with a gangster who already is married to Rafael Trujillo's sister. This part too ends in tragedy and Hypatia emigrates to Paterson, New Jersey. 

The third generation story is about the life of Hypatia's son Oscar de León, and daughter Lolla as they live in Paterson, New Jersey. Hypatia was deserted by their father and she works all sorts of jobs to keep the family going.. Oscar is obese and is obsessed with science fiction, cartoons, reading, and role-playing games. His one goal is to write a science fiction epic. But the real problem with him is that he is unable to enter into a relationship with a girl, any girl. His elder sister Lolla wants to run away and her relationship with her mother, who is dying of cancer, gets deteriorated till she actually runs away. 

Junot Diaz starts with the third generation and then takes one backwards and forwards using all sort of american english and spanish and slang.

Winner of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008 and National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2007, the book is definitely a must read. It's a well researched and well documented book as it took full seven years for Junot Diaz to write this book. In a scale of 10 we give it a 9.5.

Love Poem For Naming by Corrie Williamson

Love Poem for Naming

Find the word for it, the nightly sound

of breath

beside me. Call it a hand

run up and down a length

of taut-skinned tree bark,

poplar, maybe.

Arrowed shape

the old shipmakers

harvested for masts.

Or possibly call it the rustle in the dry

wheat that grew wild through

our back field,

where I built nests when I was small

as I imagined the speechless animals

did, flag leaves

brittle, shush-saying over my head.

Hidden there

just long enough

for my mother to worry. Come to the porch,

dishtowel on her shoulder,

casting

my name over the afternoon.

Keen and honest

as the iron

bell in the garden. I would

explode from the chaff,

grassy-haired,

a wild grouse. Most nights:

his back.

The moon

turns its white face between the blinds.

If I woke him,

demanded, The moon,

name it, would he say

a bowl of gold butter

on our breakfast table.

The upended shell of earth’s silver

turtle twin. No,

I’d reply.

An ivory viking longship, tipping

into black sea. Your shoulder

blades’

parenthetical. No, this: your body

is the boat, its fine,

slumbered rigging -

that drumming in the keel.

                         ... by Corrie Williamson

Don't just sit there by Lucius

      Don't just sit there 

by

Lucius

The Lyrics

Don’t just sit there

Tell me what I wanna know

What I wanna know, oh, oh, oh

Don’t just sit there,

Tell me what I wanna know

What I wanna know, oh, oh, oh

Did you find love, have you found love?

Did you find love again?

Did you find love, have you found love?

Did you find love again?

Don’t just sit there

Tell me what I wanna know

What I wanna know, oh, oh, oh

Don’t just sit there,

Tell me what I wanna know

What I wanna know, oh, oh, oh

Did you find love, have you found love?

Did you find love again?

Did you find love, have you found love?

Did you find love again?

And now you heart ain’t moving

And now you heart ain’t moving

It’s true, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true

Did you find love, have you found love?

Did you find love again?

Did you find love, have you found love?

Did you find love again?

Tell me what I wanna know

What I wanna know, oh, oh, oh.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow Rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

           .... by Christopher Marlowe

I would not paint a picture by Emily Dickinson

I would not paint a picture 

I would not paint — a picture 

I'd rather be the One

It's bright impossibility

To dwell — delicious — on 

And wonder how the fingers feel

Whose rare — celestial — stir 

Evokes so sweet a torment 

Such sumptuous — Despair 

I would not talk, like Cornets 

I'd rather be the One

Raised softly to the Ceilings 

And out, and easy on 

Through Villages of Ether 

Myself endued Balloon

By but a lip of Metal 

The pier to my Pontoon 

Nor would I be a Poet 

It's finer — Own the Ear 

Enamored — impotent — content 

The License to revere,

A privilege so awful

What would the Dower be,

Had I the Art to stun myself

With Bolts — of Melody!

           ...... by Emily Dickinson

You Who Never Arrived by Rainer Maria Rilke

You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived

in my arms, Beloved, who were lost

from the start,

I don't even know what songs

would please you. I have given up trying

to recognize you in the surging wave of

the next moment. All the immense

images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt

landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and

unsuspected turns in the path,

and those powerful lands that were once

pulsing with the life of the gods--

all rise within me to mean

you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all

the gardens I have ever gazed at,

longing. An open window

in a country house-- , and you almost

stepped out, pensive, to meet me.

Streets that I chanced upon,--

you had just walked down them and vanished.

And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors

were still dizzy with your presence and,

startled, gave back my too-sudden image.

Who knows? Perhaps the same

bird echoed through both of us

yesterday, separate, in the evening...

                              .............by Rainer Maria Rilke