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Her House Is the Red Earth

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Ship Rock in Northwestern New Mexico

I love the poetry of Joy Harjo, a Muscogee (Creek) Indian who served from 2019-2022 as Poet Laureate of the United States. She is the only poet who interested me enough to read three of her collections in their entirety. Following is one of her prose poems that appeared in Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: 50 Poems for 50 Years (New York: W. W. Norton, 2023). Look up her work sometime: It’s worth reading.

My House Is the Red Earth

My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world. I’ve heard New York, Paris, or Tokyo called the center of the world, but I say it is magnificently humble. You could drive by and miss it. Radio waves can obscure it. Words cannot construct it, for there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form. For instance, that fool crow, picking through trash near the corral, understands the center of the world as greasy scraps of fat. Just ask him. He doesn’t have to say that the earth has turned scarlet through fierce belief, after centuries of heartbreak and laughter—he perches on the blue bowl of the sky, and laughs.

If you look with the mind of the swirling earth near Shiprock you become the land, beautiful. And understand how three crows at the edge of the highway, laughing, become three crows at the edge of the world, laughing.

Don’t bother the earth spirit who lives here. She is working on a story. It is the oldest story in the world and it is delicate, changing. If she sees you watching she will invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread, and you will be obligated to stay and listen. But this is no ordinary story. You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning, the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty. It’s a story so compelling you may never want to leave; this is how she traps you. See that stone finger over there? That is the only one who ever escaped.

“Shield Me in the Woods Again”

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Scottish Poet James Thomson (1700-1748)

I know it’s in rhymed couplets, so popular in the 18th century. But still, it’s a work of genius and reads well, except for the references to Musidora, whoever SHE was.

Hymn on Solitude

Hail, mildly pleasing Solitude,
Companion of the wise and good,
But from whose holy piercing eye
The herd of fools and villains fly.

Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whispered talk,
Which innocence and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts.

A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky;
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain;
A lover now, with all the grace
Of that sweet passion in your face;
Then, calmed to friendship, you assume
The gentle looking Hertford’s bloom,
As, with her Musidora, she
(Her Musidora fond of thee)
Amid the long-withdrawing vale
Awakes the rivalled nightingale.

Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born;
And, while meridian fervors beat,
Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;
But chief, when evening scenes decay
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.

Descending angels bless thy train,
Thy virtues of the sage and swain—
Plain Innocence, in white arrayed,
Before thee lifts her fearless head;
Religion’s beams around thee shine
And cheer thy glooms with light divine;
About thee sports sweet Liberty,
And rapt Urania sings to thee.

Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell,
And in thy deep recesses dwell!
Perhaps from Norwood’s oak-clad hill,
When Meditation has her fill,
I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London’s spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, it cares, its pain,—
Then shield me in the woods again.

Crossing Nation

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Poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)

Here is a poem by Allen Ginsberg which memorializes an entire era, from Timothy Leary to Jerry Rubin to Leroi Jones to Benjamin Spock and Joan Baez.

Crossing Nation

Under silver wing
San Francisco’s towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine-covered below—
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball—

Sacramento valley rivercourse’s Chinese
dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake’s
blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands’
brown wasteland scratched by tires

     Jerry Rubin arrested!  Beaten, jailed,
            coccyx broken—

Leary out of action—“a public menace…
persons of tender years…immature
judgement…psychiatric examination…”
i.e. Shut up or Else Loonybin or Slam

Leroi on bum gun rap, $7,000
lawyer fees, years’ negotiations—
SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez’
paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol
Dylan silent on politics, & safe—
having a baby, a man—
Cleaver shot at, jail’d, maddened, parole revoked,

Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,
blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
on to Cholon’s sidewalks—
Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
Murderers advance w/ Death-chords
Earplugs in, steak on plastic
served—Eyes up to the Image—

What do I have to lose if America falls?
my body? my neck? my personality?

A Poem for November

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I thought I would mark the eleventh month of 2026 by posting a poem from Emily Dickinson called, simply, “November”:

November

Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.

A few incisive mornings,
A few ascetic eyes, —
Gone Mr. Bryant’s golden-rod,
And Mr. Thomson’s sheaves.

Still is the bustle in the brook,
Sealed are the spicy valves;
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many elves.

Perhaps a squirrel may remain,
My sentiments to share.
Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind,
Thy windy will to bear!

Needless to say, this is a portrait of a fall day in the poet’s native Amherst, Massachusetts. Things are a little more mixed up in Southern California, where I remember seeing snow at ground level only once in sixty years. And, of course, it melted before it was able to accumulate.

I remember the autumns of my four years at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, a place which Emily would have recognized.

“There Is No Path”

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This is a re-post from February 2, 2013.

Poetry can twist you around sometimes even if you just read a little sample of it. The following lines by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939) were in the introduction to a book on Buddhism by Thich Nhat Hanh:

Wanderer, the road is your
footsteps, nothing else;
wanderer, there is no path,
you lay down a path in walking.

In walking, you lay down a path
and when turning around
you see the road you’ll
never step on again.
Wanderer, path there is none,
only tracks on the ocean foam.

Is this the entire poem? I don’t know. It could be a fragment, but if it is, it is remarkably self-contained.

In the meantime, I will continue along the path that is no path, that is being wiped out by the ocean foam even as I make tracks—toward what end? At least the water feels cool to my bare feet.

“Reading Books”

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Ancient Chinese Scroll

This is a delightful poem from Liu Tsung-yuan (AD 773-819) who was exiled by the Emperor to Yungchou in the 9th century for espousing unpopular opinions. Though it is more than 1,100 years old, it could have been written yesterday—especially in today’s political environment.

Reading Books

Living in obscurity I’ve given up current affairs
I bow my head in silence and reflect on the sage kings
the highs and lows of the ancient past
the ups and downs of countless paths
I laugh to myself when I’m pleased
when I’m sad I simply sigh
I take my books from their cases
I go through from front to back
despite the affliction of tropical diseases
I feel different than in the past
while reading I suddenly understand
when I’m done my mind is a blank
who can I talk with at night
if not these texts on bamboo and silk
I lie down when I get tired
after a good sleep I feel refreshed
I yawn and stretch my limbs
I read out loud to my heart’s content
I enjoy doing what suits me
not to please learned men
I shut up when I’ve said what I want
free of restraints I relax
the clever consider me stupid
the wise think I’m a fool
but reading as managed to make me happy
what good is working till you drop
cherish this body of yours
don’t use it to chase after fame

The translation is by Red Pine. The book is Written in Exile: The Poetry of Liu Tsung-Yuan, published by the Copper Canyon Press.

Haggis

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Haggis, Neeps, and a Wee Drappit of Scotch

When I first visited Scotland in 1976, I had my first taste of Haggis at an Edinburgh restaurant near Waverley Station. From everything I had heard, it was disgusting stuff—the innards of a sheep stuffed with oatmeal, onions, suet, and various spices. Imagine, to my surprise, that I was familiar with the taste. It was almost identical to Hungarian Hurka sausage, which was similar in every respect except it was made from pork and not sheep.

Here is Scottish poet Robert Burns’s tribute to Haggis, a poem that is quoted on Burns night in celebrations around the globe.

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftan o’ the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe or thairm:

Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’ need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber mead.

His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an’ strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.

Is there that owere his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi’ perfect scunner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An’ legs, an’ arms, an’ heads will sned,
Like taps o’ thrissle.

Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratfu’ prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

Burns’s lowland Scots dialect may be strange to American ears, but the poem’s vitality somehow carries it along.

Vanitas Vanitatum

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The Brontë Sisters as Painted by Their Brother Branwell

The painter wiped his own image out of his painting of his more famous sisters. The sister on the left is Anne, who signed her two novels under the pseudonym of Acton Bell. Those two novels were Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). She was an early feminist who dealt in her two novels with the issues of parenthood and relationships respectively. Unfortunately, she died young, at the age of 29.

Here is one of her poems, which illustrates the intensity of feelings which pervades her work. The title is from Ecclesiastes 1:2: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas

In all we do, and hear, and see,
Is restless Toil and Vanity.
While yet the rolling earth abides,
Men come and go like ocean tides;

And ere one generation dies,
Another in its place shall rise;
THAT, sinking soon into the grave,
Others succeed, like wave on wave;

And as they rise, they pass away.
The sun arises every day,
And hastening onward to the West,
He nightly sinks, but not to rest:

Returning to the eastern skies,
Again to light us, he must rise.
And still the restless wind comes forth,
Now blowing keenly from the North;

Now from the South, the East, the West,
For ever changing, ne’er at rest.
The fountains, gushing from the hills,
Supply the ever-running rills;

The thirsty rivers drink their store,
And bear it rolling to the shore,
But still the ocean craves for more.
’Tis endless labour everywhere!
Sound cannot satisfy the ear,

Light cannot fill the craving eye,
Nor riches half our wants supply,
Pleasure but doubles future pain,
And joy brings sorrow in her train;

Laughter is mad, and reckless mirth–
What does she in this weary earth?
Should Wealth, or Fame, our Life employ,
Death comes, our labour to destroy;

To snatch the untasted cup away,
For which we toiled so many a day.
What, then, remains for wretched man?
To use life’s comforts while he can,

Enjoy the blessings Heaven bestows,
Assist his friends, forgive his foes;
Trust God, and keep His statutes still,
Upright and firm, through good and ill;

Thankful for all that God has given,
Fixing his firmest hopes on Heaven;
Knowing that earthly joys decay,
But hoping through the darkest day.

An Ode to Breakfast

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A Full English Breakfast

Since I am reading Charles Lamb’s Essays of Elia (1823), I thought I would look at some of his poems. There I found this encomium on the subject of the morning meal.

Breakfast

A dinner party, coffee, tea,
Sandwich, or supper, all may be
In their way pleasant. But to me
Not one of these deserves the praise
That welcomer of new-born days,
A breakfast, merits; ever giving
Cheerful notice we are living
Another day refreshed by sleep,
When its festival we keep.
Now although I would not slight
Those kindly words we use, “Good night,”
Yet parting words are words of sorrow,
And may not vie with sweet “Good morrow,”
With which again our friends we greet,
When in the breakfast-room we meet,
At the social table round,
Listening to the lively sound
Of those notes which never tire,
Of urn, or kettle on the fire.
Sleepy Robert never hears
Or urn or kettle; he appears
When all have finished, one by one
Dropping off, and breakfast done.
Yet has he too his own pleasure,
His breakfast hour’s his hour of leisure;
And, left alone, he reads or muses,
Or else in idle mood he uses
To sit and watch the venturous fly,
Where the sugar’s pilëd high,
Clambering o’er the lumps so white,
Rocky cliffs of sweet delight.