Your Sunday Poem, 9-11-11

From Jane Hirshfield's "Given Sugar, Given Salt."

The Dead Do Not Want Us Dead

The dead do not want us dead:
such petty errors are left for the living.
Nor do they want our mourning.
No gift to them -- not rage, not weeping.
Return one of them, any one of them, to the earth,
and look: such foolish skipping,
such telling of bad jokes, such feasting!
Even a cucumber, even a single anise seed: feasting.

                                     September 15, 2001

Your Sunday Poem

In an odd season without a summer, here's Jane Hirshfield, from her book, "Given Sugar, Given Salt."

Speed and Perfection

How quickly the season of apricots is over --
a single night's wind is enough.
I kneel on the ground, lifting one, then the next.
Eating those I can, before the bruises appear.