The dangers of barefoot soccer...

are many. The worst of these are toes popping out the bottom of one's foot. Actually, the worst is likely having a foot fall off but the toe thing is pretty bad too. The nice advantage to hopping about on one foot is that it slows life down and clarifies thoughts. True wisdom is knowing this trick without the blood and broken bones. It is very hard to be wise. Mainly I would say that injuries can be a lot of fun if looked at properly. It is only the truth. Read these poems slowly and soak them in.


"THERE ARE THOSE WHO LOVE TO GET DIRTY"

There are those who love to get dirty
and fix things.
They drink coffee at dawn,
beer after work,

And those who stay clean,
just appreciate things,
At breakfast they have milk
and juice at night.

There are those who do both,
they drink tea.



GARY SNYDER



"FLYING AT NIGHT"

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.


TED KOOSER






"summer sadness"

The sun, on the sand, O sleeping wrestler,
Warms a languid bath in the gold of your hair,
Melting the incense on your hostile features,
Mixing an amorous liquid with the tears.

The immutable calm of this white burning,
O my fearful kisses, makes you say, sadly,
‘Will we ever be one mummified winding,
Under the ancient sands, and palms so happy?’

But your tresses are a tepid river,
Where the soul that haunts us drowns, without a shiver
And finds the Nothingness you cannot know!

I’ll taste the unguent of your eyelids’ shore,
To see if it can grant to the heart, at your blow,
The insensibility of stones and the azure.

Stéphane Mallarmé







"PATRIOTICS"

Yesterday a little girl got slapped to death by her daddy,
out of work, alcoholic, and estranged two towns down river.
America, it's hard to get your attention politely.
America, the beautiful night is about to blow up

and the cop who brought the man down with a shot to the chops
is shaking hands, dribbling chaw across his sweaty shirt,
and pointing cars across the courthouse grass to park.
It's the Big One one more time, July the 4th,

our country's perfect holiday, so direct a metaphor for war,
we shoot off bombs, launch rockets from Drano cans,
spray the streets and neighbors' yards with the machine-gun crack
of fireworks, with rebel yells and beer. In short, we celebrate.

It's hard to believe. But so help the soul of Thomas Paine,
the entire county must be here--the acned faces of neglect,
the halter-tops and ties, the bellies, badges, beehives,
jacked-up cowboy boots, yes, the back-up singers of democracy

all gathered to brighten in unambiguous delight
when we attack the calm and pointless sky. With terrifying vigor
the whistle-stop across the river will lob its smaller arsenal
halfway back again. Some may be moved to tears.

We'll clean up fast, drive home slow, and tomorrow
get back to work, those of us with jobs, convicting the others
in the back rooms of our courts and malls--yet what
will be left of that one poor child, veteran of no war

but her family's own? The comfort of a welfare plot,
a stalk of wilting prayers? Our fathers' dreams come true as
nightmare.
So the first bomb blasts and echoes through the streets and shrubs:
red, white, and blue sparks shower down, a plague

of patriotic bugs. Our thousand eyeballs burn aglow like punks.
America, I'd swear I don't believe in you, but here I am,
and here you are, and here we stand again, agape.

David Baker





"GREEN-STRIPED MELONS"


They lie
under stars in a field.
They lie under rain in a field.
Under sun.

Some people
are like this as well—
like a painting
hidden beneath another painting.

An unexpected weight
the sign of their ripeness.


Jane Hirshfield