For the Bird Singing before Dawn
By Kim Stafford

Some people presume to be hopeful
when there is no evidence for hope,
to be happy when there is no cause.
Let me say now, I’m with them.

In deep darkness on a cold twig
in a dangerous world, one first
little fluff lets out a peep, a warble,
a song—and in a little while, behold:

the first glimmer comes, then a glow
filters through the misty trees,
then the bold sun rises, then
everyone starts bustling about.

And that first crazy optimist, can we
forgive her for thinking, dawn by dawn,
“Hey, I made that happen!
And oh, life is so fine.”

About This Poem

“Many times in my life I’ve been told by serious people that I must be very naïve to be happy, to have hope, to celebrate this little life I’ve been given when, actually, they say, everything is pretty dire. There’s war, poverty, crushing injustice all over—what right do I have to talk back to all that with flimsy little poems about the good? What can I say? The birds are my teachers, my elders, my guides. Every day before dawn, in silence and darkness, I’m at my desk making poems on the page. And then, before light, I hear the first bird outside begin to sing.”

—Kim Stafford

Love Returned
By Bayard Taylor

He was a boy when first we met;
  His eyes were mixed of dew and fire,
And on his candid brow was set
  The sweetness of a chaste desire:
But in his veins the pulses beat
  Of passion, waiting for its wing,
As ardent veins of summer heat
  Throb through the innocence of spring.

As manhood came, his stature grew,
  And fiercer burned his restless eyes,
Until I trembled, as he drew
  From wedded hearts their young disguise.
Like wind-fed flame his ardor rose,
  And brought, like flame, a stormy rain:
In tumult, sweeter than repose,
  He tossed the souls of joy and pain.

So many years of absence change!
  I knew him not when he returned:
His step was slow, his brow was strange,
  His quiet eye no longer burned.
When at my heart I heard his knock,
  No voice within his right confessed:
I could not venture to unlock
  Its chambers to an alien guest.

Then, at the threshold, spent and worn
  With fruitless travel, down he lay:
And I beheld the gleams of morn
  On his reviving beauty play.
I knelt, and kissed his holy lips,
  I washed his feet with pious care;
And from my life the long eclipse
  Drew off; and left his sunshine there.

He burns no more with youthful fire;
  He melts no more in foolish tears;
Serene and sweet, his eyes inspire
  The steady faith of balanced years.
His folded wings no longer thrill,
  But in some peaceful flight of prayer:
He nestles in my heart so still,
  I scarcely feel his presence there.

O Love, that stern probation o’er,
  Thy calmer blessing is secure!
Thy beauteous feet shall stray no more,
  Thy peace and patience shall endure!
The lightest wind deflowers the rose,
  The rainbow with the sun departs,
But thou art centred in repose,
  And rooted in my heart of hearts!

Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was an American poet, novelist, travel writer, literary critic, diplomat, lecturer, and translator. He was a frustrated poet who, even though he published twenty volumes of poetry, resented the mass appeal of his travel writings, because his desire was to be known as a poet. Even his travel writings have been relegated to the dustbin of literary history, and he is known today solely for his translation of both volumes of Goethe’s Faust.

Bayard was born on the January 11, 1825, in the small town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania into a Quaker family. His parents were reasonably well-off farmers and could afford to give their son a decent education at academies in West Chester and Unionville. Although he entered the printing business as an apprentice, he was a keen writer of poetry and took great inspiration from the influential Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Encouraged by Griswold he published his first volume of poems at the age of 19 and called it Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena and other Poems. It sold badly but was noticed by the editor of the New York Tribune.

He worked as a journalist on the New York Tribune and other publications and this profession turned out to be his gateway to extensive worldwide travel when sent on assignments abroad. He even turned his hand to lyric writing for famous singers and completed a period of diplomatic service in St Petersburg, Russia.

He was lucky that his first commission was a European trip covering Germany, Italy, France, and England. He spent two years happily travelling at a slow pace, sending reports back to the Tribune. He was also engaged by other publications such as The Saturday Evening Post and The United States Gazette. On his return to the States, he was encouraged to publish his first travel book, based on his recent adventures. Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff was published in New York in two separate volumes in 1846. Further assignments followed but this time within the United States and Mexico. Taylor was now comfortably established in both journalism and as an author. He also had some success with a set of lyrics written for a visiting Swedish singer called Jenny Lind which were sung at concerts around the country. Within a few years he was off again on his travels, this time to Egypt and other countries in the Middle East. 

In 1853, Taylor started from England and sailed to India, China, and then Japan. He was back in the States at the end of 1853 and then began a successful lecture tour. Two more years passed before the next overseas trip and this time he chose the countries of Northern Europe such as Sweden. Here he was inspired to write a long poem in narrative form called Lars.

Incredibly he found the time to serve as a diplomat and was appointed chargé d’affaires at the United States embassy in St Petersburg in 1863, accompanied by his second wife Maria. The following year they were back home at Kennett Square and Taylor wrote four novels with limited success. Poetry was his forte.

Taylor confided to Walt Whitman that he found in his own nature “a physical attraction and tender and noble love of man for man.” Taylor’s novel Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania (1870), which depicted men holding hands and kissing, is considered the first American gay novel by modern scholars. It presented a special attachment between two men and discussed the nature and significance of such a relationship, romantic but not sexual. Critics are divided in interpreting Taylor’s novel as a political argument for gay relationships or an idealization of male spirituality. This novel is said to be based on the romantic relationship between poets Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake. In Keith Stern’s Queers in History, it is revealed that the love of Taylor’s life was George Henry Boker, although both men married women. The American banker, diplomat, and poet George Boker wrote to Taylor in 1856 that he had “never loved anything human as I love you. It is a joy and a pride to my heart to know that this feeling is returned.” 

His travelling days were not finished, and he was appointed to another diplomatic post, this time in Berlin. Unfortunately, he died only a few months after arriving in the German capital. Bayard Taylor died in Berlin on the December 19, 1878, at aged 53.

Hatred
By Wisława Szymborska

See how efficient it still is,
how it keeps itself in shape—
our century’s hatred.
How easily it vaults the tallest obstacles.
How rapidly it pounces, tracks us down.

It’s not like other feelings.
At once both older and younger.
It gives birth itself to the reasons
that give it life.
When it sleeps, it’s never eternal rest.
And sleeplessness won’t sap its strength; it feeds it.

One religion or another –
whatever gets it ready, in position.
One fatherland or another –
whatever helps it get a running start.
Justice also works well at the outset
until hate gets its own momentum going.
Hatred. Hatred.
Its face twisted in a grimace
of erotic ecstasy…

Hatred is a master of contrast-
between explosions and dead quiet,
red blood and white snow.
Above all, it never tires
of its leitmotif – the impeccable executioner
towering over its soiled victim.

It’s always ready for new challenges.
If it has to wait awhile, it will.
They say it’s blind. Blind?
It has a sniper’s keen sight
and gazes unflinchingly at the future
as only it can.

It is not an easy thing, to live under a cruel and unjust system of rule. To constantly be on guard, to watch every word you say, to always be afraid, to know that a single mistake could cost you your very life. This is how I felt when I lived in Alabama, especially when I was teaching school. One wrong word, a gesture, the way I walked, and many other things I had to guard against for fear of losing my job because someone found out I was gay. Had they ever found out, I know I would have lost my job within a week, if not within a day. I grew up in rural Alabama where homophobia and racism were very strong. There are areas of Alabama that aren’t as conservative, but much of the state is. It is a state filled with hate and hateful people. However, there are some wonderful and loving people in the state as well.

Wislawa Szymborska was born on July 2, 1923, in Bnin, a small town in Western Poland. Her family moved to Krakow in 1931 where she lived most of her life. She was forced to face a different type of hatred, not once, but twice in her life. Szymborska was unfortunate enough to have lived through both Hitler’s reign of terror and Communist rule. She seems to have been greatly affected by these experiences, as can be seen through her poetry, which frequently deals with such topics as death, loss of self, and war. An excellent example of a poem that tangles with these topics would be “Hatred,” first published in her 1993 book The End and the Beginning.

In “Hatred,” Szymborska looks at the circular nature of hatred, grimly observing that “It gives birth itself to the reasons that give it life.” She then further reinforces this statement by describing these reasons in greater detail, justice and religion and a macabre pleasure-each one guiding the heart toward thoughts of bloodshed and ruin. In the poem, Szymborska writes, “Only hatred has just what it takes.” Only hatred has such a talent for destruction.

This is perhaps, rendered more understandable by the sheer devastation that she describes the fury and hate of war as causing, the endless slaughter and torment. Every word fairly drips with harsh sarcasm as she speaks of the “Magnificent bursting bombs” and “splendid fire-glow.” Perhaps most chilling is the poem’s complete lack of hope for a better future. There are no last minute words of comfort. War remains coldly merciless, for how could it not? It is the tool of hatred, which has “a sniper’s keen sight, and gazes unflinchingly into the future.”

Szymborska studied Polish literature and sociology at Jagellonian University from 1945 until 1948. While attending the university, she became involved in Krakow’s literary scene and first met and was influenced by Czeslaw Milosz. She began work at the literary review magazine Życie Literackie (Literary Life) in 1953, a job she held for nearly thirty years.

While the Polish history from World War II through Stalinism clearly informs her poetry, Szymborska was also a deeply personal poet who explored the large truths that exist in ordinary, everyday things. “Of course, life crosses politics,” Szymborska once said “but my poems are strictly not political. They are more about people and life.”

Well-known in her native Poland, Wisława Szymborska received international recognition when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. In awarding the prize, the Academy praised her “poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.” Collections of her poems that have been translated into English include People on a Bridge (1990), View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems (1995), Miracle Fair (2001), and Monologue of a Dog (2005).

Readers of Szymborska’s poetry have often noted its wit, irony, and deceptive simplicity. Her poetry examines domestic details and occasions, playing these against the backdrop of history. In the poem “The End and the Beginning,” Szymborska writes, “After every war / someone’s got to tidy up.” Wislawa Szymborska died on February 1, 2012, at the age of eighty-eight.

Thank you, Susan, for suggesting this thought-provoking poem.

The Dark Night (XVIII)
By May Sinclair – 1863-1946

Our love is woven
Of a thousand strands—
The cool fragrance of the first lilac
At morning,
The first dew on the grass,
The smell of wild mint in the wood,
The pungent and earthy smell of ground ivy crushed under our feet;
Songs of birds, songs of great poets;
The leaping of the red squirrel in the tree,
The running of the river,
The commotion of stars and clouds in the high winds at night;
And dark stillness.
It is adorned with all the flowers
That stand in our garden;
It holds the night and the day.

Our love is made
Of the South Wind and the West Wind,
And the soft falling of rain;
Of white April evenings;
It is made of trees,
And of the many-coloured fields on the hills;
Of horizons,
Dark sea-blue of the west, thin sky-blue of the east,
With a yellow road between.
The flames of sunset and sunrise
Mingle in the fire of our love.

May Sinclair, born Mary Amelia St. Clair on August 24, 1863, in Rock Ferry, Cheshire, England, was a novelist, short story writer, poet, critic, and suffragist. She was the author of many books, including The Combined Maze (Harper and Brothers, 1913), The Life and Death of Harriett Frean (The Macmillan Company, 1922),and Uncanny Stories (The Macmillan Company, 1923), a collection of ghost stories. She died on November 14, 1946.

At the Spring Dawn
By Angelina Weld Grimké

I watched the dawn come,
Watched the spring dawn come.
And the red sun shouldered his way up
Through the grey, through the blue,
Through the lilac mists.
The quiet of it! The goodness of it!
And one bird awoke, sang, whirred
A blur of moving black against the sun,
Sang again—afar off.
And I stretched my arms to the redness of the sun,
Stretched to my finger tips,
And I laughed.
Ah! It is good to be alive, good to love,
At the dawn,
At the spring dawn.

Angelina Weld Grimké, born in Boston, on February 27, 1880, was a journalist, playwright, and poet from the Harlem Renaissance. Her work was collected in several Harlem Renaissance anthologies, including Negro Poets and Their Poems (The Associated Publishers, 1923) and The New Negro (Atheneum, 1925). She died on June 10, 1958.

Laissez les bons temps roule
By Sterling Warner

For Hurricane Katrina’s Victims

Katrina’s torrent barely touched Vieux Carré.
It endures on high ground where the
Café Du Monte stands like a citadel,
Issues dark roasted Chicory Coffee 24/7,
Dusts powdered sugar on Beignet loving patrons;
No swampland crypt, the French Quarter presents
Pedestrians a sanctuary to suck down safe hurricanes
Chased with “Harry’s Huge Beers.”

Voodoo lovers slap legs together
Like alligator tails in brackish marshes;
Balcony flirts, evening ladies wear delicate masks
Fat Tuesday, last day before Lent’s forty day fast;
Mardi Gras magic exudes from every pore,
Elaborately costumed krewes toss beads off floats,
Give rise to fanciful celebrations of the dead,
Historic carnival steeped in Catholic doctrine.

Haitian halos encircle heads,
Bend minds, create
Sober motley moments among
Tarot card readings, psychic oracles
Jostling Bourbon Street crowds—
Backdrop for parading ramblers,
Mischievous, Puckish vagabonds,
Ragged marching saints.

Shuffling along as
Jazz bands blow Dixieland
Zydeco singers scrape wash boards, and
Street musicians mutter the blues,
Encouraged by two hands clapping,
Living dreams off guitar case offerings:
Copper tokens, silver coins,
Green paper gratitude.

Gris, Gris in my pocket, still
Scaling steps in New Orleans
Looking down Toulouse Street
Finding JAX Brewery gone
Replaced by Planet Hollywood. No
Mississippi miracle could heal Katrina survivors
Cleanse the river, recover such culture—
Foreboding yet enticing Gothic glamour.

Today is Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday. Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday,” reflecting the practice of the last night of eating rich, fatty foods before the ritual Lenten sacrifices and fasting of the Lenten season. Mardi Gras is a tradition that dates back thousands of years to pagan celebrations of spring and fertility, including the raucous Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Lupercalia. When Christianity arrived in Rome, religious leaders decided to incorporate these popular local traditions into the new faith, an easier task than abolishing them altogether. As a result, the excess and debauchery of the Mardi Gras season became a prelude to Lent, the 40 days of fasting and penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.

While not observed nationally throughout the United States, a number of traditionally ethnic French cities and regions in the country have notable celebrations. Mardi Gras arrived in North America as a French Catholic tradition with the Le Moyne brothers, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, in the late 17th century, when King Louis XIV sent the pair to defend France’s claim on the territory of Louisiane, which included what are now the U.S. states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and part of eastern Texas.

The expedition, led by Iberville, entered the mouth of the Mississippi River on the evening of 2 March 1699, Lundi Gras. They did not yet know it was the river explored and claimed for France by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1683. The party proceeded upstream to a place on the east bank about 60 miles (100 km) downriver from where New Orleans is today, and made camp on 3 March 1699, Mardi Gras. In honor of this holiday, Iberville named the spot Point du Mardi Gras and called the nearby tributary Bayou Mardi Gras. Bienville went on to found the settlement of Mobile, Alabama in 1702 as the first capital of French Louisiana. In 1703 French settlers in Mobile established the first organized Mardi Gras celebration tradition in what was to become the United States. The first informal mystic society, or krewe, was formed in Mobile in 1711, the Boeuf Gras Society. By 1720, Biloxi had been made capital of Louisiana. The French Mardi Gras customs had accompanied the colonists who settled there.

In 1723, the capital of Louisiana was moved to New Orleans, founded in 1718. The first Mardi Gras parade held in New Orleans is recorded to have taken place in 1837. The tradition in New Orleans expanded to the point that it became synonymous with the city in popular perception, and embraced by residents of New Orleans beyond those of French or Catholic heritage. Mardi Gras celebrations are part of the basis of the slogan Laissez les bons temps rouler (“Let the good times roll”).

When I lived in southern Mississippi and later while a friend of mine lived in southern Louisiana, I attended a number of Mardi Gras parades. I would never go to the one in New Orleans again. While it was interesting, it was far too crowded for my taste. People were crammed in everywhere shoulder to shoulder. It was enough to induce a panic attack in anyone who dared to be sober. I’ve also attended Mardi Gras parades in Thibidoux, Houma and La Rose, Louisiana. When I lived in Mississippi, I used to love to watch the parades in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi on WLOX, the ABC station in Biloxi.

Ironically, I have never attended the parade in Mobile. When I was growing up in Alabama, the parade in Mobile was considered crime ridden and dangerous. Only the most adventurous who threw caution to the wind in order to catch a few plastic beads and Moon Pies ventured to Mobile for Mardi Gras. New Orleans wasn’t much better. The parades of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in Southern Louisiana were much more pleasant, and often safer, alternatives.

I also chose this poem, because I lived through Hurricane Katrina. While it devastated parts of New Orleans, southern Mississippi lay in ruins afterward. Complete sections of Gulfport and Biloxi were leveled, and the towns of Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Mississippi were nearly completely destroyed and they were largely cut off from the world due the collapse of the major bridge in and out of the towns. Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, and it has never been the same since. Mardi Gras continues and is a festive occasion, but so much was lost because of Hurricane Katrina and so many people moved away from the Gulf Coast, that it has taken many years for those areas to recover.

Sterling Warner is a retired English Professor and author of fiction, non- fiction, and poetry. He received the Jim Herndon Award in 2013 and was a Pushcart Award nominee in 2014. He received a Hayward Award in 2000 and was named the Atherton Poet Laureate in 2014. Warner formerly taught a wide variety of Composition, Literature, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric courses in the English Department at Evergreen Valley College, where he served as the Creative Writing Program Director, EVC Author’s Series Organizer, and Chief Editor of the literary magazine Leaf by Leaf. Enjoying his Washington retirement, Warner continues to write and regularly hosts the Union of Writers Open Mike.