Four Poems In One

We know little

We can tell less

But one thing I know

One thing I can tell

I will see you again in Jerusalem

Which is of such beauty

No matter what country you come from

You will be more at home there

Than ever with father or mother

Than even with lover or friend

And once we’re within her borders

Death will hunt us in vain.

by Anne Porter, from An Altogether Different Language, 1994

Let Evening Come

Let Evening Come

BY JANE KENYON

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving  

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing  

as a woman takes up her needles  

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned  

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.  

Let the wind die down. Let the shed  

go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop  

in the oats, to air in the lung  

let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t  

be afraid. God does not leave us  

comfortless, so let evening come.

Jane Kenyon, “Let Evening Come” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: Let Evening Come: Poems (Graywolf Press, 1990)

The Portrait, Stanley Kunitz, 1905 - 2006

My mother never forgave my father

for killing himself,

especially at such an awkward time

and in a public park,

that spring

when I was waiting to be born.

She locked his name

in her deepest cabinet

and would not let him out,

though I could hear him thumping.

When I came down from the attic

with the pastel portrait in my hand

of a long-lipped stranger

with a brave moustache

and deep brown level eyes,

she ripped it into shreds

without a single word

and slapped me hard.

In my sixty-fourth year

I can feel my cheek

still burning

Born on July 29, 1905, Stanley Kunitz was the author of many poetry collections, as well as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Selected Poems, 1928-1958

Departures by Linda Pastan, 1985

They seemed to all take off

at once: Aunt Grace

whose kidneys closed shop;

Cousin Rose who fed sugar

to diabetes;

my grandmother's friend

who postponed going so long

we thought she'd stay.

It was like the summer years ago

when they all set out on trains

and ships, wearing hats with veils

and the proper gloves,

because everybody was going

someplace that year,

and they didn't want

to be left behind.