YEARS FROM NOW

by Shel Silverstein

"Too far away to see your face
As you flip through these poems a while,
Somewhere from some far off place,
I hear you laughing–and I smile."

The Five Spot, 1964

By Billy Collins

There’s always a lesson to be learned,
whether in a hotel bar
or over tea in a teahouse,
no matter which way it goes,
for you or against,
what you want to hear or what you don’t.

Seeing Roland Kirk, for example,
with two then three saxophones
in his mouth at once
and a kazoo, no less,
hanging from his neck at the ready.

Even in my youth I saw
this not as a lesson in keeping busy
with one thing or another,
but as a joyous impossible lesson
in how to do it all at once,

pleasing and displeasing yourself
with harmony here and discord there.
But what else did I know
as the waitress lit the candle
on my round table in the dark?
What did I know about anything?

עכשיו קרוב - עידן רייכל

יושבים בחוף אל מול המים
מול קצף שנשכח בחול
והנחלים זורמים עדיין
לב שפועם זוכר הכול

מה שהיה בילדותנו
מה שהפכנו להיות
תקוות גדולות נשאה הרוח
חזרה שלכת זיכרונות

וכל דבר אז בי נוגע
כל נפלאות היום
אז בואי ועמדי לרגע
עכשיו קרוב, עכשיו קרוב

כוכב נופל קרוב אלינו
ושוב אליו נושאים תפילות
אור של תקוות עוטף אותנו
זה לתמיד ולא יחלוף

I stand here by the Western Wall,
Baby, look at that wall, standing silent and tall.
And I shove my prayers in the cracks.
Got nothing to lose, no-one to answer back.
All these years I've brought up for review,
Wasn't taught this but I learned something new.
Had to answer a distant call,
At the Western Wall.

And I've got a heart full of fear,
And I offer it up on this altar of tears.
Red dust settles deep in my skin.
Don't know where it starts or where I begin.
It's a crumblin' pile of broken stones;
It ain't much but it might be home.
If I ever loved a place at all,
It's the Western Wall.

I don't know if God was ever a man,
But if She was, I think I understand.
Why he found a place to break his fall,
Near the Western Wall.

- Roseanne Cash

A spider lives inside my head
Who weaves a strange and wondrous web
Of silken threads and silver strings
To catch all sorts of flying things,
Like crumbs of thought and bits of smiles
And specks of dried-up tears,
And dust of dreams that catch and cling
For years and years and years .

- Shel Silverstein (published posthumously)

True Love

By Wislawa Szymborska

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way - in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake?
Listen to them laughing - its an insult.
The language they use - deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines -
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!

It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.