Number 209: Genevieve Taggard " The Geraniums"

The Geraniums

Even if the geraniums are artificial
Just the same,
In the rear of the Italian cafe
Under the nimbus of electric light
They are red; no less red
For how they were made. Above
The mirror and the napkins
In the little white pots ...
... In the semi-clean cafe
Where they have good
Lasagne ... The red is a wonderful joy
Really, and so are the people
Who like and ignore it. In this place
They also have good bread.

-- Genevieve Taggard

Hap Notes: Genevieve Taggard (1894-1948) is another of the criminally under-read poets of a a bygone era. I refer you to the fact that Taggard died in 1948 and this poem sounds refreshingly contemporary doesn't it? Not all of Taggard's poetry reads quite this easily but it all has startling visions of the world. She is a treasure and it's very sad her reputation is so threadbare. Taggard is still often included in anthologies although, less and less as the years go by. I'm sort of shocked by this although I don't know why I should be; women poets are often ignored if they are not twice as smart and twice as popular as male poets. (I said "often" not always.)

Taggard was born in Washington state but her parents, James and Alta (he was a school principle, she was a teacher), moved to Hawaii as missionaries for the Disciples of Christ (now known as the Christian Church.) Taggard tells of a time when her parents had saved up enough money for them to both attend college and James' brother needed money to buy an apple farm. James' brotherly love outweighed his ambition and the money was given to his brother. The Taggards lived close to poverty their whole lives. Genevieve went to UC Berkeley on a borrowed $200 and then went to New York to pursue her own destiny. Taggard remarked that her mother kept a book of Edgar Guest's poetry on a table in their house as a silent protest of Genvieve's chosen profession. (Edgar Guest was a prolific and somewhat syrupy poet firmly rooted in "traditional" values. I believe that's the nicest thing we can say about him.)

Taggard was a socialist who believed in the working man, fair pay, equality for all races and kindness towards all-- of course she was looked on (as many would today) as a radical. It was especially radical in the early 1900s.

She commented, “In the little church my parents attended in Honolulu I was impressed with the text, "I am come that ye might have life and have it more abundantly.’ When we sat listening I had only to move my eyes from the minister to see outside the flowering vines and colored trees of abundance. Nevertheless, or perhaps because we lived a rich sensuous life, the text became my own. I have never ceased to think that the text, taken literally, should be the aim of all governments. I scoff at those who tell me solemnly that government must be something else."

Notice how despite their poverty she describes their life as "rich" and "sensuous." She understood the difference between the poverty of the soul and the lack of wealth.

She taught at Mount Holyoke College and Bennington but the greater portion of her teaching career was at Sarah Lawrence. She also founded a magazine, The Measure, with her friend Maxwell Anderson (who wrote plays you will know from the movies made from them, "The Bad Seed," "Anne of the Thousand Days" and "Key Largo.") She wrote a great deal for socialist magazines and was devoted to equality for all and freedom. She was a very early proponent of Black Blues and Jazz and a devoted fan of Langston Hughes' poetry and Leadbelly's blues. In fact Taggard often tried to emulate the Blues in some of her poetry and often wished she was a musician.

Much of her life has to be taken in the context of the Great Depression and the sadness therein. So many Americans were suffering from joblessness, women were mostly homemakers, Blacks were thought "inferior" etc. etc. She railed against this and her poetry often has the tang of a progressive trying to paint a picture to make a point. Often Taggard donated any royalties from her books to the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) health care fund.

In today's poem, do not be fooled by the simplicity of the statements. She is giving us a photograph and an impression, for a brief instant of a moment in a restaurant but it is more than this. The moment feeds her, and us with colors, candles, lasagne, light, geraniums and bread. This is not a short review of a good restaurant; this is a statement of warmth from a rich moment of life. It's a form of communion.

We will do more Taggard this year.

All of Taggard's books were out of print. There is one available now from Ahsahta Press, To The Natural World. If you are interested in it you can find it here: ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/taggard.htm

Here's a good Taggard quote (a preface from one of her books):
"The reader will misunderstand my poems if he thinks I have been trying to write about myself (as if I were in any way unique) as a biographer might – or as a romantic poet would, to map his own individuality. Since the earliest attempts at verse I have tried to use the 'I' in a poem only as a means for transferring feeling to identification with anyone who takes the poem, momentarily, for his own. 'I' is then adjusted to the voice of the reader.

You can find more Taggard here: www.poemhunter.com/genevieve-taggard/poems/

The picture on the masthead today is one of my favorite places –Lagomarcino's in downtown Moline, IL. The store started as a confectionery (Candy!!!) in 1908 but also serves ice cream and food. The booths and mirrors are still the same as they were in the 1920s. It's an awesome place (and still there, thank God) and reminded me a bit of the poem.

Number 208: Kenneth Fearing "Q & A"

Q & A

Where analgesia may be found to ease the infinite, minute scars of the day;
What final interlude will result, picked bit by bit from the morning's hurry, the lunch-hour boredom, the fevers of the night;
Why this one is cherished by the gods, and that one not;
How to win, and win again, and again, staking wit alone against a sea of time;
Which man to trust and, once found, how far—

Will not be found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John,
Nor Blackstone, nor Gray's, nor Dun & Bradstreet, nor Freud, nor Marx,
Nor the sage of the evening news, nor the corner astrologist, nor in any poet,

Nor what sort of laughter should greet the paid pronouncements of the great,
Nor what pleasure the multitudes have, bringing lunch and the children to watch the condemned to be plunged into death,

Nor why the sun should rise tomorrow,
Nor how the moon still weaves upon the ground, through the leaves, so much silence and so much peace.

-- Kenneth Fearing

Hap Notes: As you can probably determine from this blog, I am a fan of those who are often called the "lesser" or "minor" poets of the 20th century and I suppose Fearing must be numbered among them, although I think it's a darn shame. Fearing's quick cuts, hip jangly industrial-age jargon, hard-boiled realism and love of mysterious beauty are particularly prescient of contemporary poetry. He isn't always great but when he is, he hits you right between the eyes. Seems to me, that's worth something.

In today's poem he asks us vital questions about ourselves, our era, our neighbors, our lives. He gives us no answer but images from which to draw your own conclusions. The poem is particularly apt in light of how we sensationalize crime and murder on the news, watching endless repetitive, often lurid, commentary on the television as we eat our lunch or dinner in front of the set with our children.

In the second line of the second stanza, I believe he is referring to Blackstone's commentary on English law, Gray's Anatomy (the textbook on human anatomy now in its 40th edition), and Dun and Bradstreet is a company that provides subscribers with information on businesses and corporations. So he is saying in the first line that the Bible (spirituality) will provide no answer, neither will law, science, business, psychology (Freud) or politics (Marx.) He even tells us the media, literature and the occult will not provide answers. So what will "ease the infinite, minute scars of the day"?

What do you think the answer is?

Here's where we have talked about Fearing before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-118-kenneth-fearing-green-light.html

Number 207: Vachel Lindsay "The Mouse That Gnawed The Oak-Tree Down"

The Mouse That Gnawed The Oak-Tree Down

The mouse that gnawed the oak-tree down
Began his task in early life.
He kept so busy with his teeth
He had no time to take a wife.

He gnawed and gnawed through sun and rain
When the ambitious fit was on,
Then rested in the sawdust till
A month of idleness had gone.

He did not move about to hunt
The coteries of mousie-men.
He was a snail-paced, stupid thing
Until he cared to gnaw again.

The mouse that gnawed the oak-tree down,
When that tough foe was at his feet—
Found in the stump no angel-cake
Nor buttered bread, nor cheese, nor meat—
The forest-roof let in the sky.
“This light is worth the work,” said he.
“I’ll make this ancient swamp more light,”
And started on another tree.

--Vachel Lindsay

Hap Notes: This is a brilliant little poem. It brings up some startling questions that can certainly apply to our lives.

Is it worth it for the mouse to gnaw down that tree? Is he doing something valuable by letting the light into that "ancient swamp"? Did he waste his life destroying something that should have been left intact? That oak tree was probably home to dozens of creatures- is it okay that they are displaced?

The mouse takes on a monumental task. He seeks out no friends, he has no wife but at the end of his task there is more light in the forest. Who is he making the light for and why? Remember that this is the only reward for this gargantuan task-- there's no cheese or cake as a reward. Is light a good enough reward? It obviously was for the mouse, yes?

So is this the tale of a mouse who takes on the task of progress for the sake of progress or is he a mouse with vision who sees that the light will change the swamp for the better and lets go of his mousie needs to make sure that it gets done and if it evicts a few creatures, well, that's just the way it goes? Why is he a "snail-paced stupid thing" when he is not working on the tree?

Is this the tale of the artist, who gives up his life for his art- who is lost and stupid without it? Or is it the tale of a progressive who works for betterment? Or is it the tale of an obsessive who feels his need to gnaw is more important than any thing or anyone (remember the displaced creatures in the tree)?

What if all mice did this? How much light is enough? And of course, if they all took no wives there would be no mice for a later generation. And even if the mice slept around without marrying, there would be a huge population of young mice who'd never see or know who their father was and learn how to become a regular mouse. Just sayin'. Those mouse coteries would be more like street gang kids in the next generation (just an aside, maybe we should call street gangs "coteries"- it sounds so much more interesting than a "gang.")

Is it selfish for the mouse to do this? Why or why not? I'm just asking.

Do you think I'm reading too much into the poem? What is too much? How do you judge this? Maybe this is my oak tree. Maybe not.

There's a lot to gnaw on in this charming poem.

Here's where we've talked about Lindsay before:

happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/05/number-161-vachel-lindsay-factory.html

happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/number-192-vachel-lindsay.html

Number 206: Robert Frost "Fire And Ice"

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

Hap Notes: It may be an odd choice for the Fourth of July but I honestly could not decide whether to go with Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie" or Jeffers' "Shine Perishing Republic" or Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" or Sandberg's "The People, Yes" or Langston Hughes' "I, Too, Sing America" and on and on....all have their merits. I even had a brief thought of using a speech by Tecumseh: "Sell a country?! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" So, instead I give you this poem by Frost because it's so very pertinent for any culture at any time.

Happy Fourth of July! The world's going to hell in a hand basket, as my dad used to say. (Sometimes he said "hatbox" which I always thought was charming and pretty. Sometimes he said "rowboat" and sometimes he said "on a bicycle." My dad had a touch of weird poetry in him.)

Again, do not take Frost's cleverness and seeming glibness at face value. He's saying something very dark here about greed and calculated indifference. He's also saying something very dark about the way desire and hatred can destroy your inner world as well as the physical world in which we live.

Hate is ice because it is cold, mean and as it ages, becomes premeditated and rationalized. Desire's flames start to consume and burn up all rational thinking-- we make rash decisions in the heat of the moment. So Frost isn't talking just about wanting and then rejecting love here, although you can certainly look at it that way if you've a mind to. Seems to me that the love and hatred one feels for another human is really all fire. The ice Frost is talking about is something far crueler and more despicable.

Remember that in Dante's Inferno, Satan, in the center of hell, is stuck in ice. Both fire and ice are featured in Dante's hell. The road to perdition and eternal damnation is through desire and hate. Frost was most certainly familiar with Dante. (I love reading Dante's Divine Comedy but I have to admit it's the "Inferno" that always takes the imagination most grippingly. Although, Dante admits in the Paradiso that his description of heaven is all that human eyes are actually allowed to see whereas hell he gets to see in all its vileness, i.e. fire and ice.)

It is slightly amusing that the author of "Fire and Ice" is named Frost, too, eh? I never think of him as paying this much mind as he wrote the poem, though. (One hardly ever thinks of their name as a word, even when it is one. How many times do you think of a guy making horseshoes when you hear the name "Smith" or how many times do you think of cupcakes and bread when you hear the name "Baker"? Just a thought.)

Here is where we have talked about Frost before:

happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/03/number-95-robert-frost-spring-pools.html

happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/03/number-90-robert-frost-fragmentary-blue.html

happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/number-128-robert-frost-silken-tent.html

happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/05/number-144-robert-frost-maple.html

Number 205: Joy Harjo "She Had Some Horses"

She Had Some Horses

She had some horses.
She had horses who were bodies of sand.

She had horses who were maps drawn of blood. 

She had horses who were skins of ocean water. 

She had horses who were the blue air of sky.

She had horses who were fur and teeth.

She had horses who were clay and would break. 

She had horses who were splintered red cliff.

She had some horses.

She had horses with long, pointed breasts.

She had horses with full, brown thighs. 

She had horses who laughed too much. 

She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses. 

She had horses who licked razor blades.

She had some horses.

She had horses who danced in their mothers' arms. 

She had horses who thought they were the sun and their bodies shone and burned like stars.

She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon.

She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet in stalls of their own making.

She had some horses.

She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.

She had horses who cried in their beer.

She had horses who spit at male queens who made them afraid of themselves.

She had horses who said they weren't afraid.

She had horses who lied. 

She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped bare of their tongues.

She had some horses.

She had horses who called themselves, "horse." 

She had horses who called themselves, "spirit." and kept their voices secret and to themselves.

She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names.

She had some horses.

She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak.

She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts.

She had horses who waited for destruction.

She had horses who waited for resurrection.

She had some horses.

She had horses who got down on their knees for any savior.

She had horses who thought their high price had saved them.

She had horses who tried to save her, who climbed in her bed at night and prayed as they raped her.

She had some horses.

She had some horses she loved.

She had some horses she hated.

These were the same horses.

-- Joy Harjo

Hap Notes: This is probably one of Joy Harjo's (born 1951) most anthologized poems. You know, I saw her read her poetry somewhere and for the longest time I thought I had dreamed her up and this poem. I can't recall where I saw her but I remember what she was wearing and how she sounded and the podium and the lights. I remembered this poem. For several years I thought I had dreamed it up by myself. Harjo's work is often like that; it's familiar, yet dreamlike; a chanting, mythic and enchanting. (I also thought I had dreamed the David Lynch film "Eraserhead" after I saw it in a theater. I have odd dreams, obviously.)

There's a good reason to think this poem has a dreamlike, or at least, day-dreamy, quality. It's a litany of what a person is, what other people are, what the various threads are that make up the tapestry of our lives. When you think on who and what you are, lists like this can arise, although perhaps not as eloquently as Harjo's is here.

Her Native American roots are deeply planted in this poem. The poem begs to be read aloud, as most of her poems do, and they have that in common with Homer and the earliest poets and the great oral traditions of storytelling with Native American tribes. There's a rhythm in her work, like the lapping of water on the shore of some dream river. Her poetry is often an expression of compassion and joy.

Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her heritage is Muskogee Creek and I've always wondered if she was any relation to Chitto Harjo, a noted Muskogee representative who worked for the autonomous government of the tribe in the late 1800s. She went to the University of New Mexico and received her Masters degree from the University of Iowa's writers workshop program. She has taught at Arizona State, the University of Colorado, University of Arizona and the University of New Mexico. She's won many awards and has received National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships. She also had a band she performed with called Poetic Justice and she plays the saxophone (she learned it at age 40) and still performs a blend of poetry and music in her readings.

Here's a good Joy Harjo quote: "I am driven to explore the depths of creation and the depths of meaning. Being native, female, a global citizen in these times is the root, even the palette. I mean, look at the context: human spirit versus the spirits of the earth, sky, and universe. We are part of a much larger force of sense and knowledge. Western society is human-centric. We're paying the price of foolish arrogance, of forgetfulness."

and another

“I agree with Gide that most of what is created is beyond us, is from that source of utter creation, the Creator, or God. We are technicians here on Earth, but also co-creators. I’m still amazed."

and one more:

"The artists: the poets, musicians, painters, dancers make art from truth. Art that forges new paths, new insight, inspiration comes from the raw stuff floating in the connections between humans, animals, plants, stars, all life. Poets are the talk-singers, we find our art in the space between the words. There is where the truth lies."

Every time I read this poem I think of Franz Marc's horse paintings; "The Blue Horses," "The Yellow Horses," "The Red Horses," so that's what is on the masthead today.

Here's Harjo reading the poem aloud: http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/harjo_reads_she_had_some_horses/

Here's her website: /www.joyharjo.com/Home.html

Number 204: Amy Lowell "Fireworks"

Fireworks

You hate me and I hate you
And we are so polite, we two!

But whenever I see you, I burst apart
And scatter the sky with my blazing heart.
It spits and sparkles in stars and balls,
Buds into roses – and flares, and falls.

Scarlet buttons, and pale green disks,
Silver spirals and asterisks,
Shoot and tremble in a mist
Peppered with mauve and amethyst.

I shine in the windows and light up the trees,
And all because I hate you, if you please.

And when you meet me, you rend asunder
And go up in a flaming wonder
Of saffron cubes, and crimson moons,
And wheels all amaranths and maroons.

Golden lozenges and spades
Arrows of malachites and jades,
Patens of copper, azure sheaves.
As you mount, you flash in the glossy leaves.

Such fireworks as we make, we two!
Because you hate me and I hate you.

-- Amy Lowell

Hap Notes: This seemed an appropriate poem for the upcoming holiday but I suppose it's really just because I live in an area suffering with drought right now so all the traditional fireworks for the Fourth of July have been canceled or postponed.

In the poem, Lowell's relationship with someone creates a lot of flashing and flaming and spitting and bursting. Her anger is big and gorgeous and intense. I'm reminded of Buddha's advice: "Beware of anger with its honeyed crest and poison root." There is something somewhat addictive about anger and its full expression, isn't there? It's hard to come down from its adrenaline. And how often is anger mixed with a certain amount of desire or attraction?

A "paten" is a charger, a plate, usually silver or gold. Amaranth is a flower- pictured above.

Lowell's descriptions of fireworks are some of the best I've ever read. One can almost see the display, the reflections of it in the windows of houses and the shine on the leaves of the trees. And of course it is the politeness the poet mentions in the first lines that make this anger so pent and explosive. Her anger is intense, eh?

Here's a Saturday treat- the fireworks competition in Malaysia in 2007. It's amazing:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbvzMESWhMg&playnext=1&list=PLDAFE01148AABE1F7
and part two:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=whLPK3mKazg

The delightful PES' take on fireworks with CANDY!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bmpFCwZbwM

and his fabulous spaghetti:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBjLW5_dGAM

No day would be complete without a visit from annoying orange (well, of course it would, it's just a segue):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN5PoW7_kdA&feature=fvwrel


Here's where we've talked about Lowell before (she was our first poet of the series!):
happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-1-amy-lowell-falling-snow.html

Number 203: Delmore Schwartz "Tired And Unhappy, You Think Of Houses"

Tired And Unhappy, You Think Of Houses

Tired and unhappy, you think of houses
Soft-carpeted and warm in the December evening,
While snow’s white pieces fall past the window,
And the orange firelight leaps.
A young girl sings
That song of Gluck where Orpheus pleads with Death;
Her elders watch, nodding their happiness
To see time fresh again in her self-conscious eyes:
The servants bring in the coffee, the children go to bed,
Elder and younger yawn and go to bed,
The coals fade and glow, rose and ashen,
It is time to shake yourself! and break this
Banal dream, and turn your head
Where the underground is charged, where the weight
Of the lean building is seen,
Where close in the subway rush, anonymous
In the audience, well-dressed or mean,
So many surround you, ringing your fate,
Caught in an anger exact as a machine!

--Delmore Schwartz

Hap Notes: Well we've been talking around him and about him and now we get to him. Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966) as we have seen from our previous three poems, had an enormous influence on most everyone who met him. Saul Bellow based his Pulitzer Prize winning Humbolt's Gift on his relationship with Schwartz. Singer-songwriter Lou Reed studied under Schwartz at Syracuse University and has written various tribute songs to him. He was a larger than life talent but life doesn't like you to be too much larger than it is and it can quickly diminish your size. So it was with the extraordinary gifts of Schwartz.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, his parents were ill-suited to each other and fought constantly, often in public, until they divorced when Schwartz was nine. His experience of his parent's relationship is reflected in the short story that catapulted him to fame, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities (the story retains its brilliance and is well worth your reading.) Schwartz went to the University of Wisconsin and Columbia before getting his degree at New York University. He then went to Harvard and did graduate work studying philosophy with Alfred North Whitehead, which is kind of a "wow."

After that famous short story was published, the critical acclaim for it was overwhelming. He was hired as a lecturer at Harvard and edited The Partisan Review and The New Republic. He was hailed as a new Stendahl or Chekov as a writer and as a new voice to compare with Pound and Eliot in his verse. He was brilliant and it was well-deserved but this kind of thing is bound to go to a person's head and also be the source of a great deal of pressure to constantly perform with brilliance. His philosophy background gave his work remarkable depth and yet Schwartz often argued that poetry should be understandable and not too willfully obscure. Of course, what Schwartz found understandable and what an average reader found understandable are two very different things and the rift is made more so with the passing years and what passes for education these days (when did education become a place for vocational training and not a place for learning how to think? Okay, I'll put away the soapbox.)

Part of Schwartz's failure to keep up with his brilliant start was due to mental illness, part of it to alcoholism (which often is how people with mental illness try to cure themselves or, at least, make them feel better. This, however, rarely works and it certainly did not with Schwartz.)

Towards the end of his life Schwartz "held court" at the White Horse Tavern in New York City where he would regale his listeners with passages read aloud from Finnegan's Wake. He was a great fan of James Joyce. He isolated himself in seedy hotels, wrote a little, drank much and he died of a heart attack in an elevator in the Columbia Hotel. I believe I've mentioned before that he was so isolated that it took a couple of days for his body to be claimed at the morgue.

The critic Alfred Kazin wrote for the New Republic with Schwartz and recalled his animated face, his early brilliance, his anguish, his belief in the works of culture- of philosophers and poets. He was both introspective and effuse. He was a bright flame who turned inevitably into a dying ember. He was ever a brilliant conversationalist but became bitter and as Koch says, "rueful." Kazin said that when one visited him later in his life, "You could not leave him without hating yourself."

In today's poem we see Schwartz contrasting the old world culture with the modern world. The poet envisions a time that was at once somewhat cultured and yet he realizes his vision of it is a bit trite. There is youth in the room and satisfaction. He contrasts this with the contemporary world. It's a vivid dream. There is much more to the poem than this. Think, also, of what the poet is saying about the world in relationship to himself. What kind of person thinks of houses like this one? You remember we talked about Orpheus, yes? We will talk about Schwartz more this year, I'm sure.

I could not find the Gluck aria he mentions but I'm almost sure he means this one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCLFGRY5EeQ
The old record is particularly effective for conveying the mood of the poem.
But of course, here's the great Maria Callas doing the same piece: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF5FhF_t5i4&feature=related
which I add just because Callas is a favorite of mine. She always brings tears to my eyes.

Here's a good Schwartz quote: "There is no genuine place for the poet in modern life."

You can find more Schwartz here: www.poemhunter.com/delmore-schwartz/

As an added treat, here is his translation of "Archaic Torso of Apollo" by Rilke which we talked about last week. He calls it

Archaic Bust of Apollo

(After Rilke)

We cannot know the indescribable face
Where the eyes like apples ripened. Even so,
His torso has a candelabra's glow,
His gaze, contained as in a mirror's grace,

Shines within it. Otherwise his breast
Would not be dazzling. Nor would you recognize
The smile that moves along his curving thighs,
There where love's strength is caught within its nest.

This stone would not be broken, but intact
Beneath the shoulders' flowing cataract,
Nor would it glisten like a stallion's hide,

Brimming with radiance from every side
As a star sparkles. Now it is dawn once more.
All places scrutinize you. You must be reborn.

-- Ranier Maria Rilke (translated by Delmore Schwartz)