getting into bed on a December night by Ellen Bass
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Ellen Bass, “The Thing Is”
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Ellen Bass, from "Guilt", Mules of Love
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Relax
by Ellen Bass
Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat--
the one you never really liked--will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up--drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice--one white, one black--scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.
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Indigo, Ellen Bass
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The Thing Is - Ellen Bass / The Unpublished Poems of E.E. Cummings / Birthday - Andrea Gibson
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ellen bass poetry of presence: an anthology of mindfulness poems: "the thing is" \\ marya hornbacher waiting (via @weltenwellen) \\ tory dent collected poems: "us"
kofi
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oh, to be in love with life. oh, to be in love with love.
[angels in america, tony kushner || rainer maria rilke || jojo rabbit, dir. taika waititi || the thing is, ellen bass || joseph campbell || enough, ellen bass || andrew garfield || agatha christie || fleabag, phoebe waller-bridge || the deepest sighs, the frankest of shadows, gang of youths || the heart is a muscle, gang of youths || andrea gibson]
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any common desolation by Ellen Bass
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Ellen Bass, from "God and the G-Spot", Mules of Love
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dead butterfly by ellen bass
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For My Daughter on Her Twenty-First Birthday
by Ellen Bass
When they laid you in the crook
of my arms like a bouquet and I looked
into your eyes, dark bits of evening sky,
I thought, of course this is you,
like a person who has never seen the sea
can recognize it instantly.
They pulled you from me like a cork
and all the love flowed out. I adored you
with the squandering passion of spring
that shoots green from every pore.
You dug me out like a well. You lit
the deadwood of my heart. You pinned me
to the earth with the points of stars.
I was sure that kind of love would be
enough. I thought I was your mother.
How could I have known that over and over
you would crack the sky like lightning,
illuminating all my fears, my weaknesses, my sins.
Massive the burden this flesh
must learn to bear, like mules of love.
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Indigo, Ellen Bass
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