two poems for a wintry January day

These roses were from my garden last year, just a reminder of what will come this summer. Here are two lovely poems for you:

TWENTY BLESSINGS by Thomas A. Clark

May the best hour of the day be yours.
May luck go with you from hill to sea.
May you stand against the prevailing wind.
May no forest intimidate you.
May you look out from your own eyes.
May near and far attend you.
May you bathe your face in the sun’s rays.
May you have milk, cream, substance.
May your actions be effective.
May your thoughts be affective.
May you will both the wild and the mild.
May you sing the lark from the sky.
May you place yourself in circumstance.
May you be surrounded by goldfinches.
May you pause among alders.
May your desire be infinite.
May what you touch be touched.
May the company be less for your leaving.
May you walk alone beneath the stars.
May your embers still glow in the morning.

Knitting by Eireann Lorsung

When are you coming back to stand in front of the window?
(I heard you whistling last night. Cars pass me by all day,

waves circling the enormous globe.)
So much is left out, I'm knitting a pattern without

stitches, without needles, only long fingerbones
to carry yarn. There was something buried

the night I left Eau Claire for good, and I never knew
how it would grow. Now your childhood friends

are my students, I walk past houses you lived in
without my knowledge and your scent trails

from abondoned bakeries. Whole warehouses
have been invented to catalogue want like this.

I go on knitting night and day because I don't know
any other thing. All unknits by darkness

into twine birds use piece by piece. What secret
name can I call you? What adventure are you on tonight?

There is forgetting in the density of raw new wool,
yarn shop one block from your apartment,

the cheap scarf - you don't value things
because you never make them. Moon over the whitening world

sharpens spindle, windowframe. The sash
is pulled, seam is set: without material, there is no map.

Eireann Lorsung was born in Minnesota but now lives in England. She has published a book of poems titled "Music to Land Planes By". There are more poems here.

Thomas A. Clark's poem is on Elspeth Thompson's wonderful blog (she is converting two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-friendly home). And again on Justine Picardie's lovely blog. But I can find no other information about him other than he is Scottish.

-Kathy