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Simple Gifts

ANONYMOUS (SHAKER HYMN)

’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,

’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,

To turn, turn will be our delight

’Till by turning, turning we come round right.

24th September 1945

NAZIM HIKMET

The best sea: has yet to be crossed.

The best child: has yet to be born.

The best days: have yet to be lived;

and the best word that I wanted to say to you

is the word that I have not yet said.

The Journey

MARY OLIVER

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice—

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations—

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do—

determined to save

the only life that you could save.

Ithaka

CONSTANTINE P. CAVAFY

As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.

May there be many a summer morning when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you come into harbors seen for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you are old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

The Colder the Air

ELIZABETH BISHOP

We must admire her perfect aim,

this huntress of the winter air

whose level weapon needs no sight,

if it were not that everywhere

her game is sure, her shot is right.

The least of us could do the same.

The chalky birds or boats stand still,

reducing her conditions of chance;

air’s gallery marks identically

the narrow gallery of her glance.

The target-center in her eye

is equally her aim and will.

Time’s in her pocket, ticking loud

on one stalled second. She’ll consult

not time nor circumstance. She calls

on atmosphere for her result.

(It is this clock that later falls

in wheels and chimes of leaf and cloud.)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I WOULD ESPECIALLY LIKE TO THANK Carrie Bell, Jordan Tamagni, and Bob Hughes for sending me the poems that started this book. All the other poems could not have been found without the help of the amazing Lauren Lipani. I am also grateful to my devoted friend and agent, Esther Newberg, and my editor,