.
Warplanes resume striking Syria’s eastern Ghouta region after a Russian call for a five-hour truce fails to halt one of the most devastating campaigns of the Syrian war: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 February 2018
Warplanes resume striking Syria’s eastern Ghouta region after a Russian call for a five-hour truce fails to halt one of the most devastating campaigns of the Syrian war: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 February 2018
Among the teapot aggregates a man lost his family.: image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 27 February 2018
#Al-Marwahi helicopters continued shelling of civilians and more than 75 martyrs and hundreds wounded on the Day of Resurrection #EastGhouta doomsday #Al-Ghouta #Al-Sharqiya #Always: image via Maamuon Abo Loae @MaamuonLoae, 20 February 2018
#Al-Marwahi helicopters continued shelling of civilians and more than 75 martyrs and hundreds wounded on the Day of Resurrection #EastGhouta doomsday #Al-Ghouta #Al-Sharqiya #Always: image via Maamuon Abo Loae @MaamuonLoae, 20 February 2018
#Al-Marwahi helicopters continued shelling of civilians and more than 75 martyrs and hundreds wounded on the Day of Resurrection #EastGhouta doomsday #Al-Ghouta #Al-Sharqiya #Always: image via Maamuon Abo Loae @MaamuonLoae, 20 February 2018
At the gun range with teens practicing clay target shooting in Sunrise, Florida, just a dozen miles away from the scene of a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 February 2018
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks leaves after appearing before the House Intelligence Committee in Washington: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 February 2018
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks arrives to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee: Photo @somogettynews: image via Getty Images News @GettyImagesNews, 27 February 2018
Josephine Miles: Eighteen Poems
SYRIA - A rebel fighter waits to break his fast during the Ramadan in Jobar near Damascus. By @abdfree2 #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 15 June 2016
Apart from branches in courtyards and small stones,
The countryside is beyond me.
I can go along University Avenue from Rochester to Sobrante
And then the Avenue continues to the Bay.
Still here we are, and where we roll and call,
The long rollers of the sea come in
As if they lived here. The dry Santa Ana
Sweeps up the town and takes it for a feast.
Then Rochester to El Sobrante is a distance
No longer than my name.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): "Apart from branches in courtyards...", from Saving the Bay, 1967, in Collected Poems 1930-83 (1983)
Bay Side Ocean View (Berkeley). 35 mm plastic toy camera from dog food. Expired Tri-X from the 1980s.: photo by Dave Hebb, 12 July 2015
Orange stand (Williams, California): photo by efo, 18 May 2016
There's got to be an end (possibly Beryl, Utah): photo by QsySue, 8 June 2016
There's got to be an end (possibly Beryl, Utah): photo by QsySue, 8 June 2016
Josephine Miles: The Sympathizers
To this man, to his boned shoulders
Came the descent of pain.
All kinds,
Cruel, blind, dear, horrid, hallowed,
Rained, again, again.
To this small white blind boned face,
Wherever it was,
Descended
The blows of pain, it took as it were blinded,
As it were made for this.
We were there. We uneasy
Did not know if it were.
Knew neither
The reason nor the man nor whether
To share, or to beware.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): The Sympathizers, from Local Measures, 1946
Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York State: photo by John Collier, June 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
It's a curious fact, Stephan, King, if you are made to doubt
JosephineMiles (1911-1985): Gypsy,from Local Measures, 1946
Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York State: photo by John Collier, June 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Mother said to call her if the H-bomb exploded
And I said I would, and it about did
When Louis my brother robbed a service station
And lay cursing on the oily cement in handcuffs.
But by that time it was too late to tell Mother,
She was too sick to worry the life out of her
Over why why. Causation is sequence
And everything is one thing after another.
Besides, my other brother, Eddie, had got to be President,
And you can't ask too much of one family.
The chances were as good for a good future
As bad for a bad one.
Therefore it was surprising that, as we kept the newspapers from Mother,
She died feeling responsible for a disaster unverified,
Murmuring, in her sleep as it seemed, the ancient slogan
Noblesse oblige.
1955
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Belief, 1955, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
Gas station, Washington, D.C.: photo by John Vachon, July 1937 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
When you swim in the surf off Seal Rocks, and your family
Sits in the sand
Eating potato salad, and the undertow
Comes which takes you out away down
To loss of breath loss of play and the power of play
Holler, say
Help, help, help. Hello, they will say,
Come back here for some potato salad.
It is then that a seventeen-year-old cub
Cruising in a helicopter from Antigua,
A jackstraw expert speaking only Swedish
And remote from this area as a camel, says
Look down there, there is somebody drowning.
And it is you. You say, yes, yes,
And he throws you a line.
This is what is called the brotherhood of man.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Family, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
Gas station and gospel mission, Cleveland, Ohio: photo by John Vachon, August 1937 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Gas station, Butte, Montana: photo by Arthur Rothstein, Summer 1939 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
This face had no use for light, took none of it,
Grew cavernous against stars, bore into noon
A dark of midnight by its own resources.
Yet where it lay in sleep, where the pillows held it
With the blind plaster over it and the four walls
Keeping the night carefully, it was undone.
Sixty-watt light, squared to a window frame,
Across a well of air, across wind and window
Leaped and made shine the dark face in its sleep.
Gas station at night, Dubuque, Iowa: photo by John Vachon, April 1940 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
An "open all night" gas station in Durham, North Carolina: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
When I think of my kindness which is tentative and quiet
And of yours which is intense and free,
I am in elaboration of knowledge impatient
Of even the patientest immobility.
I think of my kind, which is the human fortune
To live in the world and make war among its friends,
And of my version, which is to be moderately peaceful,
And of your version; and must make amends
By my slow word to your wish which is mobile,
Active and moving in its generous sphere.
This is the natural and the supernatural
Of humankind of which I grow aware.
Gas station in Franklin, Heard County, Georgia, nine o'clock in the evening: photo by Jack Delano, April 1941 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
All our stones like as much sun as possible.
Along their joints run both solar access and decline
In equal splendor, like a mica chipping
At every beat, being sun responsible.
How much sun then do you think is due them?
Or should say, how much sun do you think they are apt to have?
It has misted at their roots for some days now,
The gray glamour addressing itself to them.
I should think possible that it go on misting likewise
A good way into next year, or time as they have it,
A regular cool season every day for our stones.
Not a streak that low of any sun or longed surprise.
1946
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Forecast, 1946, from Collected Poems 1930-83
Gas station, Minneapolis, Minnesota: photo by John Vachon, January 1942 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
As George Washington hacked at his cherry tree,
Joseph said to him
This is the tree that fed Mary
When she lingered by the way.
As George Washington polished his bright blade,
Joseph told him
This cherry tree
Bent down and nourished the mother and her babe.
As George Washington felled the cherry tree,
Voices of root and stem
Cried out to him
In heavenly accents, but he heard not what they had to say.
Rather, he was making
A clearing in the wilderness,
A subtle discrimination
Of church and state,
By which his little hatchet
Harvested a continental
Bumper crop for Mary
Of natural corn.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Deed, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
Dallas, TX -- March 2015: photo by gumanow, 27 May 2016
One rat across the floor and quick to floor's a breeze,
But two a whisper of a human tongue.
One is a breath, two voice;
And one a dream, but more are dreamed too long.
Two are the portent which we may believe at length,
And two the tribe we recognize as true.
Two are the total, they saying and they saying,
So we must ponder what we are to do.
For every scuttle of motion in the corner of the eye
Some thought of thought is asked in us indeed,
But of two, more: there we have likeness moving,
And there knowledge therefore, and therefore creed.
New York, NY -- July 2015: photo by gumanow, 27 May 2016
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): King, from Poetry, August 1966
Fair Day, Glenties, County Donegal: photo by Robert French, c. 1890-1910 (Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland)
Fair Day, Glenties, County Donegal: photo by Robert French, c. 1890-1910 (Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland)
Sheep staring, Langholm, Dumfriesshire, Scotland: photo by Bug in Box, 10 October 2009
Life [Marand, Azarbayjan-e Sharqi, Iran]: photo by Seyed Mostafa Zamani, 29 September 2010
A flock of sheep walked in the smoggy haze in a suburb of Beijing, where poor air quality has proved to be a persistent health hazard: photo by Lintao Zhang / Getty Images, 15 January 2016
A flock of sheep walked in the smoggy haze in a suburb of Beijing, where poor air quality has proved to be a persistent health hazard: photo by Lintao Zhang / Getty Images, 15 January 2016
Sheep May Safely Graze: photo by geir tonnessen, 23 July 2013
Domestic Sheep, Kanazawa Zoo: photo by Toshiro Gamo, 16 January 2015
Domestic Sheep, Kanazawa Zoo: photo by Toshiro Gamo, 16 January 2015
Domestic Sheep, Kanazawa Zoo: photo by Toshiro Gamo, 16 January 2015
Attentive sheep [Sarre, Val d'Aosta, Italy]: photo by enki22, 1 March 2013
Attentive sheep [Sarre, Val d'Aosta, Italy]: photo by enki22, 1 March 2013
It seems there is no escaping a bit of rural decay is there. Ruined miners' houses with sheep, Cwn Ystradllyn, Wales: photo by Carl Jones, 23 June 2008
Sheepish [original version]: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 27 March 2010
Sheepish[hand coloured photogravure version]: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 21 March 2013
field full of sheep: photo by Micolo J, 3 February 2015
#Syria Smoke rises from the rebel-held enclave of Eastern #Ghouta following fresh air strikes and rocket fire today. #AFP: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 27 February 2018
Warplanes resume striking Syria’s eastern Ghouta region after a Russian call for a five-hour truce fails to halt one of the most devastating campaigns of the Syrian war: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 February 2018
Warplanes resume striking Syria’s eastern Ghouta region after a Russian call for a five-hour truce fails to halt one of the most devastating campaigns of the Syrian war: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 February 2018
Always during yesterday's day was a very harsh day families under the rubble sounds of screaming under the rubble: image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 27 February 2018
Douma in the past nights as if the Day of Resurrection in the most accurate details : image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 28 February 2018
Douma in the past nights as if the Day of Resurrection in the most accurate details : image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 28 February 2018
Douma in the past nights as if the Day of Resurrection in the most accurate details : image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 28 February 2018
Douma in the past nights as if the Day of Resurrection in the most accurate details : image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 28 February 2018
Douma in the past nights as if the Day of Resurrection in the most accurate details : image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 28 February 2018
Douma in the past nights as if the Day of Resurrection in the most accurate details : image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 28 February 2018
#Douma: image via Ahmad36120, 23 February 2018
Douma: image via Ahmad36120, 23 February 2018
This is what look like my street looks like today. Nobody can imagine what we are living through. Shelling never stops. Children don't see light of day since nearly one week. They are afraid, they scream, they cry, they need to eat. What is this world who can watch us dying? Keep a share for us please.: image via Ahmad36120, 23 February 2018
The situation is now relatively calm, but the people here don't go out of their homes and don't believe that the ceasefire will be respected, the warplanes are in the sky, the situation is uncertain, the majority of the people are still in shelter, #Douma, Feb 25: image via Ahmad36120, 25 February 2018
The situation is now relatively calm, but the people here don't go out of their homes and don't believe that the ceasefire will be respected, the warplanes are in the sky, the situation is uncertain, the majority of the people are still in shelter, #Douma, Feb 25: image via Ahmad36120, 25 February 2018
Can you imagine that is the popular market!! This looks like it's in a city where there are no human beings and already abandoned, but we are here. This is the result of all the rockets launched on our head. #Douma, Feb 25: image via Ahmad36120, 25 February 2018
Can you imagine that is the popular market!! This looks like it's in a city where there are no human beings and already abandoned, but we are here. This is the result of all the rockets launched on our head. #Douma, Feb 25: image via Ahmad36120, 25 February 2018
This is what look like my street looks like today. Nobody can imagine what we are living through. Shelling never stops. Children don't see light of day since nearly one week. They are afraid, they scream, they cry, they need to eat. What is this world who can watch us dying? Keep a share for us please.: image via Ahmad36120, 23 February 2018
This is what look like my street looks like today. Nobody can imagine what we are living through. Shelling never stops. Children don't see light of day since nearly one week. They are afraid, they scream, they cry, they need to eat. What is this world who can watch us dying? Keep a share for us please.: image via Ahmad36120, 23 February 2018
The situation is now relatively calm, but the people here don't go out of their homes and don't believe that the ceasefire will be respected, the warplanes are in the sky, the situation is uncertain, the majority of the people are still in shelter, #Douma, Feb 25: image via Ahmad36120, 25 February 2018
The situation is now relatively calm, but the people here don't go out of their homes and don't believe that the ceasefire will be respected, the warplanes are in the sky, the situation is uncertain, the majority of the people are still in shelter, #Douma, Feb 25: image via Ahmad36120, 25 February 2018
Can you imagine that is the popular market!! This looks like it's in a city where there are no human beings and already abandoned, but we are here. This is the result of all the rockets launched on our head. #Douma, Feb 25: image via Ahmad36120, 25 February 2018
Can you imagine that is the popular market!! This looks like it's in a city where there are no human beings and already abandoned, but we are here. This is the result of all the rockets launched on our head. #Douma, Feb 25: image via Ahmad36120, 25 February 2018
انعدام الحياة في الغوطة الشرقية The absence of life in the eastern Ghouta @mouneb_abo_taim: image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 27 February 2018
Among the teapot aggregates a man lost his family.: image via mouneb abo taim @mouneb_abo_taim, 27 February 2018
#Al-Marwahi helicopters continued shelling of civilians and more than 75 martyrs and hundreds wounded on the Day of Resurrection #EastGhouta doomsday #Al-Ghouta #Al-Sharqiya #Always: image via Maamuon Abo Loae @MaamuonLoae, 20 February 2018
#Al-Marwahi helicopters continued shelling of civilians and more than 75 martyrs and hundreds wounded on the Day of Resurrection #EastGhouta doomsday #Al-Ghouta #Al-Sharqiya #Always: image via Maamuon Abo Loae @MaamuonLoae, 20 February 2018
#Al-Marwahi helicopters continued shelling of civilians and more than 75 martyrs and hundreds wounded on the Day of Resurrection #EastGhouta doomsday #Al-Ghouta #Al-Sharqiya #Always: image via Maamuon Abo Loae @MaamuonLoae, 20 February 2018
The beginning of the end (the sweet smell of something else)
At the gun range with teens practicing clay target shooting in Sunrise, Florida, just a dozen miles away from the scene of a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 February 2018
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks leaves after appearing before the House Intelligence Committee in Washington: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 27 February 2018
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks arrives to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee: Photo @somogettynews: image via Getty Images News @GettyImagesNews, 27 February 2018
Aleppo wounded day of bombardment by government forces that killed fifty people: image via baraa al halabi @baraaalhalabi, 14 June 2016
SYRIA - A shepherd leads his flock as smoke billows from a farm following an airstrike in Sheifuniya. By @AbdDoumany: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 June 2016
Josephine Miles: Figure
A poem I keep forgetting to write
Is about the stars,
Is about the stars,
How I see them in their order
Even without the chair and bear and the sisters,
In their astronomic presence of great space,
And how beyond and behind my eyes they are moving,
Exploding to spirals under extremest pressure.
Having not mathematics, my head
Bursts with anguish of not understanding.
The poem I forget to write is bursting fragments
Of a tortured victim, far from me
In his galaxy of minds bent upon him,
In the oblivion of his headline status
Crumpled and exploding as incomparable
As a star, yet present in its light.
I forget to write.
Even without the chair and bear and the sisters,
In their astronomic presence of great space,
And how beyond and behind my eyes they are moving,
Exploding to spirals under extremest pressure.
Having not mathematics, my head
Bursts with anguish of not understanding.
Of a tortured victim, far from me
In his galaxy of minds bent upon him,
In the oblivion of his headline status
Crumpled and exploding as incomparable
As a star, yet present in its light.
I forget to write.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Figure from Collected Poems: 1930-83
SYRIA - A shepherd leads his flock as smoke billows from a farm following an airstrike in Sheifuniya. By @AbdDoumany: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 14 June 2016
SYRIA - A rebel fighter waits to break his fast during the Ramadan in Jobar near Damascus. By @abdfree2 #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 15 June 2016
[Looking westward from Berkeley hills, early evening]: photo by Film&PhotoArchivist, 19 May 2015
Josephine Miles: Saving the Bay
Apart from branches in courtyards and small stones,
The countryside is beyond me.
I can go along University Avenue from Rochester to Sobrante
And then the Avenue continues to the Bay.
Often I think of the dry scope of foothill country,
Moraga Hill, Andreas, Indian country, where I was born
And where in the scrub the air tells me
How to be born again.
And where in the scrub the air tells me
How to be born again.
Often I think of the long rollers
Breaking along the beaches
All the way down the coast to the border
On bookish cressets and culverts blue and Mediterranean.
Breaking along the beaches
All the way down the coast to the border
On bookish cressets and culverts blue and Mediterranean.
There I break
In drops of spray as fine as letters
Blown high, never to be answered,
But waking am the shore they break upon.
Blown high, never to be answered,
But waking am the shore they break upon.
Both the dry talkers, those old Indians,
And the dry trollers, those old pirates,
Say something, but it's mostly louder talking,
Gavel rapping, and procedural dismays.
Say something, but it's mostly louder talking,
Gavel rapping, and procedural dismays.
Still here we are, and where we roll and call,
The long rollers of the sea come in
As if they lived here. The dry Santa Ana
Sweeps up the town and takes it for a feast.
Then Rochester to El Sobrante is a distance
No longer than my name.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): "Apart from branches in courtyards...", from Saving the Bay, 1967, in Collected Poems 1930-83 (1983)
Bay Side Ocean View (Berkeley). 35 mm plastic toy camera from dog food. Expired Tri-X from the 1980s.: photo by Dave Hebb, 12 July 2015
Orange stand (Williams, California): photo by efo, 18 May 2016
Josephine Miles: $7,500
I cannot tell you what a bargain this is,
Built at a cost of seven thousand, selling
For seven five, and all the utilities
In, and trees.
I cannot tell you what a bargain this is,
Built at a cost of seven thousand, selling
For seven five, and all the utilities
In, and trees.
Landscaped front and back, strings up for lawn,
Tiles, wrought-iron fixtures, entrance hall
With an echo, echo, echo, beamed ceiling
And a Southern feeling.
Tiles, wrought-iron fixtures, entrance hall
With an echo, echo, echo, beamed ceiling
And a Southern feeling.
Marvelous in this spring month, in this empty field,
Out of the already forgotten hammers, hands compressed,
Out of the already forgotten hammers, hands compressed,
So like a snowdrop sprung, white, delicate, and new,
With mountain view.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): $7,500 from Lines at Intersection, 1939, in Collected Poems: 1930-83
There's got to be an end (possibly Beryl, Utah): photo by QsySue, 8 June 2016
There's got to be an end (possibly Beryl, Utah): photo by QsySue, 8 June 2016
There's got to be an end (possibly Beryl, Utah): photo by QsySue, 8 June 2016
Resident at the Highland Manor Retirement Home, New Ulm, Minnesota: photo by Flip Schulke for the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica Project, c. 1975 (US National Archive)
Josephine Miles: Reason
Said, Pull her up a bit will you, Mac, I want to unload there.
Said, Pull her up my rear end, first come first served.
Said, give her the gun, Bud, he needs a taste of his own bumper.
Then the usher came out and got into the act:
Said, Pull her up, pull her up a bit, we need this space, sir.
Said, For God's sake, is this still a free country or what?
You go back and take care of Gary Cooper's horse
And leave me handle my own car.
Saw them unloading the lame old lady,
Ducked out under the wheel and gave her an elbow.
Said, All you needed to do was just explain;
Reason, Reason is my middle name.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Reason, from Prefabrications, 1955
Said, Pull her up a bit will you, Mac, I want to unload there.
Said, Pull her up my rear end, first come first served.
Said, give her the gun, Bud, he needs a taste of his own bumper.
Then the usher came out and got into the act:
Said, Pull her up, pull her up a bit, we need this space, sir.
Said, For God's sake, is this still a free country or what?
You go back and take care of Gary Cooper's horse
And leave me handle my own car.
Saw them unloading the lame old lady,
Ducked out under the wheel and gave her an elbow.
Said, All you needed to do was just explain;
Reason, Reason is my middle name.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Reason, from Prefabrications, 1955
Old man, India: photo by Glenn Losack MD, 17 December 2011
To this man, to his boned shoulders
Came the descent of pain.
All kinds,
Cruel, blind, dear, horrid, hallowed,
Rained, again, again.
To this small white blind boned face,
Wherever it was,
Descended
The blows of pain, it took as it were blinded,
As it were made for this.
We were there. We uneasy
Did not know if it were.
Knew neither
The reason nor the man nor whether
To share, or to beware.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): The Sympathizers, from Local Measures, 1946
Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York State: photo by John Collier, June 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: Gypsy
The entire country is overrun with private property, the gypsy king said.
I don't know if this is true,
I believe in the gypsy kingship though.
The lost tribes of my own nation
Rove and rove.
In red and yellow rough and silent move.
I believe
The majesty pot mending, copper smith
On the hundred highways, nothing to do with.
And black eyes, black I never saw,
Searching out the pocket lines of cloth
The face lines and the furrows of belief.
It's a curious fact, Stephan, King, if you are made to doubt
Aegyptian vision on the Jersey shore.
Property's private as ever, ever.
JosephineMiles (1911-1985): Gypsy,from Local Measures, 1946
Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York State: photo by John Collier, June 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: Belief
Mother said to call her if the H-bomb exploded
And I said I would, and it about did
When Louis my brother robbed a service station
And lay cursing on the oily cement in handcuffs.
But by that time it was too late to tell Mother,
She was too sick to worry the life out of her
Over why why. Causation is sequence
And everything is one thing after another.
Besides, my other brother, Eddie, had got to be President,
And you can't ask too much of one family.
The chances were as good for a good future
As bad for a bad one.
Therefore it was surprising that, as we kept the newspapers from Mother,
She died feeling responsible for a disaster unverified,
Murmuring, in her sleep as it seemed, the ancient slogan
Noblesse oblige.
1955
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Belief, 1955, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
Gas station, Washington, D.C.: photo by John Vachon, July 1937 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: Family
When you swim in the surf off Seal Rocks, and your family
Sits in the sand
Eating potato salad, and the undertow
Comes which takes you out away down
To loss of breath loss of play and the power of play
Holler, say
Help, help, help. Hello, they will say,
Come back here for some potato salad.
It is then that a seventeen-year-old cub
Cruising in a helicopter from Antigua,
A jackstraw expert speaking only Swedish
And remote from this area as a camel, says
Look down there, there is somebody drowning.
And it is you. You say, yes, yes,
And he throws you a line.
This is what is called the brotherhood of man.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Family, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
Gas station and gospel mission, Cleveland, Ohio: photo by John Vachon, August 1937 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: So Graven
Simplicity so graven hurts the sense. The monumental and the simple break
And the great tablets shatter down in deed. Every year the quick particular jig
Of unresolved event moves in the mind,
Simplicity so graven hurts the sense. The monumental and the simple break
And the great tablets shatter down in deed. Every year the quick particular jig
Of unresolved event moves in the mind,
And there's the trick simplicity has to win.
1946
JosephineMiles (1911-1985): So Graven, 1946, from Collected Poems 1930-83
JosephineMiles (1911-1985): So Graven, 1946, from Collected Poems 1930-83
Gas station, Butte, Montana: photo by Arthur Rothstein, Summer 1939 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: Made Shine
This face had no use for light, took none of it,
Grew cavernous against stars, bore into noon
A dark of midnight by its own resources.
Yet where it lay in sleep, where the pillows held it
With the blind plaster over it and the four walls
Keeping the night carefully, it was undone.
Sixty-watt light, squared to a window frame,
Across a well of air, across wind and window
Leaped and made shine the dark face in its sleep.
1939
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Made Shine, 1939, from Collected Poems 1930-83
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Made Shine, 1939, from Collected Poems 1930-83
Gas station at night, Dubuque, Iowa: photo by John Vachon, April 1940 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: For Futures
When the lights come on at five o'clock on street corners
That is Evolution by the bureau of power,
That is a fine mechanic dealing in futures:
For the sky is wide and warm upon that hour.
That is Evolution by the bureau of power,
That is a fine mechanic dealing in futures:
For the sky is wide and warm upon that hour.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): For Futures, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
An "open all night" gas station in Durham, North Carolina: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: Kind
When I think of my kindness which is tentative and quiet
And of yours which is intense and free,
I am in elaboration of knowledge impatient
Of even the patientest immobility.
I think of my kind, which is the human fortune
To live in the world and make war among its friends,
And of my version, which is to be moderately peaceful,
And of your version; and must make amends
By my slow word to your wish which is mobile,
Active and moving in its generous sphere.
This is the natural and the supernatural
Of humankind of which I grow aware.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Kind, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
Gas station in Franklin, Heard County, Georgia, nine o'clock in the evening: photo by Jack Delano, April 1941 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: Forecast
All our stones like as much sun as possible.
Along their joints run both solar access and decline
In equal splendor, like a mica chipping
At every beat, being sun responsible.
How much sun then do you think is due them?
Or should say, how much sun do you think they are apt to have?
It has misted at their roots for some days now,
The gray glamour addressing itself to them.
I should think possible that it go on misting likewise
A good way into next year, or time as they have it,
A regular cool season every day for our stones.
Not a streak that low of any sun or longed surprise.
1946
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Forecast, 1946, from Collected Poems 1930-83
Gas station, Minneapolis, Minnesota: photo by John Vachon, January 1942 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles:Effort for Distraction
for Henry Adams
Effort for distraction grew
Ferocious, grew
Ferocious and paced, that was its exercise.
Effort for distraction strained,
Legged in the hour-like single stretch
Its heels and sight to feel, so slit its eyes.
Effort without effort or with
Greatest possible effort always centered
Back in the concentrated trough where lies
The magnet to the filings,
The saw tooth to the tongue,
The turn of life to a returning life.
By all the traction of mind and spin of spirit
Having gained grasp gasped to bear it,
Having got ground groaned, furious title holder.
Paced and cried, so sore for a different direction, grew
Ferocious, grew
Unkind to strength that gave it strength to grow.
Effort for distraction grew
Ferocious, grew
Ferocious and paced, that was its exercise.
Effort for distraction strained,
Legged in the hour-like single stretch
Its heels and sight to feel, so slit its eyes.
Effort without effort or with
Greatest possible effort always centered
Back in the concentrated trough where lies
The magnet to the filings,
The saw tooth to the tongue,
The turn of life to a returning life.
By all the traction of mind and spin of spirit
Having gained grasp gasped to bear it,
Having got ground groaned, furious title holder.
Paced and cried, so sore for a different direction, grew
Ferocious, grew
Unkind to strength that gave it strength to grow.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Effort for Distraction, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
Gas station, Benton Harbor, Michigan: photo by John Vachon, July 1940 (Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress)
Josephine Miles: Deed
As George Washington hacked at his cherry tree,
Joseph said to him
This is the tree that fed Mary
When she lingered by the way.
As George Washington polished his bright blade,
Joseph told him
This cherry tree
Bent down and nourished the mother and her babe.
As George Washington felled the cherry tree,
Voices of root and stem
Cried out to him
In heavenly accents, but he heard not what they had to say.
Rather, he was making
A clearing in the wilderness,
A subtle discrimination
Of church and state,
By which his little hatchet
Harvested a continental
Bumper crop for Mary
Of natural corn.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Deed, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
Dallas, TX -- March 2015: photo by gumanow, 27 May 2016
Josephine Miles: Lucifer Alone
One rat across the floor and quick to floor's a breeze,
But two a whisper of a human tongue.
One is a breath, two voice;
And one a dream, but more are dreamed too long.
Two are the portent which we may believe at length,
And two the tribe we recognize as true.
Two are the total, they saying and they saying,
So we must ponder what we are to do.
For every scuttle of motion in the corner of the eye
Some thought of thought is asked in us indeed,
But of two, more: there we have likeness moving,
And there knowledge therefore, and therefore creed.
1969
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Lucifer Alone, 1969, from Collected Poems 1930-1983
New York, NY -- July 2015: photo by gumanow, 27 May 2016
Josephine Miles: King
I walked along the river path, the river
I never lived beside,
and met there, hook and line, king of that kingdom
I never lived beside,
and met there, hook and line, king of that kingdom
I would not recognize.
He was the golden branch of Eliot, of
Those wasteland parties where I had to play
Tiresias, and he was a king
Whom I did not believe.
Laius nor any man's killed by his son
Unless he wills it, so I said
To this old bird where he sat. Why let come riding
The handsomest of your brood to do you in?
And he wept, Because it is him or me --
Should he not survive me, he survives not
All that I was: alcoholic
At forty, cheat at forty-five,
Coward at fifty, so will he be
Over again in sequence, while I sit
Mourning myself in him. Tell him to hurry.
This was the waste land, as it dawns upon me
To see it was my friend sat by the river
Crouching and fishing in his father's form.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): King, from Poetry, August 1966
Sheep graze on a field at the Siennese clays area near Asciano, Italy. The Crete Senesi, located in Tuscany, consists of an untouched natural landscape of hills and woods: photo by Max Rossi/Reuters, 2011Josephine Miles: Tally
Sheep graze on a field at the Siennese clays area near Asciano, Italy. The Crete Senesi, located in Tuscany, consists of an untouched natural landscape of hills and woods: photo by Max Rossi/Reuters, 2011
Josephine Miles: Tally
After her pills the girl slept and counted
Pellet on pellet the regress of life.
Dead to the world, the world's count yet counted
Pellet on pill the antinomies of life.
Refused to turn, the way's back, she counted
Her several stones across the mire of life.
And stones away and sticks away she counted
To keep herself out of the country of life.
Lost tally. How the sheep return to home
Is the story she will retrieve
And the only story believe
Of one and one the sheep returning home
To take the shapes of life,
Coming and being counted.
Pellet on pellet the regress of life.
Dead to the world, the world's count yet counted
Pellet on pill the antinomies of life.
Refused to turn, the way's back, she counted
Her several stones across the mire of life.
And stones away and sticks away she counted
To keep herself out of the country of life.
Lost tally. How the sheep return to home
Is the story she will retrieve
And the only story believe
Of one and one the sheep returning home
To take the shapes of life,
Coming and being counted.
Josephine Miles (1911-1985): Tally from Collected Poems 1930-1983 (1983)
Fair Day, Glenties, County Donegal: photo by Robert French, c. 1890-1910 (Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland)
Fair Day, Glenties, County Donegal: photo by Robert French, c. 1890-1910 (Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland)
Serious traffic jam on the back roads of beautiful #Lesvos this morning:image via MSF Sea @MSFSea, 7 February 2016
Silence of the lambs. Narkanda, Himachal, India: photo by Manik Sharma via the land below water, 2016
Sheep staring, Langholm, Dumfriesshire, Scotland: photo by Bug in Box, 10 October 2009
Life [Marand, Azarbayjan-e Sharqi, Iran]: photo by Seyed Mostafa Zamani, 29 September 2010
A flock of sheep walked in the smoggy haze in a suburb of Beijing, where poor air quality has proved to be a persistent health hazard: photo by Lintao Zhang / Getty Images, 15 January 2016
A flock of sheep walked in the smoggy haze in a suburb of Beijing, where poor air quality has proved to be a persistent health hazard: photo by Lintao Zhang / Getty Images, 15 January 2016
Sheep May Safely Graze: photo by geir tonnessen, 23 July 2013
Sheep May Safely Graze: photo by geir tonnessen, 23 July 2013
Sheep May Safely Graze: photo by geir tonnessen, 23 July 2013
A villager attempts to rescue a sheep during Israel attack on frontline area of Zanna (Khan Younis), two miles from the border with Israel: photo by Hazem Balousha, 23 July 2014
Domestic Sheep, Kanazawa Zoo: photo by Toshiro Gamo, 16 January 2015
Domestic Sheep, Kanazawa Zoo: photo by Toshiro Gamo, 16 January 2015
Domestic Sheep, Kanazawa Zoo: photo by Toshiro Gamo, 16 January 2015
Attentive sheep [Sarre, Val d'Aosta, Italy]: photo by enki22, 1 March 2013
Attentive sheep [Sarre, Val d'Aosta, Italy]: photo by enki22, 1 March 2013
Sheep [Skipaskagi, Akranes, Iceland]: photo by Atli Hardarson, 23 September 2007
It seems there is no escaping a bit of rural decay is there. Ruined miners' houses with sheep, Cwn Ystradllyn, Wales: photo by Carl Jones, 23 June 2008
Sheep, darkroom print: photo by Mark Dries, 11 November 2015
Sheepish [original version]: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 27 March 2010
Sheepish[hand coloured photogravure version]: photo by Karena Goldfinch, 21 March 2013
New Zealand (sheep and herder): albumen print, photographer unknown, c. 1900 (Museum of Photographic Arts)
field full of sheep: photo by Micolo J, 3 February 2015