Gregory Orr: Available Now: Archaic Torsos of Both Sexes

Though I'm modest as most,
I couldn't help noticing
certain parts of the statues
have been polished
to a high sheen
by passing hands
as the centuries passed.
If it's a form of worship
it's not much odder
or more perverse
than the saint's stone toe
kissed to a stub by fervent lips.

And even though Plato
suspected art almost as much
as he suspected the body's curves,
he did assert Desire
could lead to the True
and Beautiful.
Therefore
I choose to believe that mortals
pausing here to cup a marble
breast or buttock
were doing their best
to grasp the Ideal—
and their foolish gestures
made it shine more brightly.

Gregory Orr: [No postmortems, please...]

No postmortems, please.
The world is immortal.
The world renews itself.

What about poems and songs --
Do they perish?
Maybe they only
Vanish awhile.
Maybe they go underground
To gather some other
Knowledge and come back
In another form:

New words, a new melody,
Yet somehow
The same beloved,
Singing the same song.

Gregory Orr: How lucky we are That you can’t sell A poem

How lucky we are
That you can’t sell
A poem, that it has
No value. Might
As well
Give it away.

That poem you love,
That saved your life,
Wasn’t it given to you?

Gregory Orr: Has the Moon Been Up There

Has the moon been up there
All these nights
And I never noticed?

A whole week with my nose
To the ground, to the grind.

And the beloved faithfully
Returning each evening
As the moon.

Where have I been?
Who has abandoned whom?

Gregory Orr: Let's remake the world

Let's remake the world with words.
Not frivolously, nor
To hide from what we fear,
But with a purpose.

Let's,
As Wordsworth said, remove
"The dust of custom" so things
Shine again, each object arrayed
In its robe of original light.

And then we'll see the world
As if for the first time.
As once we gazed at the beloved
Who was gazing at us.

Gregory Orr: Some say you're lucky

Some say you're lucky
If nothing shatters it.

But then you wouldn't
Understand poems or songs.
You'd never know
Beauty comes from loss.

It's deep inside every person:
A tear tinier
Than a pearl or thorn.

It's one of the places
Where the beloved is born.

Gregory Orr: Lots of sorrow and a little joy

Lots of sorrow and a little joy.
Lots of joy and only a bit
Of sorrow.
Who can know
The formula beforehand?

We don't get to watch
While it's mixed.  No one tells us
What's in it.
We lift it
To our lips - azure elixir
That burns our throats to crystal.

Gregory Orr: To be alive

To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That's crudely put, but ...
If we're not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?

Gregory Orr: Glukupikron (to Sappho)

Word you created
which we translate
bittersweet
thereby
reversing the terms
as if we thought pain
came first
and pleasure only later;
for you maybe joy
was initial,

to be followed
by harsh disappointment.

Yet in the word itself
the two fuse,
and in the condition
it refers to
they mingle,
indistinguishable,
not to be separated
by any force.

It was
your word for love.