Possible Beginnings & Other Poems
Possible Beginnings
We are made of war—
it stays in the air, mixed with oxygen
Victoria Chang, “World’s End”
We are breathing out
the war we make:
the silent inner wars,
the blasting outer ones.
And the trees are exchanging
these wars with us—trying to convert
our hate into something
that when boiled, turns
from bitter to sweet.
Look! The leaves are waving
at us with glorious shapes;
positively waving at us
with joy.
The Late Years
[de Young Museum]
I would like to paint the way a bird sings.
Claude Monet
Bolinas—Late Afternoon
I think this is
the prettiest wold
Mary Oliver, “The Kingfisher”
You can lose yourself
up here on the mesa
sitting on the cliff’s edge
across from Tamalpais
oat grass glowing golden
on its highest curves
In the ocean below surfers
in their black wet suits
wait patiently for waves
as if singleness of purpose
is all we need to reap
life’s deepest rewards
Gulls gathered on the sandbar
a flash of white wings
some rise
circle and settle again
like lungs of a great being
breathing in the lagoon
Children play in the surf
Pelicans beginning to dive
That seal I glimpsed before
head bobbing up
disappearing down
—what’s seen and unseen
It’s all so simple really
this is the prettiest world
[so long as you don’t mind
a little dying]
Here comes a fishing boat
heading home with the day’s catch
may it be bountiful
View from a Plane
And the Wright brothers said they thought they had invented
something that could make peace on earth
(if the wrong brothers didn’t get hold of it)
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “History of the Airplane”
from here the clouds
look like icebergs
drifting in the Arctic sea
and I can almost imagine
polar bears jumping
from float to float
as the ice shifts and
melts due to global warming
others clouds could be tall
canyon walls covered
in snow only
the climate is turning
too dry for such deep
white winters and
crows can’t fly this high
and these two here
[I must horribly note]
have the mushroom
shape of that unspeakable
bomb . . .
our minds
make many inventions
may our hearts
dear love
have
the final say
Little Room
We live in a little room:
four walls and a roof,
impervious to what’s outside.
One day a crack
begins in the wall, then a window
appears—next, a door.
Called by silence,
we walk out into the light;
deer watch us with fields
of orange-poppy eyes.
Virginia Barrett is a poet, writer, artist, editor, and educator. She earned her MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco where she was poetry editor of Switchback. Her six books of poetry include Between Looking and Crossing Haight—San Francisco poems. She is also the editor of four poetry anthologies including RED: a Hue Are You anthology.