Hail Storm
The last time my mother visited Cuba
she found a car and driver to take her
to the province of Las Villas, seven
hours from Havana, and on the way
it started to rain, and the driver, a young
man kept telling her to relax, that this
was the way it always rained in Cuba
this time of year, and she kept telling
him she wasnt a tourist, that shed been
born here, and the driver drove on
in the wolf-mouth-dark of the road,
insects and sleet rain crossing the head
lights, and my mother couldnt relax,
and when it started to hail, fists pounding
on the hood of the automobile, she
panicked, prayed to the point she spooked
the young driver into stopping by
the side of the road, if only until the hail
storm stopped, of only until her heart
settled and she began to recognize
that what was pounding the car wasnt
ice balls, but her memories falling back,
her life welcoming her where she belongs.
- Virgil Suarez
The Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth
TO THE LAKE
In Spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less -
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody -
Then - ah, then, I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight -
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define -
Nor Love - although the love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining -
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)
