Robert Hass

Sep 2, 2024 | newyorker.com | Robert Hass

The sky tonight on the top of the ridgeWas bruise-colored, a yellow-brownThat is one definition of the word “sordid,”Which, I think, used to describeThat color, carries neither a moralNor an aesthetic judgment. The skyAt dusk was sordid and then brightenedAnd softened to a glowing peachOf brief but astonishing beauty,If you happened to be paying attention.

Apr 11, 2024 | spiritualityandpractice.com | Robert Hass

• The end of spring lingers in the cherry blossoms. — Buson • Summer night- even the stars are whispering to each other. — Issa • Goes out, comes back - the loves of a cat. — Issa • The wren — looking here, looking there. You lose something? — Issa • I'm going to roll over, so please move, cricket. — Issa • Even with insects- some can sing, some can't.

Jan 10, 2024 | vqronline.org | Daniel Halpern |Robert Hass

spring greensShe’d gathered ramps in the woods, although she found them A hyperbole of the food world, an over-priced scallionWith a finish of garlic scapes. But finding them in the forest, He thought, and picking them with her strong hands,Improved their allure. He found fiddlehead ferns In the market and skinny, hopeful stalks of asparagus.

Dec 1, 2023 | poetryfoundation.org | Robert Hass

A fragment. To be followed by an infinitive phrase. Your hipster cynical voice. One. Then two. Then three words. In sequence. Subject without predicate. Running to passion (Predicate without subject). The obligatory foreign phrase And obscure allusion. The Sprachspiele pregnant With mandrakes. And these interstices! The spaces Between letters, between words, the distance between You and me, the god of the gaps.               The present Absence so rich in irony.

Sep 5, 2023 | terrain.org | Robert Hass

Working in the Garden,I Think of My SonWho is nothing, now, but a few fistfuls of ash. Not even that, since ashdissolves and is taken into the bodies of plants, or swept into the airon the wind. He’s so very fine he slips undetectedthrough a whale’s baleen, or a beetle’s gullet. He can even risethrough a stalk of grass with the upward pull of phloem,in these first green days of spring.