Waiting for Rainbows

By Richard Falk

This collection of poems written over the course of a long lifetime address basic themes of love and loss, the mysteries of travel and exotic geography, and commentary on the ways of the world. If there is one focus that unites these poems it is upon the relentless quest for spiritual understanding, requited love, and beauty, whether created or natural. This quest has precedence over all that is mundane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491778401

Richard Falk

Richard Falk was formerly the UN special rapporteur to Palestine. His unparalleled scholarship on Israel/Palestine is informed by a deep commitment to humanist thought and an optimism for the future of the Palestinian struggle. He is Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and a Research Fellow in Global Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author of over twenty books including Palestine's Horizon (Pluto, 2017) and Chaos and Counterrevolution (Zed, 2015).

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 Richard Falk.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7841-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-7840-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015916927

iUniverse rev. date: 11/12/2015

Table of Contents

Early Poems

Who But Ishtar

This Ark of Orchard

Caring

Pandora's Halo

As She Stood

Impatience

A Happy Point of Arrival

Four Thoughts On How to Choose

Grief Unveiled

Farewell

Seek Simplicity but Distrust It (Alfred North Whitehead)

Almost August

She Awaits Her Brother at Noon on Ward 9

On Conspiracy

A Lesson from April

Forlorn Love

In Opposition to Sovereignty

A Promise

Rebuff

Risks

A Birthday Poem

Two Comments

Two Impressions at Montauk

Lost at Sea

When in Love with Two

About Loving

A Greeting

Simon Rodia: In Memoriam

Reflections on Marriage

This X-Ray Nurse: Cold Comely White

Politics

Missing in Action: Vietnam:Toward Phantasy

Vietnam: A Negotiated Settlement

On Halloween Eve: Dance as Alternative to Fallout Shelters

LBJ Calls for Calm in Selma

Almost Any 4th of July

Notes on Diagnosing Our Era

Geography

Rock Garden at Rijoan-ji

Wind at Ayios Nikolaos

Necropolis of Thebes at El Qurna (1965)

Withdrawing from a Sunset

A Shinto Lullaby

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean in February

Onward to Troy

A Day in Naples

Relaxed Haiku

Gulls at Nanaimo

Welcoming Words

Pious Sentiments

Jesus

Lent

Tonight I Seek Angels

Holiday Thoughts

The Ironic Mode Surpassed

Betrayed into Ecstasy

By Way of Meditation

A Withheld Poem

Mary and Jesus

Later Poems

On Learning of the Capture of Saddam Hussein

Lighting a Candle in St. Germain des Prés

Dreaming

'Humanity' and Humanity

Famous Feet & Princeton Redux

Fear

If the world lasts longer than I do

Colors (in Japan)

If Love Lasts

Against Crows

If Inspiration Comes

Love's Imaginary

September 11 in Santiago*

Why Doubt Armageddon?

When You Forget More Than You Learn

Remembering an Imagined Conversation in Cappadocia

For Mothers Who Outlive Life

Despairing Angels

On China Beach

Bittersweet Memories

Waimanalo: A Humbling Celebration

From a Girl Entrapped by Moonlight

Again Libya

About Poetry

Remembering Edward Said

For Otis

Screams After Munk

Lines

What is Strange

Brittle Years

Lunch Talk

Credo

Behold the Giraffe

Good Memories = Good Lives

Love

With the Right Blessings

At the Berlin Historical Museum

Where the Wind Stops

Who Am I?

Early Poems

Who But Ishtar

Who but Ishtar held calm

                       the rudder of your heart

               amid the dangerous channel

                                on that starless night

                    we drifted into collision?

This Ark of Orchard

In an orchard of loneliness

Pink blossoms are a token

                                        of age

              a mere wounding of wintry health

       those bare branches that focus the eyes

              with their therapy of abandonment

         and strip barren

                       a rose tangle of forgotten torment

              that earlier season

Pink blossoms

              are my splendid ashes

                   youth resurgent

              its resplendent craters

                        of relinquished desire

              their earlier insistence an inheritance

                                                             of blood

                                          clotted by mere memory

Amid these pink blossoms

                        their flaming goad of phantasy

              in a posture of compliance

                   arroyos of pinkness

                   patriots even

                        in this far more pastel world

A co-existence of tones

                   amid pink blossoms

              creates a gracious detente

                        of heart and mind

Pink blossoms

              impregnate the sky

                   and nullify the consequence

                                                        of distance

                            lunar journeys

                                 and other unassimilated crucifixions

              these proud details

                                            of truth

                            won from flesh and heart

                        sweep pink the horizon

                   of happenings in the mind

                            electing now

                                 a betrayal of cemeteries

Across the afternoon of my heart

                   we splice a rainbow

                            and splatter grass with our joy

                   almost mute

                        on this upland meadow

                            of pink mist

                   almost afraid

                                 to talk

                            into this silence

Pink blossoms

                   immerse the grief of the world

                      baptize with calmness

                        by a flood of private delight

                   and calm

                        the electric insistence

                      of quasers and unicorns

                   imprison the robot rhythms

                                 of glaciers and field marshals

                                           machines

                                                geysers

                                           and tax collectors

                                 in barbed wire

                                      spun by the fleeing

                                                      spider heart

We welcome the okapi

                   aboard this ark of orchard

                 and call Yerma to come

                             pledge allegiance to Pablo Neruda

                   grant stray visas to a host

                                      of unsuspecting angels--

Let us find mooring

                   amid this exhibit of dying dogwood

Caring

I listen for the sound of the koto