Two Poems by Lucien Stryk

For the December Red Eft video, our first guest writer is Dan’s own father, poet Lucien Stryk, who became a spiritual father to me.

I have a special feeling for “Memo to the Builder,” the first poem in this video. When I was still a teen, my mother snipped it out of 
the Chicago Tribune for me — she knew I’d love it.  And I still do.  In it, Lucien metaphorically imagines an architectural space with 
no enclosures to shut out the living world.  In the second poem, “You Must Change Your Life,” nature becomes the protagonist in 
the parable of a backyard squirrel (undistracted while fulfilling its vital needs). I find it remarkable that Lucien is able to say so much, 
so powerfully — yet in so few words — about the essence of the natural world, which, if grasped, might truly change the way 
we see it  . . .  

                                                                                                                                                                               — Suzanne

[For more about Lucien Stryk, see the bio and links below.]

"Memo to the Builder" and "You Must Change Your Life"

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    Memo to the Builder

. . . and then

After the roof goes up

Remember to lay the eave trough

Wide and deep.  A run

For squirrels and a river

For my birds.  You know, I’d rather

You made the trough

So, than have the rooftop

Tarred and shingled.  Keep

It in mind, the trough.

Also I’m not so sure of glass

In every window.  But let that pass.

Still—and there are

Reasons enough, believe me—

It would please no end to be

In and out together.

And how it would thrill me should a bird,

Learning our secret, make a whir-

ring thoroughfare

Of a room or two.

Forget the weather.  To

Have the wild, the rare

Not only happen, mind, but

Be the normal is exactly what

I’m after.  Now

You know.  Perhaps you

Think I’ve made your job too

Light?  Good.  Throw

Caution to the beams.  Build me a home

The living day can enter, not a tomb.

   You Must Change Your Life

Of all things one might be:
a squirrel lopes by

busy at being himself

in a tough nutless world,

cats at his young, rain

slanting in his nest,

night falling, winter

not provided for—

no question to ask

of himself or anyone.

  

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  “Memo to the Builder” and “You Must Change Your Life” were published in And Still Birds Sing: New and Collected Poems by Lucien Stryk (Swallow/Ohio University  Press, 1998).

Lucien Stryk (1924-2013) published more than thirty books over his career, both of original poetry and Far Eastern translations, including Collected Poems (Swallow / Ohio University Press), The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry (Penguin Books, London), and Of Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho (Penguin).  He also won numerous awards and honors, such as a Ford Foundation Fellowship, Illinois Author of the Year, and a Rockefeller Foundation award.  In 2009, the American Literary Translators Association announced the inaugural Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, in honor of his admired collections of Zen Buddhist literature. 

For more about the Lucien Stryk, visit Dan’s article about his father at: http://www.connotationpress.com/featured-artist/november-2010/628-emeritus-artist-lucien-stryk