David Wagoner (June 05, 1926 -) Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside youAre not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,Must ask permission to know it and be known.The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,I have made this place around you.If you leave it, you may …
Melissa Andres – Arrival
Melissa Andres The corners of the Terracotta tilescut my mother’s feet when she walkedto the kitchen to eat the most exotic fruitshe had ever imagined—tree-ripe peaches packedwith juices in a can—and not the guavashe always melted for the pastries.My mother then placed the empty canon the stove, added water and beganto cook the rice we …
WS Merwin – Thanks
WS Merwin (September 30, 1927 -) Listenwith the night falling we are saying thank youwe are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railingswe are running out of the glass roomswith our mouths full of food to look at the skyand say thank youwe are standing by the water thanking itstanding by the windows …
Derek Walcott – The Light of the World
Derek Alton Walcott (January 23, 1930 – March 17, 2017) “Zion-ah, I’ve got to have Zion-ah, I’ve got to have Zion-ahFor the rain is falling” —Bob Marley Marley was rocking on the transport’s stereoand the beauty was humming the choruses quietly.I could see where the lights on the planes of her cheekstreaked and defined them, if this …
Dorianne Laux – Antilamentation
Dorianne Laux (January 10, 1952 -) Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you readto the end just to find out who killed the cook, notthe insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication, notthe lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,the one you beat to the …
Susan Browne – Bonanza
Susan Browne Amanda shows me my bones,A picture of my spine, ghost-like,Snake-like, like it could rattle.I say, Amanda, it looks crooked, whyIs that? She shrugs, You’re not the only one.Your bone density’s fine. You can go now.My plebeian spine walks me towardThe mammogram room where I flop my boobOnto the plastic tray. Flop is not …
Linda Pastan – The Bookstall
Linda Pastan (May 27, 1932 -) Just looking at themI grow greedy, as if they werefreshly baked loaveswaiting on their shelvesto be broken open—that oneand that—and I make my choicein a mood of exalted luck,browsing among themlike a cow in sweetest pasture.For life is continuousas long as they waitto be read—these inked pathsopening into the …
David Kirby – More Than This
David Kirby When you tell me that a woman is visiting the graveof her college friend and she’s trying not to get irritatedat the man in the red truck who keeps walking back and forthand dropping tools as he listens to a pro footballgame on the truck radio, which is much too loud, I startto …
Pablo Neruda – XVII I Do Not Love You
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (1July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) Pablo Neruda I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz, or the arrows of carnations the fire shoots off.I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadows and the soul.I love you …
Tao Writer – Presence
Tao Writer (April 17, 1948 -) You were here this morning when I wokelying somewhere between the rays ofthe sun and the dew in the air.Sometimes I feel you at night when my roomis dark and my eyes are unable to focus –A soft weight upon the foot of my bedas if you were lightly …
Danusha Laméris – Dust
Danusha Laméris It covers everything, fine powder,the earth’s gold breath falling softlyon the dark wood dresser, blue ceramic bowls,picture frames on the wall. It wafts upfrom canyons, carried on the wind,on the wings of birds, in the rough fur of animalsas they rise from the ground. Sometimes it’s copper,sometimes dark as ink. In great storms,it …
William Stafford – Time for Serenity, Anyone?
William Edgar Stafford (January 17, 1914 – August 28, 1993) I like to live in the sound of water,in the feel of mountain air. A sharpreminder hits me: this world still is alive;it stretches out there shivering toward its owncreation, and I'm part of it. Even my breathingenters into the elaborate give-and-take,this bowing to sun …
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Ron Padgett – A Small Glass of Orange Juice
Ron Padgett (June 17, 1942 -) on a white tableclothwith light blue legs belowin a hotel restaurantin a small town in Polandin 1936is being contemplatedby a manwhose homburgis tiltedat an angleparallel to thatof the pictureon the wallbehind him,a mountain scenewith forest belowin which a lone deerhas turned to look at us.
Jabari Asim – Some Call It God
Jabari Asim (August 11, 1962 -) I choose Rhythm,the beginning as motion,black Funk shaping itselfin the time before time,dark, glorious and nimble as a spermsparkling its way into the greatest of grooves,conjuring worlds from dust and storm and primordial soup. I accept the Funk as my holy savior,Funk so high you can’t get over it,so …
Stephen Dunn – Tenderness
Stephen Dunn (June 24, 1939 -) Back then when so much was clearand I hadn't learnedyoung men learn from women what it feels like to feel just right,I was twenty-three,she thirty-four, two children, a husband in prison for breaking someone's head.Yelled at, slappedaround, all she knew of tenderness was how much she wanted it, and …
Denise Levertov — The Secret
Priscilla Denise Levertov (October 24, 1923 – December 20, 1997) Two girls discoverthe secret of lifein a sudden line ofpoetry.I who don’t know thesecret wrotethe line. Theytold me(through a third person)they had found itbut not what it wasnot evenwhat line it was. No doubtby now, more than a weeklater, they have forgottenthe secret,the line, the …
Jane Hirshfield – I Wanted To Be Surprised
Jane Hirshfield (February 24, 1953 -) To such a request, the world is obliging.Just in the past week, a rotund porcupine,who seemed equally startled by me.The man who swallowed a tiny microphoneto record the sounds of his body,not considering beforehand how he might remove it.A cabbage and mustard sandwich on marbled bread.How easily the large …
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Emily Dickinson – A Light Exists In Spring
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) A Light exists in SpringNot present on the YearAt any other period-When March is scarcely hereA Color stands abroadOn Solitary FieldsThat Science cannot overtakeBut Human Nature feels.It waits upon the Lawn,It shows the furthest TreeUpon the furthest Slope you knowIt almost speaks to you.Then as …
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Ada Limón – The End Of Poetry
Ada Limón (March 28, 1976 -) Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflowerand snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot,enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecyand the stoic farmer and faith and our father and tisof thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and godnot forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds,enough of the will …
William Wordsworth – I Have Thoughts That Are Fed By The Sun
William Wordsworth (April 07, 1770 – April 23, 1850) I have thoughts that are fed by the sun:The things which I seeAre welcome to me,Welcome every one –I do not wish to lieDead, dead,Dead, without any company.Here alone on my bedWith thoughts that are fed by the sun,And hopes that are welcome every one,Happy am …
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Eavan Boland – The Fire Gilder
Eavan Frances Boland (September 24, 1944 – April 27, 2020) She loved silver, she loved gold,my mother. She spoke about the influenceof metals, the congruence of atoms,the art classes where she learnedthese things: think of itshe would say as she told meto gild any surface a master craftsmanhad to meld gold with mercury,had to heat …
Jane Hirshfield – Ants’ Nest
Jane Hirshfield (February 24, 1953 -) “On Being the Right Size,” Haldane’s short essay is titled.An ants’ nest can be found at the top of a redwood.No bird that weighs less than—No insect more than—The minimum mass for a whale, for a language, an ice cap.In a human-sized room,someone is setting a human-sized table with …
Audre Lorde – The Bees
Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) In the street outside a schoolwhat the children learnpossesses them.Little boys yell as they stone a flock of beestrying to swarmbetween the lunchroom window and an iron grate.The boys sling furious rockssmashing the windows.The bees, buzzing their anger,are slow to attack.Then one boy is stunginto quicker …
Anis Mojgani – Once, In November
Anis Mojgani (June 13, 1977 -) You get into the shower and askWill you keep me company?I sit on the toilet’s lidand while you wash yourself and waterat the same time the ferns the spider plantthe pathos vining over the tilemarveling out loud how you loveto water them while showeringI read to you from a …
Nikki Giovanni – My First Memory (Of Librarians)
Nikki Giovanni (June 07, 1943 -) This is my first memory:A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky wood floorA line of green shades—bankers’ lights—down the centerHeavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply too short For me to sit in and readSo my first book was always big In …
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Oliver de la Paz – In Defense of Small Towns
Oliver de la Paz When I look at it, it’s simple, really. I hated life there. September,once filled with animal deaths and toughened hay. And the smellsof fall were boiled-down beets and potatoesor the farmhands’ breeches smeared with oil and dieselas they rode into town, dusty and pissed. The radio stationsplit time between metal and …
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James Ragan – Taming The Sloth
James Ragan (1944 -) I don’t know how long I can play with a sloth,how long I can wait to time his glidealong a space no wider than his bulbous face,as if the air had softened long enough to sloweach arm’s motion to an easy slide,as if by committing each inch of legto a longer …
Lisel Mueller – Immortality
Lisel Mueller (February 8, 1924–February 21, 2020) In Sleeping Beauty’s castlethe clock strikes one hundred yearsand the girl in the tower returns to the world.So do the servants in the kitchen,who don’t even rub their eyes.The cook’s right hand, liftedan exact century ago,completes its downward arcto the kitchen boy’s left ear;the boy’s tensed vocal cordsfinally …
William Carlos Williams — The Widow’s Lament In Springtime
William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) Sorrow is my own yardwhere the new grassflames as it has flamedoften before but notwith the cold firethat closes round me this year.Thirty-five yearsI lived with my husband.The plum tree is white todaywith masses of flowers.Masses of flowersload the cherry branchesand color some bushesyellow and …
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Naomi Shihab Nye – World Of The Future, We Thirsted
Naomi Shihab Nye (March 12, 1952 -) Stripped of a sense of well-being,we downed our water from small disposable bottles.Casting the plastic to streetside,we poured high-potency energy tonics or Cokedown our throats, because this time in historyhad sapped us so thoroughly andwe were desperate.Straws, plastic caps, crushed cans,in a three-block walk you could fill a …
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Chana Bloch – War And Peace
Chana Bloch (March 15, 1940 – May 19, 2017) I made a big wish on the evening star,Venus, or was it Mars,but it was a low-flying planeheaded east.I saw the little foxes on the hillsidewith their pointy red ears;up close, a fallen branch of autumn.When the guide clapped his hands,the brilliant apples on the tree …
Robert Wrigley – I Like The Wind
Robert Wrigley (1951 -) We are at or near that approximate linewhere a stiff breeze becomesor lapses from a considerable wind,and I like it here, the chimney smokesright-angled from west to east but stillfor brief intact stretchesthe plush animal tails of their fires.I like how the stiffness rouses the birdsright up until what’s considerable sends …
William Virgil Davis – The Family
after the painting by Egon Schiele William Virgil Davis Only the child,between his mother’s massive legs,is clothed.They both look offto the rightat something out of sight.The father, aboveand behind, his huge limbsframing them,stares—wide-eyedand proud—directlyat you. Nothing in the background matters. "The Family (Self Portrait)" (1918) by Egon Schiele is shown in this handout photo taken …
