Sunday Morning Poetry

A House of Readers

At 9:42 this May morning
the children's rooms are concentrating too.
Like a tendril growing toward the sun, Ruth
moves her book into a wedge of light
that settled on the floor like a butterfly.
She turns a page.
Fred is immersed in magic, cool
as a Black-Angus belly deep in a farm pond.

The only sounds: pages turning softly.
This is the quietness
of bottomland where you can hear only the young corn
growing, where a little breeze stirs the blades
and then breathes in again.

I mark my place.
I listen like a farmer in the rows.

                                                             ~ Jim Wayne Miller

Happy Sunday, friends.

Sunday Morning Poetry

 

Ode, 1874

We are the music makers.
And we are the dreamers of dreams.
Wandering by the lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; -
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
~ Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Happy Sunday, friends.

Sunday Morning Poetry

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far andwee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

~ e e cummings

Sunday Morning Poetry

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

~ Wislawa Syzmborska

Sunday Morning Poetry

 

 Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

    Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
    Because their words had forked no lightning they
    Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
    Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
    And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
    Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
    Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    And you, my father, there on the sad height,
    Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
    Do not go gentle into that good night.
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    ~ Dylan Thomas

Sometimes poetry is a miracle, but it is never ordinary.  Thanks, friends, for joining me on my ordinary miracles adventure. 

Sunday Morning Poetry

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow,
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow,
And the storm is fast descending
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

~ author unknown, shared by Edward Hirsch

Sunday Morning Poetry

pink sea urchin, magnified

Magnifying Glass

Small grains
in a stone
grow edges
that twinkle.

The smooth
moth's wing
sprouts feathers
like shingles;

My thumb
is wrapped
in rich
satin wrinkles.

~ Valerie Worth

Sunday Morning Poetry

The Cabbage

You have rented an apartment.
You come to this enclosure with physical relief,
your heavy body climbing the stairs in the dark,
the hall bulb burned out, the landlord
of Greek extraction and possibly a fatalist.
In the apartment and leaning against one wall,
your daughter' painting of  a large frilled cabbage,
against a dark sky with pinpoints of stars.
The eager vegetable opening itself
as if to eat the air, or speak in cabbage
language of the meanings within meanings;
while the points of stars hide their massive
violence in the dark upper half of the painting.
You can live with this.
     ~ Ruth Stone

Sunday Morning Poetry

We are trees

our roots

network

with the roots

of other trees

our branches

grow

with desire

of touching

other branches

by Francisco X. Alaracón

Sunday Morning Poetry

Who would be a turtle who could help it?

A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, 

she can ill afford the chances she must take

in rowing toward the grasses that she eats. 

Her track is graceless, like dragging

a packing-case places, and almost any slope

defeats her modest hopes.  Even being practical,

she's often stuck up to the axle on her way

to something edible. With everything optimal,

she skirts the ditch which would convert

her shell into a serving dish. She lives

below her luck-level, never imagining some lottery

will change her load of pottery to wings.

Her only levity is patience,

the sport of truly chastened things. 

~ Kay Ryan from Flamingo Watching © 1994

Sunday Morning Poetry

Enchantment
On warm summer nights
the porch becomes our living room
where Mama takes her reading
and Dad and I play games 
in the patch of brightness
the lamp scatters on the floor.
From the darkness, others come -
small round bodies
clinging to the screens
which separate us
from the yard beyond.
Drawn to our light, 
the June bugs watch our games
and listen to our talk till bedtime
when Mama darkens the porch
and breaks the spell
that holds them close to us.
                              ~ Joanne Ryder

Sunday Morning Poetry

Summer is with it
                she's wild,
                she likes
                bare legs and cutoffs
                and camping
                and hikes;
                she dives in deep water,
                she wades in a stream,
                she guzzles cold drinks
                and she drowns in ice cream;
                she runs barefoot,
                she picnics,
                she fishes,
                digs bait,
                she pitches a tent
                and she stays up too late
                while she counts the stars,
                swats mosquitoes and flies,
                hears crickets,
                smells pine trees,
                spies night-creature eyes;
                she rides bareback,
                goes sailing,
                plays tennis,
                climbs trees;
                she soaks in the sunshine;
               she gulps in a breeze;
               she tastes the warm air
               on the end of her tongue,
               and she falls asleep
               reading
               alone
               in the sun.
 ~ Myra Cohn Livingston

She's nearly here, friends.  Happy summer.

Sunday Morning Poetry

The Rider
A boy told me

if he roller-skated fast enough

his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard

for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight

pedaling hard down King William Street

is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness

panting behind you on some street corner

while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,

pink petals that have never felt loneliness,

no matter how slowly they fell.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Sunday Morning Poetry

This Morning

On this day you would find
a soft package of stars 
wrapped in sky, a ribboned tie
made of cloud, and a piece 
of joy for your heart,
and they would fit perfectly
in the palm of your small hand;
but because I am simply your grand
(mother) and not capable of magic,
you will find toy teapots, blue marbles
chocolate bells and sugared trees –
baby dolls and spy pens.
But I will find a way (don't ever doubt)
to hide keys that open treasures;
you will find them scattered, like crumbs, 
even when you are alone. Especially
when you are alone. I give you these
because I can, because I will, and that is why. 
Because I do not own the stars.
And they were out of sky.
                                             © 2011 Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Sunday Morning Poetry

I serve a risen Savior,
He's in the world today;
I know that He is living,
Whatever men may say;
I see His hand of mercy,
I hear His voice of cheer,
And just the time I need Him
He's always near.

He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and He talks with me
Along life's narrow way.
He lives, He live, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives:
He lives within my heart.

Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian,
Lift up your voice and sing
Eternal hallelujahs
To Jesus Christ the King!
The hope of all who seek Him,
The help of all who find,
None other is so loving,
So good and kind.
                                          ~ Fred Hammond

He is risen indeed.  Happy Easter, my friends.

Sunday Morning Poetry

Eli, Eli
My God, my God,

May these things never end,
The sand and the sea,
The murmur of the water,
The lightning of the heavens,
The prayer of man.

אלי, אלי
שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים
רשרוש של המים
ברק השמים
תפילת האדם

 - by Hannah Senesh, found here

Sunday Morning Poetry

After English Class

I used to like "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."
I liked the coming darkness,
The jingle of harness bells, breaking--and adding to
--the stillness,
The gentle drift of snow. . . .
But today, the teacher told us what everything stood for.
The woods, the horse, the miles to go, the sleep--
They all have "hidden meanings."
It's grown so complicated now that,
Next time I drive by,
I don't think I'll bother to stop.

~ Jean Little

Sunday Morning Poetry

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

~by Naomi Shihab Nye
from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. © Eighth Mountain Press, 1995. 

Sunday Morning Poetry

It’s mostly the way the word just dropsfrom your mouth, over before you even
start, and lands somewhere, like the sloppy
plunging sound of vomit as you heave

into the toilet. If that seems like an
unnecessary image for me to
plant in your head, I wonder if you can
suggest a less repulsive way to use

the word plop. Because most people think
of poo and various other semisolids and liquids you’d never drink
or even want to touch. Really, aside

from the patter of fat falling raindrops
there’s just no polite way to use plop.

~ Holly Painter

Plop was first published on the amazing blog, Dr. Hurley's Snak-Oil Cure.  Her submssions to Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure can be found here.  Holly Painter's poetry has been published on four continents. If you need a little more poetry in your life, Holly is a Poet-for-Hire.  Contact her here.  

Sunday Morning Poetry

Sky Wish

I wrote my wish
upon  a kite;
closed my eyes,
grabbed its string --

through wind
I ran,
let it fly...
my wish came true.

It flew into
that wide, wide, map
of sky.
~ Rebecca Kai Dotlich
from Climb Inside a Poem