A Poem A Day

[brokenclay]

About 2 weeks ago, a large section of the fence on our back property line (which we share with four neighbors) blew down in a high wind. Interesting negotiations with all parties ensued.

 

The new fence has just been completed, so of course today's poem has to be Frost's Mending Walls.

 

j

 

Mending Walls

by Robert Frost

 

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

 

[ajoe]

[brokenclay]

 

Fire and Ice

by Robert Frost

 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

[brokenclay]

 

January 6

by Vicki Hearne

 

We must stop bragging. There are limits

For us to the cold and the twelfth night

 

Marks them all. Just off the coast of Maine

The lobster boats pass, dragging their nets.

 

Capsize once in a while, in water

Like that you die, that’s all, that water

 

Isn’t even frozen. Not even

Frozen, and that’s as cold as it gets.

 

The hearts of birds beat voraciously

So they keep warm, so if you put out

 

A feeder, keep it full of the seeds

Their hearts feed on, then it is only

 

When their food runs out that you find them

Inexpressibly taut in hollows,

 

And that’s as cold as it ever gets.

[brokenclay]

 

Sapphics Against Anger

by Timothy Steele

 

Angered, may I be near a glass of water;

May my first impulse be to think of Silence,

Its deities (who are they? do, in fact, they

Exist? etc.).

 

May I recall what Aristotle says of

The subject: to give vent to rage is not to

Release it but to be increasingly prone

To its incursions.

 

May I imagine being in the Inferno,

Hearing it asked: “Virgilio mio, who’s

That sulking with Achilles there?” and hearing

Virgil say: “Dante,

 

That fellow, at the slightest provocation,

Slammed phone receivers down, and waved his arms like

A madman. What Attila did to Europe,

What Genghis Khan did

 

To Asia, that poor dope did to his marriage.”

May I, that is, put learning to good purpose,

Mindful that melancholy is a sin, though

Stylish at present.

 

Better than rage is the post-dinner quiet,

The sink’s warm turbulence, the streaming platters,

The suds rehearsing down the drain in spirals

In the last rinsing.

 

For what is, after all, the good life save that

Conducted thoughtfully, and what is passion

If not the holiest of powers, sustaining

Only if mastered.

 

 

[PuliMorgan]

[PuliMorgan]

[dftr]

 

Across these miles I wish you well

May nothing haunt your heart but sleep

May you not sense what I do not tell

May you not dream or doubt or weep

 

May what my pen this peaceless day

Writes on this page not reach your view

Till its deferred print lets you say

It speaks to someone else than you

 

[brokenclay]

 

Seeding an Alphabet

by Emily Warn

 

To invent the alef-beit,

decipher the grammar of crows,

read a tangle of bare branches

with vowels of the last leaves

scrawling their jittery speech

on the sky’s pale page.

 

Choose a beginning.

See what God yields and dirt cedes

when tines disturb fescue, vetch, and sage,

when your hand dips grain from a sack,

scattering it among engraved furrows.

 

Beyond the hill, a plume of dust

where oxen track the hours.

Does God lead or follow or scout?

To answer, count to one again and again:

a red maple leaf and a yellow maple leaf

that wind rifles and rain shines until they let go,

blazing their scripted nothingness on air.

 

[inkstainedruth]

You find the coolest poems!

Thanks for doing this.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[brokenclay]

22 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

You find the coolest poems!

Thank you! 🙂

[brokenclay]

 

Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way

by Juan Felipe Herrera

 

Let us gather in a flourishing way

with sunluz grains abriendo los cantos

que cargamos cada día   

en el young pasto nuestro cuerpo

para regalar y dar feliz perlas pearls

of corn flowing árboles de vida en las cuatro esquinas

let us gather in a flourishing way

contentos llenos de fuerza to vida

giving nacimientos to fragrant ríos   

dulces frescos verdes turquoise strong

carne de nuestros hijos rainbows

let us gather in a flourishing way

en la luz y en la carne of our heart to toil

tranquilos in fields of blossoms

juntos to stretch los brazos

tranquilos with the rain en la mañana

temprana estrella on our forehead

cielo de calor and wisdom to meet us

where we toil siempre

in the garden of our struggle and joy

let us offer our hearts a saludar our águila rising

freedom

a celebrar woven brazos branches ramas

piedras nopales plumas piercing bursting

figs and aguacates

ripe mariposa fields and mares claros

of our face

to breathe todos en el camino blessing

seeds to give to grow maiztlán

en las manos de nuestro amor

 

 

[brokenclay]

 

The Well Rising

by William E. Stafford

 

The well rising without sound,

the spring on a hillside,

the plowshare brimming through deep ground

everywhere in the field—

 

The sharp swallows in their swerve

flaring and hesitating

hunting for the final curve

coming closer and closer—

 

The swallow heart from wingbeat to wingbeat

counseling decision, decision:

thunderous examples. I place my feet

with care in such a world.

[brokenclay]

 

Techno-Origami

by Haji Khavari 

translated by Roger Sedarat

 

The 3-D printer

worked overtime

sculpting lemon trees

complete with bees

on budding flowers.

The overheated machine

filled the cardboard orchard

with the scent of hot plastic.

The 12th nightingale arrived

like a prophet

in a cloud of smoke,

considering the same hand

that pushed “print”

remained destined to strike

a single match

and wave goodbye

to a paradise

of paper.

[brokenclay]

 

A Word on Verbs

by Wendy Videlock

 

It's often those

          who talk a streak

 

on world affairs

          and love and peace

 

who seem to love

          and peace the least.

[brokenclay]

 

Haiku

by Raymond Roseliep 

 

Beauty, be patient,

be, while I shelve Aquinas:

hills, wait until I come.

[brokenclay]

 

When I Am Gone

by Shel Silverstein

 

When I am gone what will you do?

Who will write and draw for you?

Someone smarter—someone new?

Someone better—maybe YOU!

[mizgeorge]

33 minutes ago, brokenclay said:

 

When I Am Gone

by Shel Silverstein

 

When I am gone what will you do?

Who will write and draw for you?

Someone smarter—someone new?

Someone better—maybe YOU!

How very apt. I still enjoy your cursive though.

[PuliMorgan]

21 hours ago, brokenclay said:

 

When I Am Gone

by Shel Silverstein

 

When I am gone what will you do?

Who will write and draw for you?

Someone smarter—someone new?

Someone better—maybe YOU!

 

 

Good one!

[PuliMorgan]

 

Only a fool! Only a Poet! 

 

by Nietzsche