A Poem A Day

[brokenclay]

 

Lines for Winter

by Mark Strand

 

Tell yourself

as it gets cold and gray falls from the air

that you will go on

walking, hearing

the same tune no matter where

you find yourself—

inside the dome of dark

or under the cracking white

of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.

Tonight as it gets cold

tell yourself

what you know which is nothing

but the tune your bones play

as you keep going. And you will be able

for once to lie down under the small fire

of winter stars.

And if it happens that you cannot

go on or turn back

and you find yourself

where you will be at the end,

tell yourself

in that final flowing of cold through your limbs

that you love what you are.

 

 

[brokenclay]

 

Risk

By Anaïs Nin

 

And then the day came, 
when the risk 
to remain tight 
in a bud 
was more painful 
than the risk 
it took 
to blossom.

 

[brokenclay]

 

 

Snow

by Anna Akhmatova

 

Upon the hard crest of a snow-drift

We tread, and grown quiet, we walk

On towards my house, white, enchanted;

Our mood is too tender for talk.

 

And sweeter than music, this dream now

Come true, the low boughs of the firs

That sway as we brush them in passing,

The slight silver clink of your spurs.

 

1917

[hh1990]

 

You, Andrew Marvell - Archibald Macleish

And here face down beneath the sun
And here upon earth’s noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night:

 

To feel creep up the curving east
The earthy chill of dusk and slow
Upon those under lands the vast
And ever climbing shadow grow

 

And strange at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange
The flooding dark about their knees
The mountains over Persia change

 

And now at Kermanshah the gate
Dark empty and the withered grass
And through the twilight now the late
Few travelers in the westward pass

 

And Baghdad darken and the bridge
Across the silent river gone
And through Arabia the edge
Of evening widen and steal on

 

And deepen on Palmyra’s street
The wheel rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
High through the clouds and overblown

 

And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls

 

And Spain go under and the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land

 

Nor now the long light on the sea:

 

And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on ...

[brokenclay]

 

Song

by T.S. Eliot

 

When we came home across the hill

    No leaves were fallen from the trees;

    The gentle fingers of the breeze

Had torn no quivering cobweb down.

 

The hedgerow bloomed with flowers still,

    No withered petals lay beneath;

    But the wild roses in your wreath

Were faded, and the leaves were brown.

[hh1990]

 

One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

 

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

 

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

 

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

 

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

 

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

[brokenclay]

Oh, I like that! Thank you.

 

The Sandhills

by Linda Hogan

 

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

 

Sandhills Crane Migration: Great Sand Dunes National Park

 

[brokenclay]

 

New Year's Eve

from Eight Haiku by Raymond Roseliep

 

When they ring their bells

I wring the thin rag of my

soul, already wrung. 

[brokenclay]

 

Beginnings

by Mary Allen Edge

 

Dawns are always wonder-dawns

Of perfect untouched hours;

Buds are perfect promises

Of unseen perfect flowers.

 

Youth is life unlimited

Not yet defined and small--

Not yet poured out in queer-shaped jugs

That cannot hold it all.

[hh1990]

 

Burning the Old Year - Naomi Shihab Nye

 

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

 

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

 

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

 

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies.

[brokenclay]

Oh, yes! I just got her book Hugging the Jukebox out from the library.

 

 

Winter Apple

by Reg Saner

 

Stem bent black as a wick.

Last leaf like withered flame.

Yet slick as brown satin

every seed keeps within it

a sun remotely afire,

ever so faint, yet patient

and wakeful

as all a long winter's

one furthest star.

[Madeline]

BRAVO!  BRAVO!   These poems have been such lovely inspiration as this new year gets underway.  Thank you both SO much!

 

( Is there an emoji for applause.  should be! )

[hh1990]

 

Gathering Leaves - Robert Frost

 

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
 
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
 
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
 
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
 
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
 
Next to nothing for use,
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?

[hh1990]

 

I Am Offering this Poem - Jimmy Santiago Baca

I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,

 

                         I love you,

 

I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,

 

                         I love you,

 

Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe

 

                         I love you,

 

It’s all I have to give,
and all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,

 

                         I love you.

[hh1990]

 

Four Haiku - Kris Hemensley

 

(i)

 

(for Robert Grey)

 

caged by dappled light

unlike Rilke’s beast     content

this side of heaven

 

(ii)

 

perennial green

ephemeral butterfly

what time’s time enough?

 

(iii)

 

red roof in full leaf

sail now grey threatening sky

cry blue land ahoy!

 

(iv)

 

in this green waiting

birds trill leaves quiver then time

interjects its train!

[hh1990]

  On 1/2/2021 at 8:44 PM, Madeline said:

BRAVO!  BRAVO!   These poems have been such lovely inspiration as this new year gets underway.  Thank you both SO much!

 

( Is there an emoji for applause.  should be! )

Expand  

 

Thank you Madeline, and thank you brokenclay. I've really enjoyed looking for these poems.

[brokenclay]

 

from "Late"

by Gottfried Benn

 

Feel it—but remember, millennia have felt it—

the sea and the beasts and the mindless stars

wrestle it down today as ever—

 

think it—but remember, the most exalted

are wallowing in their own bow-wave,

are no more than the yellow of the buttercup,

while other colors too play their game—

 

remember and endure the hour,

there was never one like it, all are like it,

people and angels and cherubim,

black-winged, bright-eyed,

none was yours—

was ever yours.

[brokenclay]

  On 1/5/2021 at 3:44 AM, hh1990 said:

 

Thank you Madeline, and thank you brokenclay. I've really enjoyed looking for these poems.

Expand  

 

Looking for the poems is the actual goodness, isn't it?

[brokenclay]

 

Words are Birds

by Francisco X. Alarcón

 

words

are birds

that arrive

with books

and spring

 

they

love

clouds

the wind

and trees

 

some words

are messengers

that come

from far away

from distant lands

 

for them

there are

no borders

only stars

moon and sun

 

some words

are familiar

like canaries

others are exotic

like the quetzal bird

 

some can stand

the cold

others migrate

with the sun

to the south

 

some words

die

caged—

they're difficult

to translate

 

and others

build nests

have chicks

warm them

feed them

 

teach them

how to fly

and one day

they go away

in flocks

 

the letters

on this page

are the prints

they leave

by the sea

 

[hh1990]

 

Demeter's Prayer to Hades - Rita Dove

 

This alone is what I wish for you: knowledge.
To understand each desire has an edge,
to know we are responsible for the lives
we change. No faith comes without cost,
no one believes without dying.
Now for the first time
I see clearly the trail you planted,
what ground opened to waste,
though you dreamed a wealth
of flowers.

                   There are no curses – only mirrors
held up to the souls of gods and mortals.
And so I give up this fate, too.
Believe in yourself,
go ahead – see where it gets you.