Page | 1

The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowlyoff the blue walls of this room,moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,when I found myself in the L section of the dictionarywhere my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelistcould send one into the past more suddenly—a past where I sat at a workbench at a campby a deep Adirondack lakelearning how to braid long thin plastic stripsinto a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyardor wear one, if that’s what you did with them,but that did not keep me from crossingstrand over strand again and againuntil I had made a boxyred and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,and I gave her a lanyard.She nursed me in many a sick room,lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.Here are thousands of meals, she said,and here is clothing and a good education.And here is your lanyard, I replied,which I made with a little help from a counselor. Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,strong legs, bones and teeth,and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.And here, I wish to say to her now,is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,but the rueful admission that when she tookthe two-tone lanyard from my hand,I was as sure as a boy could bethat this useless, worthless thing I woveout of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Billy Collins2005

Page | 2

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost1916

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson1889

Page | 3

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronmomerWhen the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman1865

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave 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 theyDo not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir 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 sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that 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 Thomas1952

Page | 4

Of Many Worlds in This World

Just like as in a nest of boxes round,Degrees of sizes in each box are found:So, in this world, may many others beThinner and less, and less still by degree:Although they are not subject to our sense,A world may be no bigger than two-pence.Nature is curious, and such works may shape,Which our dull senses easily escape:For creatures, small as atoms, may there be,If every one a creature’s figure bear.If atoms four, a world can make, then seeWhat several worlds might in an ear-ring be:For, millions of those atoms may be inThe head of one small, little, single pin.And if thus small, then ladies may well wearA world of worlds, as pendents in each ear.

Margaret Cavendish1668

Mrs. Snow

Busts of the great composers glimmered in niches,Pale stars. Poor Mrs. Snow, who could forget her,Calling the time out in that hushed falsetto?(How early we begin to grasp what kitsch is!)But when she loomed above us like an alp,We little towns below could feel her shadow.Somehow her nods of approval seemed to matterMore than the stray flakes drifting from her scalp.Her etchings of ruins, her mass-production MingsWere our first culture: she put us in awe of things.And once, with her help, I composed a waltz,Too innocent to be completely false,Perhaps, but full of marvelous clichés.She beamed and softened then.                                    Ah, those were the days.

Donald Justice2006

Page | 5

Alone

I am alone, in spite of love,In spite of all I take and give—In spite of all your tenderness,Sometimes I am not glad to live.

I am alone, as though I stoodOn the highest peak of the tired gray world,About me only swirling snow,Above me, endless space unfurled;

With earth hidden and heaven hidden,And only my own spirit's prideTo keep me from the peace of thoseWho are not lonely, having died.

Sara Teasdaleca. 1921

Not Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,But still he lay moaning:I was much further out than you thoughtAnd not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larkingAnd now he's deadIt must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always(Still the dead one lay moaning)I was much too far out all my lifeAnd not waving but drowning.

Stevie Smith1957

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Randall Jarrell 1945

Page | 6

You Begin

You begin this way:this is your hand,this is your eye,this is a fish, blue and flaton the paper, almostthe shape of an eyeThis is your mouth, this is an Oor a moon, whicheveryou like. This is yellow.

Outside the windowis the rain, greenbecause it is summer, and beyond thatthe trees and then the world,which is round and has onlythe colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fullerand more difficult to learn than I have said.You are right to smudge it that waywith the red and thenthe orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these wordsyou will learn that there are morewords than you can ever learn.The word hand floats above your handlike a small cloud over a lake.The word hand anchorsyour hand to this tableyour hand is a warm stoneI hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,which is round but not flat and has more colorsthan we can see.It begins, it has an end,this is what you willcome back to, this is your hand.

Margaret Atwood1978

Page | 7

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:Praise him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins1918

Mutability

The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou—and from thy sleep Then wake to weep.

Percy Bysshe Shelley1824

The World’s Greatest Tricycle Rider

Page | 8

The world’s greatest tricycle rider is in my heart, riding like a wildman, no hands, almost upside down, along the walls and over the high curbs and stoops, his bell rapid-firing, the sun spinning in his spokes like a flame.

But he is growing older. His feet overshoot the pedals. His teeth set too hard against the jolts, and I am afraid that what I’ve kept from him is what tightens his fingers on the rubber grips and drives him again and again on the same block.

C. K. Williams1966

Shawl

Eight hours by bus, and night was on them. He could see himself now in the window, see his head there with the country running through it like a long thought made of steel and wheat. Darkness outside; darkness in the bus — as if the sea were dark and the belly of the whale were dark to match it. He was twenty: of course his eyes returned, repeatedly, to the knee of the woman two rows up: positioned so occasional headlights struck it into life. But more reliable was the book; he was discovering himself to be among the tribe that reads. Now his, the only overhead turned on. Now nothing else existed: only him, and the book, and the light thrown over his shoulders as luxuriously as a cashmere shawl.

Albert Goldbarth2007

Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Matched with an aged wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drinkLife to the lees: all times I have enjoyedGreatly, have suffered greatly, both with thoseThat loved me, and alone; on shore, and whenThrough scudding drifts the rainy HyadesVest the dim sea: I am become a name;For always roaming with a hungry heartMuch have I seen and known; cities of menAnd manners, climates, councils, governments,Myself not least, but honoured of them all;And drunk delight of battle with my peers;Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

Page | 9

I am part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethroughGleams that untravelled world, whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move.How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!As though to breath were life. Life piled on lifeWere all to little, and of one to meLittle remains: but every hour is savedFrom that eternal silence, something more,A bringer of new things; and vile it wereFor some three suns to store and hoard myself,And this gray spirit yearning in desireTo follow knowledge like a sinking star,Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,To whom I leave the scepter and the isle—Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfillThis labour, by slow prudence to make mildA rugged people, and through soft degreesSubdue them to the useful and the good.Most blameless is he, centered in the sphereOf common duties, decent not to failIn offices of tenderness, and payMeet adoration to my household gods,When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me—That ever with a frolic welcome tookThe thunder and the sunshine, and opposedFree hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;Old age had yet his honour and his toil;Death closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deepMoans round with many voices. Come, my friends,'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and sitting well in order smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die.It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.Though much is taken, much abides; and thoughWe are not now that strength which in the old daysMoved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,One equal-temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson1833

Those Winter Sundays

Page | 10

Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden 1962

Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least: Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee,--and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.

William Shakespeareca. 1599

Peaches

A mouthful of language to swallow:stretches of beach, sweet clinches,breaches in walls, pleached branches;britches hauled over haunches;hunched leeches, wrenched teachers.What English can do: ransackthe warmth that chuckles beneathfuzzed surfaces, smooth velvetrichness, plashy juices.I beseech you, peach,clench me into the sweetnessof your reaches.

Peter Davison 1989

Page | 11

Dedication

My first gift and my last, to youI dedicate this fascicle of songs -The only wealth I have:Just as they are, to you.

I speak the truth in soberness, and sayI had rather bring a light to your clear eyes,Had rather hear you praiseThis bosomful of songs

Than that the whole, hard world with one consent,In one continuous chorus of applausePoured forth for me and mineThe homage of ripe praise.

I write the finis here against my love,This is my love's last epitaph and tomb.Here the road forks, and IGo my way, far from yours.

Robert Louis Stevenson1878

When I Was One-and-Twenty

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, ‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.’ But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, ‘The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; ’Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue.’ And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

A. E. Houseman1896

Oranges 

Page | 12

The first time I walked With a girl, I was twelve, Cold, and weighted down With two oranges in my jacket. December.  Frost cracking Beneath my steps, my breath Before me, then gone, As I walked toward Her house, the one whose Porch light burned yellow Night and day, in any weather. A dog barked at me, until She came out pulling At her gloves, face bright With rouge.  I smiled, Touched her shoulder, and led Her down the street, across A used car lot and a line Of newly planted trees, Until we were breathing Before a drugstore.  We Entered, the tiny bell Bringing a saleslady Down a narrow aisle of goods. I turned to the candies Tiered like bleachers, And asked what she wanted - Light in her eyes, a smile Starting at the corners Of her mouth.  I fingered A nickel in my pocket, And when she lifted a chocolate That cost a dime, I didn't say anything. I took the nickel from My pocket, then an orange, And set them quietly on The counter.  When I looked up, The lady's eyes met mine, And held them, knowing Very well what it was all About. Outside, A few cars hissing past, Fog hanging like old Coats between the trees. I took my girl's hand in mine for two blocks, Then released it to let Her unwrap the chocolate. I peeled my orange That was so bright against The gray of December That, from some distance, Someone might have thought I was making a fire in my hands.

Gary Soto1995

Page | 13

Ode on Solitude

Happy the man, whose wish and care   A few paternal acres bound,Content to breathe his native air,                            In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,   Whose flocks supply him with attire,Whose trees in summer yield him shade,                            In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find   Hours, days, and years slide soft away,In health of body, peace of mind,                            Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,   Together mixed; sweet recreation;And innocence, which most does please,                            With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;   Thus unlamented let me die;Steal from the world, and not a stone                            Tell where I lie.

Alexander Popecirca 1700

Love Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topazor the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never bloomsbut carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda1960

If I Could Tell You

Page | 14

Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although, Because I love you more than I can say, If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow, There must be reasons why the leaves decay; Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow, The vision seriously intends to stay; If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go, And all the brooks and soldiers run away; Will Time say nothing but I told you so? If I could tell you I would let you know.

W. H. Auden1945

On the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes*

‘Twas on a lofty vase's side,Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow;Demurest of the tabby kind,The pensive Selima, reclined, Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws,Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tideTwo angel forms were seen to glide, The genii of the stream:Their scaly armor's Tyrian hueThrough richest purple to the view Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw:A whisker first and then a claw, With many an ardent wish,She stretched in vain to reach the prize.What female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent

Page | 15

Again she stretched, again she bent, Nor knew the gulf between.(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled)The slippery verge her feet beguiled, She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the floodShe mewed to every watery god, Some speedy aid to send.No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard; A favorite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved, And be with caution bold.Not all that tempts your wandering eyesAnd heedless hearts, is lawful prize; Nor all that glisters, gold.

Thomas Gray1747

*The poem is written in a style known as ‘mock epic.’

The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life, and bid thee feed, By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee. He is called by thy name, For He calls Himself a Lamb. He is meek, and He is mild; He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee!

William Blake 1789

An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

Page | 16

I know that I shall meet my fateSomewhere among the clouds above;Those that I fight I do not hate,Those that I guard I do not love;My country is Kiltartan Cross,My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,No likely end could bring them lossOr leave them happier than before.Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,A lonely impulse of delightDrove to this tumult in the clouds;I balanced all, brought all to mind,The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behindIn balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats1919

# 1129

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind—

Emily Dickinson1862

Grass  

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

Carl Sandburg 1918

Page | 17

To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkindFor, from the nunneryOf thy chaste breast, and quiet mind,To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,The first foe in the field;And with a stronger faith- embraceA sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this unconstancy is suchAs you too shall adore;For, I could not love thee, Dear, so much,Loved I not honour more.

Richard Lovelace1649

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove,A maid whom there were none to praiseAnd very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stoneHalf hidden from the eye!—Fair as a star, when only oneIs shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could knowWhen Lucy ceased to be;But she is in her grave, and, oh,The difference to me!

William Wordsworth1800

Reconciliation

Word over all, beautiful as the sky!Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softlywash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;For my enemy is dead--a man divine as myself is dead;I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin--I draw near;I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

Walt Whitman1865-66

The Night is Darkening Round Me

Page | 18

The night is darkening round me,The wild winds coldly blow,But a tyrant spell has bound meAnd I cannot cannot go.

The giant trees are bending,Their bare boughs weighted 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.

Emily Bronte1837

O, My Friend

O, my friend,What fitting word can I say?You, my chum,My companion of infinite talks,My inspiration,My guide,Through whom I saw myself at best;You, the light of this western country.You, a great richness.A glory,A charm,Product and treasure of these States.

Bill, I knew you had gone.I was walking down into town this morning,And amid the hurry of cars and the flash of this July sun,You came to me.At least the intimation came to me;And may it be you,That somewhere I can laugh and talk long hours with you again.

Edgar Lee Mastersca. 1915

Mirror

Page | 19

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.Whatever I see I swallow immediatelyJust as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.I am not cruel, only truthful --The eye of a little god, four-cornered.Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so longI think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,Searching my reaches for what she really is.Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.I am important to her. She comes and goes.Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old womanRises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Sylvia Plath 1961

Sonnet 30

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:How comes it then that this her cold is so greatIs not dissolved through my so hot desire,But harder grows the more I her entreat?Or how comes it that my exceeding heatIs not allayed by her heart frozen cold,But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,And feel my flames augmented manifold?What more miraculous thing may be told,That fire which all things melts should harden ice:And ice which is congealed with senseless cold,Should kindle fire by wonderful device?Such is the power of love in gentle mind,That it can alter all the course of kind.

Edmund Spenser1595

The Cross of Snow*

Page | 20

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,     A gentle face — the face of one long dead —     Looks at me from the wall, where round its head     The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died; and soul more white     Never through martyrdom of fire was led     To its repose; nor can in books be read     The legend of a life more benedight. There is a mountain in the distant West     That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines     Displays a cross of snow upon its side. Such is the cross I wear upon my breast     These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes     And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1879

*Longfellow’s second wife, Fanny, died in 1861 when her dress caught fire.The poet suffered severe burns trying to save her. This poem was found inLongfellow’s portfolio after his death.

Heat

O wind, rend open the heat,cut apart the heat,rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot dropthrough this thick air --fruit cannot fall into the heat

that presses up and blunts the points of pearsand rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat --plough through it,turning it on either sideof your path.

H.D.1919

Stopping By Woods on Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

Page | 21

His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost 1923

Rain

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me Remembering again that I shall die And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks For washing me cleaner than I have been Since I was born into this solitude. Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: But here I pray that none whom once I loved Is dying tonight or lying still awake Solitary, listening to the rain, Either in pain or thus in sympathy Helpless among the living and the dead, Like a cold water among broken reeds, Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff, Like me who have no love which this wild rain Has not dissolved except the love of death, If love it be towards what is perfect and Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

Edward Thomas1916

Modern Love

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,

Page | 22

The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangely mute, like little gasping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall. Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

George Meredith1862

Epitaph on her Son H. P.

What on Earth deserves our trust ?Youth and Beauty both are dust.Long we gathering are with pain,What one moment calls again.Seven years childless, marriage past,A Son, a son is born at last :So exactly lim'd and fair.Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air,As a long life promised,Yet, in less than six weeks dead.Too promising, too great a mindIn so small room to be confin'd :Therefore, as fit in Heav'n to dwell,He quickly broke the Prison shell.So the subtle Alchimist,Can't with Hermes Seal resistThe powerful spirit's subtler flight,But t'will bid him long good night.And so the Sun if it ariseHalf so glorious as his Eyes,Like this Infant, takes a shrowd,Buried in a morning Cloud.

Katherine Philips1655

A Blessing

Just off the Highway to Rochester, MinnesotaTwilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

Page | 23

And the eyes of those two Indian poniesDarken with kindness.They have come gladly out of the willowsTo welcome my friend and me.We step over the barbed wire into the pastureWhere they have been grazing all day, alone.They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happinessThat we have come.They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.There is no loneliness like theirs.At home once more,They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,For she has walked over to meAnd nuzzled my left hand.She is black and white,Her mane falls wild on her forehead,And the light breeze moves me to caress her long earThat is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.Suddenly I realizeThat if I stepped out of my body I would breakInto blossom.

James Wright1963

I Am

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost; And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life nor joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best-- Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod; A place where woman never smil'd or wept; There to abide with my creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept: Untroubling and untroubled where I lie; The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

John Clare1865

On His Blindness

Page | 24

When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts: who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed And post o'er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait."

John Milton 1652

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear -- "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1818

Calvary

Friendless and faint, with martyred steps and slow, Faint for the flesh, but for the spirit free,

Page | 25

Stung by the mob that came to see the show, The Master toiled along to Calvary; We gibed him, as he went, with houndish glee, Till his dimmed eyes for us did overflow; We cursed his vengeless hands thrice wretchedly, -- And this was nineteen hundred years ago.

But after nineteen hundred years the shame Still clings, and we have not made good the loss That outraged faith has entered in his name. Ah, when shall come love's courage to be strong! Tell me, O Lord -- tell me, O Lord, how long Are we to keep Christ writhing on the cross!

Edward Arlington Robinson 1921

Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,On a white heal-all, holding up a mothLike a white piece of rigid satin cloth --Assorted characters of death and blightMixed ready to begin the morning right,Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?What brought the kindred spider to that height,Then steered the white moth thither in the night?What but design of darkness to appall?--If design govern in a thing so small.

Robert Frost 1936

If You Forget Me

Page | 26

I want you to knowone thing.

You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.

Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs up to your lips to seek me,ah my love, ah my own,in me all that fire is repeated,in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,my love feeds on your love, beloved,and as long as you live it will be in your armswithout leaving mine

Pablo Neruda1923

Dover Beach

Page | 27

The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; -- on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the moon-blanched land,Listen! You hear the grating roarOf pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,At their return, up the high strand,Begin, and cease, and then again begin,With cadence tremulous cadence slow, and bringThe eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long agoHeard it on the Aegean, and it broughtInto his mind the turbid ebb and flowOf human misery; weFind also in the sound a thought,Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! For the world, which seemsTo lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;And we are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Matthew Arnold1867

Sonnet 71

No longer mourn for me when I am deadThen you shall hear the surly sullen bellGive warning to the world that I am fled

Page | 28

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you soThat I in your sweet thoughts would be forgotIf thinking on me then should make you woe. O, if, I say, you look upon this verseWhen I perhaps compounded am with clay,Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.But let your love even with my life decay,   Lest the wise world should look into your moan   And mock you with me after I am gone.

William Shakespeare1609

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forest of the night What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake1794

Page | 29

The Wild Cherry

We put a prop beneath the sagging boughThat yearned over the beach, setting four stonesCairn-like against it, but we thought our groansWere the wild cherry’s, for it was as thoughUtterly set with broken seams on doomIt listed wilfully down like a mast,Stubborn as some smashed recalcitrant boomThat will neither be cut loose nor made fast.Going-going- it was yet no bidderFor life, whether for such sober healingWe left its dead branches to considerUntil its sunward pulse renewed, feelingThe passionate hatred of that treeWhose longing was to wash away to sea.

Malcolm Lowry1949

The Greater Cats

The greater cats with golden eyes Stare out between the bars. Deserts are there, and the different skies, And night with different stars. They prowl the aromatic hill, And mate as fiercely as they kill, To roam, to live, to drink their fill; But this beyond their wit know I: Man loves a little, and for long shall die.

Their kind across the desert range Where tulips spring from stones, Not knowing they will suffer change Or vultures pick their bones. Their strength's eternal in their sight, They overtake the deer in flight, And in their arrogance they smite; But I am sage, if they are strong: Man's love is transient as his death is long.

Yet oh what powers to deceive! My wit is turned to faith, And at this moment I believe In love, and scout at death. I came from nowhere, and shall be Strong, steadfast, swift, eternally: I am a lion, a stone, a tree, And as the Polar star in me Is fixed my constant heart on thee. Ah, may I stay forever blind With lions, tigers, leopards, and their kind.

Vita Sackville-West 1930

Page | 30

The Sacred

After the teacher asked if anyone had    a sacred placeand the students fidgeted and shrank

in their chairs, the most serious of them all    said it was his car,being in it alone, his tape deck playing

things he'd chosen, and others knew the truth    had been spokenand began speaking about their rooms,

their hiding places, but the car kept coming up,    the car in motion,music filling it, and sometimes one other person

who understood the bright altar of the dashboard    and how far awaya car could take him from the need

to speak, or to answer, the key    in having a keyand putting it in, and going.

Stephen Dunn1989

Wild Geese 

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Mary Oliver 1986

Page | 31

We Assume

On the Death of Our Son, Reuben Masai Harper

We assumethat in 28 hours,lived in a collapsible isolette,* * an incubator for premature infants that provides a controlled environment you learned to accept pure oxygen as the natural sky;the scant shallow breathsthat filled those hourscannot, did not make you fly --but dreams were thereliked crooked palmprints onthe twin-thick windows of the nursery --in the glands of your mother.

We assume the sterile handsdrank chemicals in and outfrom lungs opaque with mucus,pumped your stomach,eeked the bicarbonate incrooked, green-winged veins,out in a plastic mask;

A woman who’d lost her first sonconsoled us with an angel gone aheadto pray for our family --gone into that skyseeking oxygen,gone into autopsy,a fine brown powdered sugar,a disposable cremation:

We assumeyou did not know we loved you.

Michael Harperca. 1970

Page | 32

Moment

Let him wish his lifeFor the sorrows of a stoneNever knowing the first threadOf theseNever knowing the pain of iceAs its crystals slowly growNeedless pressing in on the heart

To live foreverAnd never feel a thingTo wait a million lifetimesOnly to erode and become sandWish not for the stoneBut for the fireLast only momentsBut change everything

Oh to be lightningTo exist for less than a momentYet in that momentTo expose the world to every open eyeOh to be thunderTo clap and ring To rumble into memoriesMinds and spines

To chill the soul and shake the very groundPounding even the sandInto smaller piecesOr the mountainBrooding, extinctYet gathering for one fatal momentThe power to blow the top clean off the worldOh to last the blink of an eye and leave nothingBut nothing unmoved behind you 

Vincent Guilliano1991

Page | 33

Storm Warnings

The glass has been falling all the afternoon, And knowing better than the instrument What winds are walking overhead, what zone Of grey unrest is moving across the land, I leave the book upon a pillowed chair And walk from window to closed window, watching Boughs strain against the sky

And think again, as often when the air Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting, How with a single purpose time has traveled By secret currents of the undiscerned Into this polar realm. Weather abroad And weather in the heart alike come on Regardless of prediction.

Between foreseeing and averting change Lies all the mastery of elements Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter. Time in the hand is not control of time, Nor shattered fragments of an instrument A proof against the wind; the wind will rise, We can only close the shutters.

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black And set a match to candles sheathed in glass Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine Of weather through the unsealed aperture. This is our sole defense against the season; These are the things we have learned to do Who live in troubled regions.

Adrienne Rich1951

The Diameter of the Bomb

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters, with four dead and eleven wounded. And around these, in a larger circle of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered and one graveyard. But the young woman who was buried in the city she came from, at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers, enlarges the circle considerably, and the solitary man mourning her death at the distant shores of a country far across the sea includes the entire world in the circle. And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans that reaches up to the throne of God and beyond, making a circle with no end and no God.

Yehuda Amichai 1972

Page | 34

Mirror in February

The day dawns, with scent of must and rain,Of opened soil, dark trees, dry bedroom air.Under the fading lamp, half dressed -- my brainIdling on some compulsive fantasy --I towel my shaven jaw and stop, and stare,Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,A dry downturning mouth.

It seems again that it is time to learn,In this untiring, crumbling place of growthTo which, for the time being, I return.Now plainly in the mirror of my soulI read that I have looked my last on youthAnd little more; for they are not made wholeThat reach the age of Christ.

Below my window the wakening trees,Hacked clean for better bearing, stand defaced Suffering their brute necessities;And how should the flesh not quail, that span for span Is mutilated more? In slow distasteI fold my towel with what grace I can,Not young, and not renewable, but man.

Thomas Kinsella ca. 1958

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyondany experience,your eyes have their silence:in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose methough i have closed myself as fingers,you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i andmy life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,as when the heart of this flower imaginesthe snow carefully everywhere descending;nothing which we are to perceive in this world equalsthe power of your intense fragility:whose texturecompels me with the color of its countries,rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closesand opens;only something in me understandsthe voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

e.e.cummings1931

Page | 35

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,The crystal goblet and the wine... -Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,the crystal goblet and the wine.You are the dew on the morning grassand the burning wheel of the sun.You are the white apron of the baker,and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,the plums on the counter,or the house of cards.And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,but you are not even closeto being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will showthat you are neither the boots in the cornernor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,the evening paper blowing down an alleyand the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the treesand the blind woman's tea cup.But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.You are still the bread and the knife.You will always be the bread and the knife,not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Billy Collins2002

Page | 36

Holy Sonnet X

Death, be not proud, though some have callèd theeMighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowDie not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.From rest and sleep, which yet thy pictures be,Much pleasure, then from thee much more, must flowAnd soonest our best men with thee do go,Rest of their bones and soul’s delivery.Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate menAnd dost with poison, war and sickness dwell,And poppy or charms can make us sleep as wellAnd better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?One short sleep past, we wake eternally,And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

John Donne1633

I Thank You God for Most this Amazing Day i thank You God for most this amazingday:for the leaping greenly spirits of treesand a blue true dream of sky;and for everythingwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birthday of life and of love and wings: and of the gaygreat happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeingbreathing any -- lifted from the noof all nothing -- human merely beingdoubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my eyes awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummingsca. 1953

Page | 37

Calverly’s

We go no more to Calverly's, For there the lights are few and low; And who are there to see by them, Or what they see, we do not know. Poor strangers of another tongue May now creep in from anywhere, And we, forgotten, be no more Than twilight on a ruin there.

We two, the remnant. All the rest Are cold and quiet. You nor I, Nor fiddle now, nor flagon-lid, May ring them back from where they lie. No fame delays oblivion For them, but something yet survives: A record written fair, could we But read the book of scattered lives.

There'll be a page for Leffingwell, And one for Lingard, the Moon-calf; And who knows what for Clavering, Who died because he couldn't laugh? Who knows or cares? No sign is here, No face, no voice, no memory; No Lingard with his eerie joy, No Clavering, no Calverly.

We cannot have them here with us To say where their light lives are gone, Or if they be of other stuff Than are the moons of Ilion. So, be their place of one estate With ashes, echoes, and old wars, -- Or ever we be of the night, Or we be lost among the stars.

Edward Arlington Robinson1917

Page | 38

Child Burial

Your coffin looked unreal,fancy as a wedding cake. I chose your grave clothes with care,your favourite stripey shirt, your blue cotton trousers.They smelt of woodsmoke, of October, your own smell was there too.I chose a gansy of handspun wool, warm and fleecy for you.  It isso cold down in the dark. No light can reach you and teach youthe paths of the wild birds, the names of the flowers,the fishes, the creatures. Ignorant you must remainof the sun and its work, my lamb, my calf, my eaglet,my cub, my kid, my nestling, my suckling, my colt.  I would spintime back, take you again within my womb, your amniotic lair,and further spin you back through nine waxing monthsto the split seeding moment you chose to be made fleshword within me.  I'd cancel the love feastthe hot night of your making. I would travel aloneto a quiet mossy place, you would spill from me into the earthdrop by bright red drop.

Paula Meehan1991

Page | 39

To Earthward

Love at the lips was touchAs sweet as I could bear;And once that seemed too much;I lived on airThat crossed me from sweet things,The scent of -- was it muskFrom hidden grapevine springsDown hill at dusk?I had the swirl and acheFrom sprays of honeysuckleThat when they're gathered shakeDew on the knuckle.I craved sweet things, but thoseSeemed strong when I was young;The petal of the roseIt was that stung.Now no joy but lacks saltThat is not dashed with painAnd weariness and fault;I crave the stainOf tears, the aftermarkOf almost too much love,The sweet of bitter barkAnd burning clove.When stiff and sore and scarredI take away my handFrom leaning on it hardIn grass and sand,The hurt is not enough:I long for weight and strengthTo feel the earth as roughTo all my length.

Robert Frost1923

#303

After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --Of Ground, or Air, or Ought* -- *nothing, or anythingA Wooden wayRegardless grown,A Quartz contentment, like stone --

This is the Hour of Lead --Remembered, if outlived,As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the Letting go --

Emily Dickinsonca. 1862

Page | 40

Elegy for Jane (My student, thrown by a horse)

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,And she balanced in the delight of her thought,

A wren, happy, tail into the wind,Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.The shade sang with her;The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.

Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,Even a father could not find her:Scraping her cheek against straw,Stirring the clearest water.

My sparrow, you are not here,Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.The sides of wet stones cannot console me,Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

If only I could nudge you from this sleep,My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:I, with no rights in this matter,Neither father nor lover.

Theodore Roethke 1953

Carrion Comfort

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

   Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer. Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

Gerard Manley Hopkins1918

Page | 41

Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour

Light the first light of evening, as in a roomIn which we rest and, for small reason, thinkThe world imagined is the ultimate good.

This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:

Within a single thing, a single shawlWrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,A light, a power, the miraculous influence.

Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.

Within its vital boundary, in the mind,We say God and the imagination are one . . .How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Out of this same light, out of the central mind,We make a dwelling in the evening air,In which being there together is enough.

Wallace Stevens 1955

Traveling Through the Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deerdead on the edge of the Wilson River road.It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the carand stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;she had stiffened already, almost cold.I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,alive, still, never to be born.Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;under the hood purred the steady engine.I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,then pushed her over the edge into the river.

William Stafford1962

Page | 42

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,haunting the black air, braver at night;dreaming evil, I have done my hitchover the plain houses, light by light:lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.A woman like that is not a woman, quite.I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,closets, silks, innumerable goods;fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:whining, rearranging the disaligned.A woman like that is misunderstood.I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,waved my nude arms at villages going by,learning the last bright routes, survivorwhere your flames still bite my thighand my ribs crack where your wheels wind.A woman like that is not ashamed to die.I have been her kind.

Anne Sexton1981

Sonnet 16

The doctor asked what she wanted doneWith him, that could not lie there many days.And she was shocked to see how life goes onEven after death, in irritating ways;And mused how if he had not died at all‘Twould have been easier -- then there need not beThe stiff disorder of a funeralEverywhere, and the hideous industry,And crowds of people calling her by nameAnd questioning her, that she’d never seen before,But only watching by his bed once moreAnd sitting silent if a knocking came . . .She said at length, feeling the doctor’s eyes,“I don’t know what you do exactly when a person dies.”

Edna St Vincent Millay ca. 1924

Page | 43

Footbinding

My grandmother had a small shelf of booksHanging in a shadow. One of themWas Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.* All the rest *a 1653 account of the lives of Christian martyrsWere works by missionaries who had servedIn China. They were handsome volumes, hardWith gold and angry colours, heavy with Empire.I never saw her read them but she handedThem out to me like medicine. As well As every other heathen practice, theyDescribed footbinding. In their godly fashionThe missionaries reveled in the crackingOf the maiden’s bones, the consternationOf her bloodstream, the whining of her sinewsAnd the two years of agony ahead.It was far worse than Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

My mother’s and her mother’s feet were tiny.Mine were thin but long and getting longer.Would those two organize a ceremonyWhere women gathered and the screaming started?Probably not. They planned on twisting meInto a little lady if it killed themBut definitely would not want to beAnything but the smallest feet in town.

Nowadays I think of those girls in ChinaWho ran and pounced and almost flew untilThe day they never pounced or ran again.Their fledgling feet did not grow into birds.Some of them died of gangrene. Some went mad.But those who lived, nubile, felt like orchids.Their family’s approval smelled of jasmineAs, fluttering in silk, they married Emperors.

An aim the missionaries did not mention.

Patricia Beer1993

Page | 44

The Book of Yolek

Wir Haben ein Gesetz, Und nach dem Gesetz soll er sterben.*

The dowsed coals fume and hiss after your meal Of grilled brook trout, and you saunter off for a walk Down the fern trail. It doesn't matter where to, Just so you're weeks and worlds away from home, And among midsummer hills have set up camp In the deep bronze glories of declining day.

You remember, peacefully, an earlier day In childhood, remember a quite specific meal: A corn roast and bonfire in summer camp. That summer you got lost on a Nature Walk; More than you dared admit, you thought of home: No one else knows where the mind wanders to.

The fifth of August, 1942. It was the morning and very hot. It was the day They came at dawn with rifles to The Home For Jewish Children, cutting short the meal Of bread and soup, lining them up to walk In close formation off to a special camp.

How often you have thought about that camp, As though in some strange way you were driven to, And about the children, and how they were made to walk, Yolek who had bad lungs, who wasn't a day Over five years old, commanded to leave his meal And shamble between armed guards to his long home.

We're approaching August again. It will drive home The regulation torments of that camp Yolek was sent to, his small, unfinished meal, The electric fences, the numeral tattoo, The quite extraordinary heat of the day They all were forced to take that terrible walk.

Whether on a silent, solitary walk Or among crowds, far off or safe at home, You will remember, helplessly, that day, And the smell of smoke, and the loudspeakers of the camp. Wherever you are, Yolek will be there, too. His unuttered name will interrupt your meal.

Prepare to receive him in your home some day. Though they killed him in the camp they sent him to, He will walk in as you're sitting down to a meal.

Anthony Hecht 1990

* “We have a law, and according to the law he must die.” John 19.7 (Martin Luther translation)

Page | 45

The Mother

Abortions will not let you forget.You remember the children you got that you did not get,The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,The singers and workers that never handled the air.You will never neglect or beatThem, or silence or buy with a sweet.You will never wind up the sucking-thumbOr scuttle off ghosts that come.You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killedchildren.I have contracted. I have easedMy dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seizedYour luckAnd your lives from your unfinished reach,If I stole your births and your names,Your straight baby tears and your games,Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,and your deaths,If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.Though why should I whine,Whine that the crime was other than mine?--Since anyhow you are dead.Or rather, or instead,You were never made.But that too, I am afraid,Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?You were born, you had body, you died.It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved youAll.

Gwendolyn Brooks 1945

Page | 46

The Writer

In her room at the prow of the houseWhere light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearingFrom her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keysLike a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuffOf her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,And then she is at it again with a bunched clamorOf strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starlingWhich was trapped in that very room, two years ago;How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creatureBatter against the brilliance, drop like a gloveTo the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,For the wits to try it again; and how our spiritsRose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,Beating a smooth course for the right windowAnd clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wishWhat I wished you before, but harder.

Richard Wilbur1988

Page | 47

The Embrace

You weren’t well or really ill yeteither;

just a little tired, your handsomenesstinged by grief or anticipation,

which broughtto your face a thoughtful, deepening

grace.

I didn’t for a moment doubt youwere dead.

I knew that to be true still, even inthe dream.

You’d been out – at work, maybe? –having a good day, almost energetic.

We seemed to be moving from some old housewhere we’d lived, boxes everywhere, thingsin disarray: that was the story of my dream, but even asleep I was shocked out of narrative

by your face, the physical fact of your face:inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert.Why so difficult, remembering the actual lookof you? Without a photograph, without strain?

So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face,your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmthand clarity of you – warm brown tea – we heldeach other for the time the dream allowed.

Bless you. You came back, so I could see youonce more, plainly, so I could rest against youwithout thinking this happiness lessened anything,without thinking you were alive again.

Mark Doty1998

Page | 48

Digging  

Between my finger and my thumb   The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   Bends low, comes up twenty years away   Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney1966

Page | 49

True Love  

In silence the heart raves. It utters wordsMeaningless, that never hadA meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled. In a big black Buick,Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she satIn front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing likeBeauty. It stops your heart. ItThickens your blood. It stops your breath. It

Makes you feel dirty. You need a hot bath. I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched.I thought I would die if she saw me.

How could I exist in the same world with that brightness?Two years later she smiled at me. SheNamed my name. I thought I would wake up dead.

Her grown brothers walked with the bent-kneeSwagger of horsemen. They were slick-faced.Told jokes in the barbershop. Did no work.

Their father was what is called a drunkard.Whatever he was he stayed on the third floorOf the big white farmhouse under the maples for twenty-five years.

He never came down. They brought everything up to him.I did not know what a mortgage was.His wife was a good, Christian woman, and prayed.

When the daughter got married, the old man came down wearingAn old tail coat, the pleated shirt yellowing.The sons propped him. I saw the wedding. There were

Engraved invitations, it was so fashionable. I thoughtI would cry. I lay in bed that nightAnd wondered if she would cry when something was done to her.

The mortgage was foreclosed. That last word was whispered. She never came back. The familySort of drifted off. Nobody wears shiny boots like that now.

But I know she is beautiful forever, and livesIn a beautiful house, far away.She called my name once. I didn't even know she knew it.

Robert Penn Warrenca. 1980

Page | 50

Atticus

If Dennis writes and rails in furious petI'll answer Dennis when I am in debt. If meagre Gildon draw his meaner quill, I wish the man a dinner and sit still But should there One whose better stars conspireTo form a bard, and raise a genius higher, Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to live, converse, and write with ease; Should such a one, resolved to reign alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. View him with jealous yet with scornful eyes, Hate him for arts that caused himself to rise, Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer.

Alike reserved to blame or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend, Fearing e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hit the fault, and hesitate dislike, Who when two wits on rival themes contest, Approves of both, but likes the worst the best: Like Cato, give his little senate laws And sits attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence praise And wonder with a foolish face of praise: Who would not laugh if such a man there be? Who would not weep if Addison were he?

Alexander Pope1738

Page | 51

Believing in Iron   The hills my brothers & I createdNever balanced, & it took yearsTo discover how the world worked.We could look at a tree of blackbirds& tell you how many were there,But with the scrap dealerOur math was always off.Weeks of lifting & gruntingNever added up to much,But we couldn't stopBelieving in iron.Abandoned trucks & carsWere held to the groundBy thick, nostalgic fingers of vinesStrong as a dozen sharecroppers.We'd return with our wheelbarrowGroaning under a new load, Yet tiger lilies lived betterIn their languid, August domain.Among paper & Coke bottlesFoundry smoke erased sunsets,& we couldn't believe ironLeft men bent so close to the earthAs if the ore under their breathWeighed down the gray sky.Sometimes I dreamt how our hillsWashed into a sea of metal,How it all became an anchorFor a warship or bomberOut over trees with bloomsToo red to look at.

Yusef Komunyakaa1992

Page | 52

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre¹The falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.The Second coming! Hardly are those words outWhen a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi²Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desertA shape with lion body and the head of a man,A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,Is moving its slow thighs, while all about itReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again; but now I knowThat twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats1919

¹Widening spiral of a falcon’s flight²Collective unconscious/soul of the world

Page | 53

To Be of Use

The people I love the bestjump into work head firstwithout dallying in the shallowsand swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.They seem to become natives of that element,the black sleek heads of sealsbouncing like half submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,who do what has to be done, again and again.I want to be with people who submergein the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along,who stand in the line and haul in their places,who are not parlor generals and field desertersbut move in a common rhythmwhen the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud.Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.But the thing worth doing well donehas a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.Greek amphoras for wine or oil,Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museumsbut you know they were made to be used.The pitcher cries for water to carryand a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy 1973

The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz -- he dead* *from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness . Words spoken by a servant telling the death of an evil man who was once great.

A penny for the Old Guy** **alludes to the phrase spoken by English children begging for money on Guy Fawkes DayWe are the hollow menWe are the stuffed menLeaning togetherHeadpiece filled with straw. Alas!Our dried voices, whenWe whisper togetherAre quiet and meaninglessAs wind in dry grassOr rats' feet over broken glassIn our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossedWith direct eyes, to death's other KingdomRemember us -- if at all -- not as lostViolent souls, but onlyAs the hollow menThe stuffed men.

Page | 54

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreamsIn death's dream kingdomThese do not appear:There, the eyes areSunlight on a broken columnThere, is a tree swingingAnd voices areIn the wind's singingMore distant and more solemnThan a fading star.

Let me be no nearerIn death's dream kingdomLet me also wearSuch deliberate disguisesRat's coat, crowskin, crossed stavesIn a fieldBehaving as the wind behavesNo nearer --

Not that final meetingIn the twilight kingdom III This is the dead landThis is cactus landHere the stone imagesAre raised, here they receiveThe supplication of a dead man's handUnder the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like thisIn death's other kingdomWaking aloneAt the hour when we areTrembling with tendernessLips that would kissForm prayers to broken stone.

IV The eyes are not hereThere are no eyes hereIn this valley of dying starsIn this hollow valleyThis broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting placesWe grope togetherAnd avoid speechGathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unlessThe eyes reappearAs the perpetual starMultifoliate roseOf death's twilight kingdomThe hope onlyOf empty men.

Page | 55

V Here we go round the prickly pearPrickly pear prickly pearHere we go round the prickly pearAt five o'clock in the morning.

Between the ideaAnd the realityBetween the motionAnd the actFalls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conceptionAnd the creationBetween the emotionAnd the responseFalls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desireAnd the spasmBetween the potencyAnd the existenceBetween the essenceAnd the descentFalls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine isLife isFor Thine is the

This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.

T. S. Eliot1925

Page | 56

Love Song: I and Thou

Nothing is plumb, level or square:the studs are bowed, the joistsare shaky by nature, no piece fitsany other piece without a gapor pinch, and bent nailsdance all over the surfacinglike maggots. By ChristI am no carpenter. I builtthe roof for myself, the wallsfor myself, the floorsfor myself, and gothung up in it myself. Idanced with a purple thumbat this house-warming, drunkwith my prime whiskey: rage.Oh, I spat rage's nailsinto the frame-up of my work:it held. It settled plumb,level, solid, square and truefor that great moment. Thenit screamed and went on through,skewing as wrong the other way.God damned it. This is hell,but I planned it, I sawed it,I nailed it, and Iwill live in it until it kills me.I can nail my left palmto the left-hand crosspiece butI can't do everything myself.I need a hand to nail the right,a help, a love, a you, a wife.

Alan Dugan2002

Page | 57

The Words Under the Words  

for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem

My grandmother's hands recognize grapes, the damp shine of a goat's new skin. When I was sick they followed me,I woke from the long fever to find them covering my head like cool prayers.

My grandmother's days are made of bread, a round pat-pat and the slow baking.She waits by the oven watching a strange car circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son, lost to America. More often, tourists, who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines. She knows how often mail arrives,how rarely there is a letter.When one comes, she announces it, a miracle, listening to it read again and againin the dim evening light.

My grandmother's voice says nothing can surprise her.Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby. She knows the spaces we travel through, the messages we cannot send—our voices are short and would get lost on the journey.Farewell to the husband's coat,the ones she has loved and nourished,who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky. They will plant themselves. We will all die.

My grandmother's eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death. When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press, when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms, He is her first thought, what she really thinks of is His name."Answer, if you hear the words under the words—otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges, difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones

Naomi Shihab Nye1995

Page | 58

You Can Have It

My brother comes home from work and climbs the stairs to our room. I can hear the bed groan and his shoes drop one by one. You can have it, he says.

The moonlight streams in the window and his unshaven face is whitened like the face of the moon. He will sleep long after noon and waken to find me gone.

Thirty years will pass before I remember that moment when suddenly I knew each man has one brother who dies when he sleeps and sleeps when he rises to face this life,

and that together they are only one man sharing a heart that always labours, hands yellowed and cracked, a mouth that gasps for breath and asks, Am I gonna make it?

All night at the ice plant he had fed the chute its silvery blocks, and then I stacked cases of orange soda for the children of Kentucky, one gray boxcar at a time

with always two more waiting. We were twenty for such a short time and always in the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt and sweat. I think now we were never twenty.

In 1948 the city of Detroit, founded by de la Mothe Cadillac for the distant purposes of Henry Ford, no one wakened or died, no one walked the streets or stoked a furnace,

for there was no such year, and now that year has fallen off all the old newspapers, calendars, doctors' appointments, bonds wedding certificates, drivers licenses.

The city slept. The snow turned to ice. The ice to standing pools or rivers racing in the gutters. Then the bright grass rose between the thousands of cracked squares,

and that grass died. I give you back 1948. I give you all the years from then to the coming one. Give me back the moon with its frail light falling across a face.

Give me back my young brother, hard and furious, with wide shoulders and a curse for God and burning eyes that look upon all creation and say, You can have it.

Philip Levine 1978

Page | 59