Introductory Class
The following poems are meant to help us heal from trauma of any kind, especially the ordeal of a cancer diagnosis.
Christus
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
LET us then labor for an inward stillness,
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait . . .
The Red Wheelbarrow
By William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Hymn to Time
By Ursula le Guin
Time says “Let there be”
every moment and instantly
there is space and the radiance
of each bright galaxy.
And eyes beholding radiance.
And the gnats’ flickering dance.
And the seas’ expanse.
And death, and chance.
Time makes room
for going and coming home
and in time’s womb
begins all ending.
Time is being and being
time, it is all one thing,
the shining, the seeing,
the dark abounding.
A poem by an Expressive Writing student
I’m sinking rapidly into quicksand
I am pulling as hard as I can to escape,
Is this vine strong enough?
My undeniable strength allowed me to be freed,
Nothing, not even quicksand,
Can hold me down for long
homage to my hips
By Lucille Clifton
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
Homage To My Nose
By an Expressive Writing student
This nose is a long nose, it’s a family nose,
It needs freedom,
To be appreciated for what it is,
It doesn’t like to be described
With disdain,
It adores the scents of food and flowers,
It smells beauty,
This nose is intuitive,
This nose is guiding,
I have known this nose to
Diagnose illness, to take joy in
The scent of a beautiful newborn baby.
Otherwise
By Jane Kenyon
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
Otherwise
By a student
I got out of bed,
Sheets silky, white cat purring,
It might have been otherwise.
I delighted
In a hot cup of tea.
It might have ben otherwise.
I played with my children on
My bed. Laughter, tickling, joy.
All morning I read, wrote and ran,
Some of my favorite things.
At noon I reveled in a hot shower, then
Went to a friend’s house.
It might have been otherwise.
We ate dinner, Morroccan and delicious,
Drank wine, shared stories, laughed, ate more, drank more.
Friendship. It might have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed,
Hydrangeas outside my window,
My children’s artwork on the walls and planned another day,
Just like this one.
But one day, I know it will be otherwise.
Those Winter Sundays
By Robert Hayden
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?
From a poem by Mark Burrows
The door of morning opens gently each day,
not demanding a thing of us but hoping
we’ll have eyes to catch some measure of
the waiting wonders and their delights—
You Reading This, Be Ready
By William Stafford
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life —
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
Snowbound
There’s a time to stop traveling
on other people’s subways,
to halt other people’s airplanes
from landing in your life,
a time to refuel yourself,
a time to be snowbound
within your own private space,
where the only number you dial
is your own.
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
. . . .
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere 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.
Lines from a poem by Anne Sexton
She is so naked and singular
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.
Traveler, There Is No Road
By Antonio Machado
Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship’s wake on the sea.
Love after Love
By Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
I Worried
By Mary Oliver
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not, how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am. well.
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning.
and sang.
Luddite’s Lament
By Peter W. Yaremko
My iWatch won’t tell me the time unless I first prove it’s me.
Leave the car running while I step away with the fob in my pocket
and it bleats like some kind of digital sheep about to be shorn.
My passwords have morphed from a simple four numbers
to strings of upper-case-lower-case-numerals-symbols. I’m captive
to autocorrect, robocalls and that eavesdropping siren, Siri.
It’s impossible to kite a check to tide me over like I used to. But
technology has given me new prosperity of time, I’m assured,
to squander away while I wander the net or simply expend myself
with weekend work. And don’t get me started on plastic everything,
the excrement of our era. Scissors are needed– to get at a KitKat bar!
Oh give it up, I mutter, and haul your old man’s ass in for reconditioning.
The Book of Your Heart
By Alexandra Vasiliu
Your heart is a book.
Every day,
you write the chapters of your life.
Try to make them bright
like the greatest poems
you have ever read.
Every day,
you can rewrite all the wrong chapters
of your life
and change them into beautiful poems.
Remind yourself,
every day,
you are the author of your life.
The Peace Of Wild Things
By Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
But Wait
By Peter W. Yaremko
What to sing as day is darkening
and simplest breathing comes heaving
and moving me is moving weight when
seventy is for the sleek and strong?
What to sing?
Cadenced lines of loves recalled? Illicit scents under unfamiliar sheets?
Tongues and tastes and lidded eyes and salty, scalding flesh on mine?
But wait. Wait.
So much of life is mine to make, not just commemorate. Within me yet
before I pass more paths to take to break to celebrate
when seventy is for the sleek and strong.
Chemotherapy
By Julia Darling
I did not imagine being bald
at forty-four. I didn’t have a plan.
Perhaps a scar or two from growing old,
hot flushes. I’d sit fluttering a fan.
But I am bald, and hardly ever walk
by day, I’m the invalid of these rooms,
stirring soups, awake in the half dark,
not answering the phone when it rings.
I never thought that life could get this small,
that I would care so much about a cup,
the taste of tea, the texture of a shawl,
and whether or not I should get up.
I’m not unhappy. I have learnt to drift
and sip. The smallest things are gifts.
Little Boy
By Peter W. Yaremko
I am the little boy afraid
to lose my momma
in the big city department store,
fearing she’d never emerge
from the curtained dressing room.
I am the little boy occupied
with the truck she gave me, playing
on the floor as she shopped and avoiding
the stares of bulky women annoyed
that I am there at all, in the way.
I am the little boy afraid to lose my love
to Brad Pitt eyes. So I hit her.
Praying
By Mary Oliver
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
POEMS ABOUT POWER
Poems about Power
The following poems are meant to help us move from feeling powerless to feeling powerful in the face of trauma.
FRANKIE
By Peter W. Yaremko
His true name was Frank.
But we called him Frankie
so’s not to confuse him with
his father, who also was Frank.
He was a skinny pimply kid
a lot like his dad, who was pocked
from his own bad teen complexion.
‘67 and the war was coming to a boil,
with the number of guys drafted
doubling each month per Johnson’s order.
Frankie, too. They called it
Selective Service but they plucked him
like you would a chicken’s feathers,
mindlessly, from his first measly job
right out of high school. But Frankie was
okay with it because his dad ran
the Democratic Club in a Republican town
and it was Johnson’s war after all.
We gave Frankie a sendoff because
he might not ever return although
we didn’t say things like that back then
and you guessed it he didn’t. Like 55,000
other Frankies, we learned later.
He was a good kid, a nice guy who’s
stayed with me down the decades and
I thought of Frankie again today when
I took my new pair of Crocs from the
Amazon box and saw they were
made in Vietnam.
Life
By Sarojini Naidu
Children, ye have not lived, to you it seems
Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams,
Or carnival of careless joys that leap
About your hearts like billows on the deep
In flames of amber and of amethyst.
Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist
Till some resistless hour shall rise and move
Your hearts to wake and hunger after love,
And thirst with passionate longing for the things
That burn your brows with blood-red sufferings.
Till ye have battled with great grief and fears,
And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years,
Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife,
Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.
‘Out, Out—’
By Robert Frost
The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them ‘Supper.’ At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart—
He saw all spoiled. ‘Don’t let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!’
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
Pass Over
By Peter W. Yaremko
I didn’t know when
we stepped outside that night
she and I
to see the shuttle pass over
that she first born
would be first to pass.
She knew perhaps. Not I.
After Great Pain
By Emily Dickinson
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 –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
Still I Rise
By Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
The Guest House
By Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Still
By Peter W. Yaremko
I’m surprised to hear her still.
I forgot she recorded my greeting.
Who thinks of voicemail when a lover dies?
Months since I heard her for real. Little more than
deathbed mumble then. But her voice lingers in my phone.
Bright, bold, expectant still. A digital genie in an iLamp.
Now what, when she’s but electrons on a chip?
Still keep her voice to summon time to time and revisit tears?
Or jab delete and get on with the affairs of the day?
ISAIAH 66:1
By Peter W. Yaremko
Thus says the Lord:
Heaven’s my throne and
earth my footstool, all made
by my hand, all mine.
So what’s left for mortals but
humble ourselves and tremble
at such Olympian hauteur,
trusting our quaking to quell him?
And hoping Isaiah heard him wrong.
When Seagulls Speak
By Peter W. Yaremko
The seagulls must smell spring
this morning, though I myself could
not. It was still a February
in which the Punxsutawney rodent
had seen his shadow, promising us
six more weeks of winter weather. And
March to come roaring in like a lion
only a few days hence.
It was the oddness of the gulls’ call
that grabbed my attention, what
fishermen in these parts call mewing,
an early alert of a storm at sea.
But the day was calm and I doubted
it was foul weather driving these birds
inland from the open water to circle
the sun-filled city skies of New Haven.
Maybe they send an alert of some kind
to those who know how to hear. Like dogs
that begin barking in foreknowledge
of an imminent earthquake.
No, these feathered mooches must smell spring
and cannot contain themselves at the prospect of
easy pickings from people soon to venture forth
from their apartments to picnic on the Green.
I breathed deep, hoping for a scent of Easter,
and asked why we haughty humans always assume
nature tries to tell us something. Sometimes birds
speak only to themselves. Sometimes to God alone.
The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
angry to accepting
The following poems are meant to help us move from feeling angry about a cancer diagnosis to feeling more accepting
The Red Wheelbarrow
By William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Pain
By Letitia Starkey
pain surrounds you day to day
nothing helps it go away
pain in muscles pain in joints
pain so bad in trigger points.
pain that comes and pain that goes
pain that keeps you on your toes.
pain that people think is in your head.
pain that people don't know
when you sit in your bed wishing you were dead
pain that they will have to go through
pain they will have to see.
what it took to just be me.
pain I go through just at school
pain I wish will make me cool
pain that they will never see what it took to just be me
pain in your life
that makes you strive
to just survive
pain that it took
To just be me
pain i go through.
but people can't see.
Nettles
By Vernon Scannell
My son aged three fell in the nettle bed.
'Bed' seemed a curious name for those green spears,
That regiment of spite behind the shed:
It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears
The boy came seeking comfort and I saw
White blisters beaded on his tender skin.
We soothed him till his pain was not so raw.
At last he offered us a watery grin,
And then I took my billhook, honed the blade
And went outside and slashed in fury with it
Till not a nettle in that fierce parade
Stood upright any more. And then I lit
A funeral pyre to burn the fallen dead,
But in two weeks the busy sun and rain
Had called up tall recruits behind the shed:
My son would often feel sharp wounds again.
Not Just Yet
By Peter W. Yaremko
This is the way it comes. A slow slipping down.
But I don’t want the day to end. Not just yet.
I want to sit by the window while darkness comes,
as I know it will soon enough.
Just want to think about things. Think things over.
What was, what could have been. What should not have.
No regret. No apologia. Just termination of ambition.
Cessation of dreaming. And a still room.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
By Dylan Thomas
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 they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I Am Not I
By Juan Ramon Jiminez
I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
the one who remains silent while I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when I die.
A Letter Written to My Adolescent Self
By Christine Valters Paintner
Listen, I know life right now
feels like heartache
is your mother tongue,
parents who live in the shadows,
you stumbling down
the dark corridors of youth
trying all the locked doors
and knobs breaking off in your hands.
I won’t promise this heartache ends.
You’ll lose people you love: death, betrayal,
a slow fade. Some will dissolve
like salt on the tongue. There will be moments
you’re sure you are drowning, arms flailing,
but sometimes your frantic waving
will summon a joy you never knew could exist
arriving like an elephant emerging
from a still forest or a hatching egg placed
in your palm, and you will know delight
is not an afterthought, nor a luxury,
but an amaryllis opening the first petal,
its red tongue whispering secrets
of all the loves it has ever known.
Invictus
By William Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
By Mary Elizabeth Frye (?)
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
Everything Is Going To Be All Right
By Derek Mahon
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
Rain
By Charles Bukowski
a symphony orchestra.
there is a thunderstorm,
they are playing a Wagner overture
and the people leave their seats under the trees
and run inside to the pavilion
the women giggling, the men pretending calm,
wet cigarettes being thrown away,
Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the
pavilion. the birds even come in from the trees
and enter the pavilion and then it is the Hungarian
Rhapsody #2 by Lizst, and it still rains, but look,
one man sits alone in the rain
listening. the audience notices him. they turn
and look. the orchestra goes about its
business. the man sits in the night in the rain,
listening. there is something wrong with him,
isn’t there?
he came to hear the
music.
My Life's Stem Was Cut
By Helen Dunmore
My life’s stem was cut,
But quickly, lovingly
I was lifted up,
I heard the rush of the tap
And I was set in water
In the blue vase, beautiful
In lip and curve,
And here I am
Opening one petal
As the tea cools.
I wait while the sun moves
And the bees finish their dancing,
I know I am dying
But why not keep flowering
As long as I can
From my cut stem?
It happens all the time in heaven,
By Hafiz
It happens all the time in heaven,
And some day
It will begin to happen
Again on earth -
That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are
Lovers,
And women and women
Who give each other
Light,
Often get down on their knees
And while so tenderly
Holding their lovers hand,
With tears in their eyes
Will sincerely speak, saying,
My dear,
How can I be more loving to you;
How can I be more kind?"
sad to stronger
The following poems are meant to help us move from sadness to feeling stronger.
Praying
By Mary Oliver
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
There's a Certain Slant of light
By Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any – 'Tis the seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, 'tis like the Distance On the look of Death –
The Small Hours
By Dorothy Parker
No more my little song comes back;
And now of nights I lay
My head on down, to watch the black
And wait the unfailing gray.
Oh, sad are winter nights, and slow;
And sad's a song that's dumb;
And sad it is to lie and know
Another dawn will come.
Clown in the Moon
By Dylan Thomas
My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.
Summer Shout
By Peter W. Yaremko
In the neighborhood at dusk
a youngster’s shout in the distance
calls me to forgotten boyhood
of dusky evenings when after supper we played
hide and seek in backyards and darkening byways
until mothers with apron strings finally undone
ventured from lamp-warmed parlors to
holler our names in turn to come bathe away the day
before clambering into pilled pajamas
and await a next day’s eager adventures.
Although the Wind
By Izumi Shikibu
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.
One Art
By 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.
Dreams
By Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Life Is Fine
By Langston Hughes
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.
But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!
I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.
But it was High up there! It was high!
So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love—
But for livin' I was born
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry—
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!
What If This Road
By Sheenagh Pugh
What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way, around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what’s on the other side, who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story’s end, or where a road will go?
Wild Geese
By Mary Oliver
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.