Monday, December 6, 2021

First Snow (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver



The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white 
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence  such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.
The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles; nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from. Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain--not a single
answer has been found--
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017
 
 

Monday, November 22, 2021

Praying (Monday Poem)

 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.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, November 15, 2021

The Loon (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver


 Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive
strikes me from sleep, and I rise
from the comfortable bed and go
to another room, where my books are lined up
in their neat and colorful rows. How

magical they are! I choose one
and open it. Soon
I have wandered in over the waves of the words
 to the temple of thought.

                                            And then I hear
outside, over the actual waves, the small,
perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,
and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out
to the fading moon, to the pink flush
swelling in the east that, soon,
will become the long, reasonable day.

                                                           Inside the house
it is still dark, except for the pool of lamploght
in which I am sitting.

                                    I do not close the book.

Neither, for a long while, do I read. on.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, November 8, 2021

When Death Comes (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver


When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn,
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
 
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When its over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When its over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, November 1, 2021

Wild Geese (Monday Poem)

 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.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, October 25, 2021

Mindful (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver



Every day
    I see or hear
        something
            that more or less

kills me
    with delight,
        that leaves me
            like a needle

in the haystack
    of light,
        It is what I was born for--
            to look, to listen,

to lose myself
    inside this soft world--
        to instruct myself
            over and over

in joy,
    and acclamation.
        Nor am I talking 
            about the exceptinal,
 
the fearful, the dreadful,
    the very extravagant--
        but of the ordinary,
            the common, the very drab,
 
the daily presentations.
    Oh, good scholar,
        I say to myself,
            how can you help
 
but grow wise
    with such teachings
        as these--
            the untrimmable light
 
of the world,     
    the ocean's shine,
        the prayers that are made
            out of grass?
 
 
 
from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017
 

Monday, October 18, 2021

Poppies (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver



The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from looking forward--
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But also I say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,.
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight--

and what are you going to do--
what can you do
about it--
deep, blue night?



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, October 11, 2021

Goldenrod (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver



On roadsides,
    in fall fields,
        in rumpy bunches,
            saffron and orange and pale gold,

in little towers,
    soft as mash,
        sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers,
            full of bees and yellow beads and perfect flowerlets

and orange butterflies.
    I don't suppose
        much notice comes of it, except for honey,
            and how it heartens the heart with its

blank blaze.
    I don't suppose anything loves it except, perhaps,
        the rocky voids
            filled by its dumb dazzle.

For myself,
    I was just passing by, when the wind flared
       and the blossoms rustled,
            and the glittering pandemonium

leaned on me.
    I was just minding my own business
        when I found myself on their straw hillsides,
            citron and butter-colored,

and was happy, and why not?
    Are not the difficult labors of our lives
        full of dark hours?
            And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far,

that is far better than these light-filled bodies?
    All day
        on their airy backbones
            they toss in the wind,

they bend as thought it was natural and godly to bend,
    they rise in a stiff sweetness,
        in the pure peace of giving
            one's gold away.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017
        

Monday, October 4, 2021

Some Questions You Might Ask (Monday Poem,)

by Mary Oliver
 
 
Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn't?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?




from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, September 27, 2021

Carrying the Snake to the Garden (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver


In the cellar
was the smallest snake
I have ever seen.
It coiled itself
in a corner
and watched me
with eyes
like two little stars
set into coal,
and a tail
that quivered.
One step
of my foot
and it fled
like a running shoelace,
but a scoop of the wrist
and I had it
in my hand.
I was sorry
for the fear,
so I hurried
upstairs and out the kitchen door
to the warm grass
and the sunlight
and the garden.
It turned and turned
in my hand
but when I put it down
it didn't move.
I thought
it was going to flow
up my leg
and into my pocket.
I thought, for a moment,
as it lifted its face,
it was going to sing.

And then it was gone.



 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.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, September 20, 2021

Wild Geese (Monday Poem)

 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.
 
 
 
from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017 

Monday, September 13, 2021

Backyard (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver


I had no time to haul out all
the dead stuff so it hung, limp
or dry, wherever the wind swung it

over or down or across. All summer
it stayed that way, untrimmed, and
thickened. The paths grew
damp and uncomfortable and mossy until
nobody could get through but a mouse or a 

shadow. Blackberries, ferns, leaves, litter
totally without direction management
supervision. The birds loved it.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, September 6, 2021

Fireflies (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver
 
 
At Blackwater
fireflies
are not even a dime a dozen--
they are free,
 
and each floats and turns
among the branches of the oaks
and the swamp azaleas
looking for another
 
as, who doesn't?
Oh, blessings
on the intimacy
inside fruition,
 
be it foxes
or the fireflies
or the dampness inside the petals
of a thousand flowers.
 
Though Eden is lost
its loveliness
remains in the heart
and the imagination;
 
he would take her
in a boat
over the dark water;
she would take him
 
to an island she knows
where the blue flag grows wild
and the grass is deep,
where the birds
 
perch together,
feather to feather,
on the bough.
And the fireflies,
 
blinking their little lights,
hurry toward one another.
And the world continues,
God willing.
 


from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017
 

Monday, August 30, 2021

Passing the Unworked Field (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver


Queen Anne's lace
    is hardly 
        prized but
all the same it isn't
    idle look
                how it
    stands straight on it
thin stems how it
    scrubs its white faces
        with the
rags of the sun how it
            makes all the 
                loveliness
                    it can.



from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017

Monday, August 23, 2021

Three Things to Remember (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver
 
 
As long as you're dancing, you can
    break the rules.
Sometimes breaking the rules is just
    extending the rules.
 
Sometimes there are no rules.
 
 
from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017 

Monday, August 16, 2021

I Go Down to the Shore (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver
 
 
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall---
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.
 
 
 
from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017 

Monday, August 9, 2021

Loneliness (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver


I too have known loneliness.
I too have known what it is to feel
    misunderstood,
    rejected, and suddenly
not at all beautiful.
Oh, mother earth,
    your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this.
Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.
Oh, motions of tenderness!




from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Penguin, 2017



Monday, August 2, 2021

August Heat (Monday Poem)

 Anonymous
 
 
In August, when the days are hot,
I like to find a shady spot,
And hardly move a single bit --
And sit --
and sit --
and sit --
and sit!
 
 
 
from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018 
 

Monday, July 26, 2021

The Sandpiper (Monday Poem)

 by Frances M. Frost


At the edge of the tide
He stops to wonder,
Races throught
The lace of thunder.

On toothpick legs
Swift and brittle,
He runs and pipes
And his voice is little.

But small or not,
He has the notion
To outshout 
The Atlantic Ocean.



from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018







Monday, July 19, 2021

The Silver Road (Monday Poem)

by Hamish Hendry
 
 
Last night I saw a Silver Road
Go straight across the Sea;
And quick as I raced along the Shore,
That quick Road followed me.

It followed me all round the Bay,
Where small Waves danced in tune;
And at the end of the Silver Road
There hung a Silver Moon.

A large round Moon on a pale green Sky,
With a Pathway bright and broad;
Some night I shall bring that Silver Moon
Across that Silver Road!



from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018

Monday, July 12, 2021

At the Seaside (Monday Poem)

 by Robert Louis Stevenson


When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup,
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.



from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018

Monday, July 5, 2021

A Dragonfly (Monday Poem)

 by Eleanor Farjeon



When the heat of the summer
Made drowsy the land,
A dragonfly came
And sat on my hand,
With its blue jointed body,
And wings like spun glass,
It lit on my fingers
As though they were grass.
 
 
 
from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018 

Monday, June 28, 2021

Shadows (Monday Poem)

 by Judith Nicholls



Stand with your back
to the shining sun;
watch you shadow
dance and run.

Stand and face
the shining sun;
look ahead--
your shadow's gone!



from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018

Monday, June 21, 2021

Some One (Monday Poem)

by Walter de la Mare


Some one came knocking 
At my wee small door;
Some one came knocking,
I'm sure -- sure -- sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a-stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl's call,
Only the cricket whitling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.

 
 
from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018 

Monday, June 14, 2021

Insect (Monday Poem

 by Tony Mitton

Inspect
an insect
and you'll see
how perfect
it can be.
 
Listen,
and hear 
the tiny song
it sings,
 
as bits of rainbow
glisten
on its wings.
 
 
 
from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018 

Monday, June 7, 2021

What Do You Suppose? (Monday Poem)

 Anonymous
 
 
What do you suppose?
A bee sat on my nose.
Then what do you think?
He gave me a wink
And said, "I beg your pardon,
I thought you were the garden."
 
 
 
from Sing a Song of Seasons: 
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
Selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann PReston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018 

Monday, May 31, 2021

The Clearing (Monday Poem)

by Martha Postlethwaite


Do not try to  serve
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.

Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is yours alone to sing
falls into your open cupped hands
and you recognise and greet it.

Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to the world
so worthy of 
rescue.


from

Monday, May 24, 2021

The End (Monday Poem)

by A. A. Milne
 
 
When I was One,
I had just begun.
 
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
 
When I was Three,
I was hardly me.
 
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
 
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
 
But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.
 
 
 
from Now We Are Six, 
by A. A. Milne
illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard
Dell, 1955
 






Monday, May 17, 2021

Looking Around, Believing (Monday Poem)

by Gary Soto


How strange that we can begin at any time.
With two feet we get down the street.
With a hand we undo the rose.
With an eye we lift up the peach tree
And hold it up to the wind -- white blossoms
At our feet. Like today, I started
In the yard with my daughter,
With my wife poking at a potted geranium,
And now I am walking down the street,
Amazed that the sun is only so hight,
Just over the roof, and a child
Is singing through a rolled newspaper
And a terrier is leaping like a flea
And at the bakery I pass, a palm
Like a suctioning starfish is pressed
To the window.  We're keeping busy --
This way, that way, we're making shadows
Where sunlight was, making words
Where there was only noise in the trees.



from A Fire in My Hands: A Book of Poems
by Gary Soto
Scholastic, 1990

Monday, May 10, 2021

Today Was Not My Day at All (Monday Poem)

by Jack Prelutsky
 
 
Today was not my day at all,
today was not my day,
for everything went wrong today
in almost every way.
This morning I was menaced
by a troop of marching ants,
I brushed my teeth with shaving cream,
I split my brand new pants.
 
I smashed my only glasses,
and the key snapped in the lock,
the toaster didn't toast  the toast,
then handed me a shock.
I walked into a doorknob,
something squirmed inside my shoe,
I found an ugly beetle
at the bottom of my stew.
 
A bird I didn't recognize
flew down and pecked my nose,
a chimpanzee on roller skates
sped by and squashed my toes.
I wonder if I'm under
some unlucky sort of curse,
today's the twelfth, and Thursday --
tomorrow may be worse.
 
 
 
from It's Raining Pigs and Noodles
by Jack Prelutsky
illustrated by James Stevenson
Greenwillow, 2000 
 
 



Monday, May 3, 2021

Adventure (Monday Poem)

by Eileen Spinelli
 
 
I had tea with a dragon
And lunch with a mouse.
I've lived in a seashell
Instead of a house
Once I even went diving
With dolphins and whales
From the deck of a ship with
Sun on her sails.
I danced in the forest,
Flew to the moon,
Soared across town
In a hot-air balloon.
Adventure is never as hard as it looks
You'll find it, like me ---
In the pages of books.
 
 
from Tea Party Today: Poems to Sip and Savor
by Eileen Spinelli, illustrated by Karen Dugan
Boyds Mills Press, 1999  

Monday, April 26, 2021

The Giver of Stars (Monday Poem)

 by Amy Lowell
 
 

Hold your soul open for my welcoming.  
Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me 
With its clear and rippled coolness,
That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest, 
Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory.

Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me,
That into my limbs may come the keenness of fire,
The life and joy of tongues of flame,
And, going out from you, tightly strung and in tune,
I may rouse the blear-eyed world,
And pour into it the beauty which you have begotten.
 
from https://poets.org/poem/giver-stars
In the public domain 
 

Monday, April 19, 2021

Us Two (Monday Poem)

 by A. A. Milne


Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
"Where are you going today?" asks Pooh:
"Well, that's very odd,'cos I was too.
Let's go together," says Pooh, says he.
"Let's go together," says, Pooh.
 
"What's twice eleven?" I said to Pooh.
("Twice what?" said Pooh to Me.) 
"I think it ought to be twenty-two."
"Just what I think myself," said Pooh.
"It wasn't an easy sum to do,
But that's what it is," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what it is," said Pooh.
 
"Let's look for dragons," I said to Pooh.
"Yes, let's," said Pooh to Me.
We crossed the river and found a few --
"Yes, those are dragons all right," said Pooh.
"As soon as I saw their beaks I knew.
That's what they are," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what they are," said Pooh.
 
"Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Pooh.
"That's right," said Pooh to Me.
"I'm not afraid," I said to Pooh,
And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo!"
Silly old dragons!" -- and off they flew.
"I wasn't afraid," said Pooh, said he,
"I'm never afraid with you."
 
So wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Pooh,
"If it wasn't for you," and Pooh said:  "True,
It isn't much fun for One, but Two
Can stick together," says Pooh, says he,
"That's how it is," says Pooh. 
 
 
 
 
from Now We Are Six
by A. A. Milne
illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard
Dell, 1955

Monday, April 12, 2021

The Trout (Monday Poem)

Southern Paiute song
translated by John Weslye Powell
 
 
In the blue water
The trout wags its tail
 
 
 
 
from Sing a Song of Seasons:
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
selected by Fiona Waters
Candlewick Press, 2018 

Monday, April 5, 2021

Waiting at the Window (Monday Poem)

 by A. A. Milne


These are my two drops of rain
Waiting on the window-pane.

I am waiting here to see
Which the winning one will be.

Both of them have different names.
One is John and one is James.

All the best and all the worst
Comes from which of them is first.

James has just begun to ooze.
He's the one I want to lose.

John is waiting to begin.
He's the one I want to win.

James is going slowly on.
Something sort of sticks to John.

John is moving off at last.
James is going pretty fast.

John is rushing down the pane.
James is going slow again.

James has met a sort of smear.
John is getting very near.

Is he going fast enough?
(James has found a piece of fluff.)

John has hurried quickly by.
(James was talking to a fly.)

John is there, and John has won!
Look! I told you! Here's the sun!
 
 
 
from Now We Are Six
by A. A. Milne
illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard
Dell, 1955
 
 
 

Monday, March 29, 2021

Sneezles (Monday Poem)

 by A. A. Milne


Christopher Robin
Had wheezles
And sneezles,
They bundled him
Into
His bed.
They gave him what goes
With a cold in the nose,
And some more for a cold
In the head.
They wondered
If wheezles
Could turn 
Into measles,
If sneezles
Would turn
Into mumps;
They examined his chest
For a rash,
And the rest
Of his body for swellings and lumps.
They sent for some doctors
In sneezles
And wheezles
To tell them what ought
To be done.

All sorts and conditions
Of famous physicians
Came hurrying round
At a run.
They all made a note
Of the state of his throat,
They asked if he suffered from thirst;
They asked if the sneezles
Came after the wheezles,
Or if the first sneezle
Came first.
They said, "If you teazle
A sneezle,
Or wheezle,
A measle 
May easily grow.
But humor or pleazle
The wheezle
Or sneezle,
The measle 
Will certainly go."

They expounded the reazles
For sneezles
And wheezles,
The manner of measles
When new.
They said, "If he freezles
In draughts and in breezles,
Then PHTHEEZLES
May even ensue."

Christopher Robin
Got up in the morning,
The sneezles had vanished away.
And the look in his eye
Seemed to say to the sky,
"Now, how to annoy them today.?"
 
 
 
from Now We Are Six
by A. A. Milne
illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard
Dell, 1955
 
 
 
 

Monday, March 22, 2021

I Am Woman (Monday Poem)

by Helen Reddy
 
 
I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an' pretend
'Cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again
 
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
 
You can bend but never break me
'Cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'Cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul
 
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
 
I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make my brother understand
 
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to I can face anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman
 
 
 
 
https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Helen-Reddy/I-Am-Woman-3

 

 

Monday, March 15, 2021

Wind on the Hill (Monday Poem)

by A. A. Milne
 
 
No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.
 
It's flying from somewhere
As fast as it can,
I couldn't keep up with it,
Not if I ran,
 
But if I stopped holding
The string of my kite,
It would blow with the wind
For a day and a night.
 
And then when I found it,
Wherever it blew,
I should know that the wind
Had been going there too.
 
So then I could tell them
Where the wind goes  . . . 
But where the wind comes from
Nobody knows.
 
 
 
from Now We Are Six
by A. A. Milne
illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard
Dell, 1955.
 



Monday, March 8, 2021

There is a Land (Monday Poem)

 by Leland B. Jacobs


There is a land---
A marvelous land---
Where trolls and giants dwell;
Where witches
With their bitter brew
Can cast a magic spell;
Where mermaids sing,
Where carpets fly,
Where, in the midst of night,
Brownies dance
To cricket tunes;
And ghosts, all shivery white,
Prowl and moan.
There is a land
Of magic folks and deeds,
And anyone
Can visit there
Who reads and reads and reads.



from Good Books, Good Times
selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins
illustrations by Harvey Stevenson
Trumpet Club, 1990

Monday, March 1, 2021

1212 (Monday Poem)

by Emily Dickinson
 
 
 
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
 
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.
 
 
 
from Wonderful Words: Poems About Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening
Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Illustrated by Karen Barbour
Simon & Schuster, 2004 

Monday, February 22, 2021

Finding a Poem (Monday Poem)

 by Karla Kuskin


Dig deep in you.
Keep everything you find.
Sketch the ever changing views,
dappled behind your eyes,
rustling in your mind.
Unlock the weather
in your heart.
Unleash a thousand whispers,
let them shout.
Then
when you feel
the presence of a poem
waiting to spring
to sting
within you,
bewitch it
into words
and sing it out.



from Wonderful Words: Poems About Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening
Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Illustrated by Karen Barbour
Simon & Schuster, 2004