The Voice (Monday Poem)

by Shel Silverstein

There is a voice inside of you

That whispers all day long,

"I feel that this is right for me,

I know that this is wrong."

No teacher, preacher, parent, friend

Or wise man can decide

What's right for you-- just listen to

The voice that speaks inside.

https://internetpoem.com/shel-silverstein/the-voice-poem/

Spring (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

Somewhere

    a black bear

        has just risen from sleep

            and is staring

down the mountain.

    All night

        in the brisk and shallow restlessness

            of early spring

 

I think of her,

    her four black fists

        flicking gravel,

            her tongue

 

like a red fire

    touching the grass,

        the cold water.

            There is only one question;

 

how to love this world.

    I think of her

        rising

            like a black and leafy ledge

 

to sharpen her claws against

    the silence

        of the trees.

            Whatever else

 

my life is

    with its poems

        and its music

            and its glass cities,

 

it is also this dazzling darkness

    coming

        down the mountain,

            breathing and tasting;

 

all day I think of her--

     her white teeth,

        her wordlessness,

            her perfect love.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

    

Moles (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

Under the leaves, under

the first loose

levels of earth

they're there--quick

as beetles, blind

as bats, shy

as hares but seen

less than these--

traveling

among the pale girders

of appleroot,

rockshelf, nests

of insects and black

pastures of bulbs

peppery and packed full

of the sweetest food:

spring flowers.

Field after field

you can see the traceries

of their long

lonely walks, then

the rains blur

even this frail

hint of them--

so excitable,

so plush,

so willing to continue

generation after generation

accomplishing nothing

but their brief physical lives

as they live and die,

pushing and shoving

with their stubborn muzzles against

the whole earth,

finding it 

delicious.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

White Heron Rises Over Blackwater (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

 

 

 I wonder

     what it is

        that I will accomplish

            today

 

if anything

    can be called

        that marvelous word.

            It won't be

 

my kind of work,

    which is only putting

        words on a page,

            the pencil

 

haltingly calling up

    the light of the world,

        yet nothing appearing on paper

            half as bright

 

as the mockingbird's

    verbal hilarity

        in the still unleafed shrub

            in the churchyard--

 

or the white heron

    rising

        over the swamp

            and the darkness,

 

his yellow eyes

    and broad wings wearing

        the light of the world

            in the light of the world--

 

ah yes, I see him.

    He is exactly

        the poem

            I wanted to write.

 

 

 

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017