History Lesson (Monday Poem)

by Natasha Trethewey

 

I am four in this photograph, standing   
on a wide strip of Mississippi beach,   
my hands on the flowered hips

of a bright bikini. My toes dig in,   
curl around wet sand. The sun cuts   
the rippling Gulf in flashes with each   

tidal rush. Minnows dart at my feet
glinting like switchblades. I am alone
except for my grandmother, other side   

of the camera, telling me how to pose.   
It is 1970, two years after they opened   
the rest of this beach to us,   

forty years since the photograph   
where she stood on a narrow plot   
of sand marked colored, smiling,

her hands on the flowered hips   
of a cotton meal-sack dress.

from Domestic Work by Natasha Tretheway.

Graywolf Press, 2000

 

Here's an Ocean Tale (Monday Poem)

by Kwoya Fagin Maples

 

My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.

The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money. We all come to sit
at the feet of the surf, watch waves
drag the sand and crush shells for hours.

My brother’s feet are coated in sparkly powder
that leaves a sticky residue when dry.
He’s twenty-three, still unaware of his value.
It is too easy, reader, for me to call him

beautiful, standing against the sky
in cherrywood skin and almond
eyes in the sun, so instead I tell him
he is handsome. I remind him

of a day when I brought him to the beach
as a boy. He’d wandered, trailing a tourist,
a white man pointing toward his hotel—
all for a promised shark tooth.

I yelled for him, pulled him to me,
drove us home. Folly Beach. He was six.
He almost went.

from Poetry, 2021

 

Genetics (Monday Poem)

By Jacqueline Woodson

 

My mother has a gap between
her two front teeth. So does Daddy Gunnar.
Each child in this family has the same space
connecting us.

Our baby brother, Roman, was born pale as dust.
His soft brown curls and eyelashes stop
people on the street.
Whose angel child is this? they want to know.
When I say, My brother, the people
wear doubt
thick as a cape
until we smile
and the cape falls.

 

from Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. 

Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014

Sabbaths 2003 X (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

But do the Lords of War in fact

hate the world? That would be easy

to bear, if so. If they hated

their children and the flowers

that grow in the warming light. For then

we could hate the haters

and be right. What is hard

is to imagine the Lords of War

may love the things that they destroy.

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013

Sabbaths 2012 XII (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

Once there was nothing,

not even darkness,

not even silence,

not even nothing.

Think of that.

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013

Sabbaths 2011 VII (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

Off in the woods in the quiet

morning a redbird is singing

and his song goes out around him

greater than its purpose,

a welcoming room of song

in which the trees stand,

through which the creek flows.

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013

Sabbaths 2005 XIX (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

Born by our birth

Here on the earth

Our flesh to wear

Our death to bear

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013

Sabbaths 2005 XVIII (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

A hawk in flight

The clearing sky

A young man's thought

An old man's cry.

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013

Sabbaths 2005 XIII (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

Eternity is not infinity.

It is not a long time.

It does not begin at the end of time.

It does not run parallel to time.

In its entirety it always was.

In its entirety it will always be.

It is entirely present always

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013

Sabbaths 1996 VI (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

A bird the size

of a leaf fills

the whole lucid

evening with

his note, and flies.

 

 

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013 

Sabbaths 2005 XI (Monday Poem)

by Wendell Berry

My young grandson rides with me

as I mow the day's first swath

in the hillside pasture,

and then he rambles the woods beyond

the field's edge, emerging

from the trees to wave, and I wave back,

remembering that I too once

played at the field's edge and waved

to an old workman who went mowing by,

waving back to me as he passed.

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013

Sabbaths 1999 VII (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

We travelers, walking to the sun, can't see

Ahead, but looking back the very light

That blinded us shows us the way we came,

Along which blessings now appear, risen

As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,

By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward

The blessed light that yet to us is dark.

 

 

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013 

Future Memories (Monday Poem)

 

By Mario Meléndez

Translated from the Spanish by Eloisa Amezcua

My sister woke me very early
that morning and told me
“Get up, you have to come see this
the ocean’s filled with stars”
Delighted by the revelation
I dressed quickly and thought
If the ocean’s filled with stars
I must take the first flight
and collect all of the fish from the sky  

 

from Poetry (September 2017)

Mockingbirds (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

This morning                                                 and blessed them.       

two mockingbirds                                         When the gods rose                                  

in the green fields                                       out of their mortal bodies,

were spinning and tossing                            like a million particles of water

the white ribbons                                        from a fountain,

of their songs                                             the light

into the air.                                                swept into all the corners

I had nothing                                              of the cottage,

 

better to do                                               and the old couple,

than listen.                                                shaken with understanding,

I mean this                                                bowed down ---

seriously.                                                   but still they asked for nothing

 

In Greece,                                                beyond the difficult life

a long time ago,                                        which they had already.

an old couple                                            And the gods smiled as they vanished,

opened their door                                    clapping their great wings.

 

to two strangers                                      Wherever it was

who were,                                                I was supposed to be

it soon appeared,                                    this morning ---

not men at all,                                         whatever it was I said

 

but gods,                                                I would be doing---

It is my favorite story---                       I was standing

how the old couple                                  at the edge of the field---

had almost nothing to give                      I was hurrying

 

but their willingness                                through my own soul,

to be attentive---                                    opening its dark doors---

and for this alone                                    I was leaning out;

the gods loved them                                I was listening.

 

 

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017          

From Blossoms (Monday Poem)

By Li-Young Lee

 

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward   
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into   
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

from Rose, by Li-Young Lee

BOA Editions Ltd., 1986  www.boaeditions.org.

A Brass Bowl (Monday Poem)

 by  Wendell Berry

Worn to brightness, this

bowl opens outward

to the world, like

the marriage of a pair

we sometimes know.

Filled full, it holds

not greedily. Empty,

it fills with light

that is Heaven's and

it own. It holds

forever for a while.

 

 

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013 

 

Summer Poem (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

Leaving the house,

I went out to see

the frog, for example,

in her shining green skin;

and her eggs

like a slippery veil;

and her eyes

with their golden rims;

and the pond

with its risen lilies;

and its warmed shores

dotted with pink flowers;

and the long, windless afternoon;

and the white heron

like a dropped cloud,

taking one slow step

then standing awhile then taking

another, writing

her own softfooted poem

through the still waters.

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

I went out of the schoolhouse fast

and through the gardens and to the woods,

and spent all summer forgetting what I'd been taught --

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,

how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,

machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back

to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,

the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn't a penny in the bank,

the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

Filter (Monday Poem)

By Suma Subramaniam

 

I come from a country so far away
that you may have visited only in your dreams.
My face does not bear the pale color of my palms.
I don’t speak your language at home.
I don’t even sound like you.
If you come to my house, you’ll see my family:
my mother in a sari,
my father wearing a sacred thread around his body,
and me, eating a plate of spicy biryani
instead of a burger or pizza
at the dinner table.
If you, for a moment, shed your filter,
you will also see my pockets filled with Tootsie Rolls,
waiting to be shared with you.

 

 

from Poetry (March 2021)

Blackberry Picking (Monday Poem)

 

By Seamus Heaney

for Philip Hobsbaum

 

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

From Opened Ground: Selected poems 1966-1996.  

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999

The Bait (Monday Poem)

 

By Eric Chock

 

Saturday mornings, before
my weekly chores,
I used to sneak out of the house
and across the street,
grabbing the first grasshopper
walking in the damp California grass
along the stream.
Carefully hiding a silver hook
beneath its green wings,
I'd float it out
across the gentle ripples
towards the end of its life.
Just like that.
I'd give it the hook
and let it ride.
All I ever expected for it
was that big-mouth bass
awaiting its arrival.
I didn't think
that I was giving up one life
to get another,
that even childhood
was full of sacrifice.
I'd just take the bright green thing,
pluck it off its only stalk,
and give it away as if
it were mine to give.
I knew someone out there
would be fooled,
that someone would accept
the precious gift.
So I just sent it along
with a plea of a prayer,
hoping it would spread its wings this time
and fly across that wet glass sky,
no concern for what inspired
its life, or mine,
only instinct guiding pain
towards the other side.
 

From Last Days Here. by Eric Chock

Bamboo Ridge Press, 1990

Stomp (Monday Poem)

 

By Nikki Grimes

 

I come home,
feet about to bleed
from angry stomping.
“Boy!” says Mom.
“Quit making all that racket.”
But what does she expect
when, day after day,
haters sling words at me
like jagged stones
designed to split my skin?
I retreat to my room,
collapse on the bed,
count, “One. Two. Three…”
When I get to ten,
I snatch up journal and pen,
flip to a clean page,
and unload my hurt, my rage
’til I can breathe, again.
Letter by letter,
I rediscover
my power to decide
which words matter,
which words don’t,
and whose.
Calm, now, I remember:
I get to choose.

From Poetry (March 2021)

A Wing and a Prayer (Monday Poem)

 

By Beth Ann Fennelly

 

We thought the birds were singing louder. We were almost certain they
were. We spoke of this, when we spoke, if we spoke, on our zoom screens
or in the backyard with our podfolk. Dang, you hear those birds? Don’t
they sound loud? We shouted to the neighbor, and from behind her mask
she agreed. The birds are louder this spring. This summer. I’ve never
heard such loud birds. Listen to ’em sing. But the birds aren’t singing
louder. In fact, the opposite. Ornithologists have recorded lowered
decibel levels of bird song. In the absence of noise pollution—our planes
overhead, our cars rushing past with their motors and horns, our bars
leaking music onto the street corners—the birds don’t need to shout.
So why are we hearing birdsong now, when it is quieter? Because we
need it more. Poetry in the pandemic: birdsong that was there all along.

From Poetry (July 2021)

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky (Monday Poem)

 

By Lewis Carroll

 

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?

 

from poetryoutloud.org

The End of the World (Monday Poem)

 

By Dana Gioia

“We're going,” they said, “to the end of the world.”   
So they stopped the car where the river curled,   
And we scrambled down beneath the bridge   
On the gravel track of a narrow ridge.

We tramped for miles on a wooded walk
Where dog-hobble grew on its twisted stalk.
Then we stopped to rest on the pine-needle floor   
While two ospreys watched from an oak by the shore.

We came to a bend, where the river grew wide   
And green mountains rose on the opposite side.   
My guides moved back. I stood alone,
As the current streaked over smooth flat stone.

Shelf by stone shelf the river fell.
The white water goosetailed with eddying swell.   
Faster and louder the current dropped
Till it reached a cliff, and the trail stopped.

I stood at the edge where the mist ascended,   
My journey done where the world ended.
I looked downstream. There was nothing but sky,   
The sound of the water, and the water’s reply.

from Interrogations at Noon, by Dana Gioia. 

Graywolf Press, 2001

Eagle Poem (Monday Poem)

 

By Joy Harjo

 

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

from In Mad Love and War, by Joy Harjo. 

Wesleyan University Press, 1990

V Sabbaths 2002 (Monday Poem)

by Wendell Berry

 

 

The cherries turn ripe, ripe,

and the birds come: red-headed

and red-bellied woodpeckers,

blue jays, cedar waxwings,

robins -- beautiful, hungry, wild

in our domestic tree. I pick

with the birds, gathering the red

cherries alight among the dark

leaves, my hands so sticky

with juice the fruit will hardly

drop from them into the pail.

The birds pick as I pick, all

of us delighted in the weighty heights

--- the fruit red ripe, the green leaves,

the blue sky and white clouds,

all tending to flight -- making

the most of this sweetness against

the time when there will be none.

And you are to me, my love,

as a tree of ripe cherries,

and I am a wild bird high

in your branches, hungry, ready to fly!

 

 

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint Press, 2013 

 

The Emerald Mosque on the Hill (Monday Poem)

 

By Raza Ali Hasan

 

In the lull, the afternoon sun warms
the linseed field. The flowers are quiet,

their bright subdued in the green
while the mind wanders

to the emerald mosque upon the hill,
built around a flowing spring,

the easy absolutions and ablutions
in that mosque where the spring water

has been let loose to meander
over marble courtyards and inner chambers,

across the geometric, green-tiled floor that
cools the heels of the faithful.

 

from Grieving Shias, by Raza Ali Hasan

The Sheep Meadow Press, 2006

Dust (Monday Poem)

 

By Dorianne Laux

 

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor —
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes —
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.

from What We Carry, by Dorianne Laux

BOA Editions, Ltd., 1994

At Blackwater Pond (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled

after a night of rain.

I dip my cupped hands. I drink

a long time. It tastes

like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold

into my body, waking the bones. I hear them

deep inside me, whispering

oh what is that beautiful thing

that just happened?

 

 

from Devotions by Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2020

V Sabbath 1991 (Monday Poem)

 by Wendell Berry

The seed is in the ground.

Now may we rest in hope

While darkness does its work.

from This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint Press, 2013

Dream Journal (Monday Poem)

 

By Kareem Tayyar

 

If you’re swimming
then you have lost something important.

If you’re flying
then your heart’s been broken.

If you sit at a table before a deck of cards
then you are afraid of getting older.

If you undress beneath a single spotlight
then you are about to commit a crime.

If you are singing while holding a Spanish guitar
then someone you know has passed away.

If you are preparing to leap from a balcony
then you are mourning the loss of your childhood.

If you place your lips to the breast of a cloud
then you have forgotten to say your prayers.

If you run three red lights in a row
then there is a lesson you still haven’t learned.

If you pull water from an old well
then your father is preparing to call you long distance.

If you hear music playing from another house on your street
then your sister is about to come back from the dead.

If you cup your hands as a hard rain begins
then you are days away from falling in love.

If you find that you cannot run when you want to
then there is a book that you need to reread.

If you awaken in a field of strawberries
then a long  journey awaits you.

If you eat the strawberries
then you won’t be going alone.

from Poetry, January 2022

Double Dutch (Monday Poem)

 

By Gregory Pardlo

 

The girls turning double-dutch

bob & weave like boxers pulling

punches, shadowing each other,

sparring across the slack cord

casting parabolas in the air. They

whip quick as an infant’s pulse

and the jumper, before she

enters the winking, nods in time

as if she has a notion to share,

waiting her chance to speak. But she’s

anticipating the upbeat

like a bandleader counting off

the tune they are about to swing into.

The jumper stair-steps into mid-air

as if she’s jumping rope in low-gravity,

training for a lunar mission. Airborne a moment

long enough to fit a second thought in,

she looks caught in the mouth bones of a fish

as she flutter-floats into motion

like a figure in a stack of time-lapse photos

thumbed alive. Once inside,

the bells tied to her shoestrings rouse the gods

who’ve lain in the dust since the Dutch

acquired Manhattan. How she dances

patterns like a dust-heavy bee retracing

its travels in scale before the hive. How

the whole stunning contraption of girl and rope

slaps and scoops like a paddle boat.

Her misted skin arranges the light

with each adjustment and flex. Now heather-

hued, now sheen, light listing on the fulcrum

of a wrist and the bare jutted joints of elbow

and knee, and the faceted surfaces of muscle,

surfaces fracturing and reforming

like a sun-tickled sleeve of running water.

She makes jewelry of herself and garlands

the ground with shadows.


 

 

 from Totem, by Gregory Pardlo. 

The American Poetry Review, 2007

At the Airport Security Checkpoint (Monday Poem)

 

By Claudia Rankine

At the airport-security checkpoint on my way to visit my grandmother, I am asked to drink from my water bottle.

                   This water bottle?

                   That's right. Open it and drink from it.

At the airport-security checkpoint on my way to visit my grandmother, I am asked to take off my shoes.

                   Take off my shoes?

                   Yes. Both Please.

At the airport-security checkpoint on my way to visit my grandmother, I am asked if I have a fever.

                   A fever? Really?

                  Yes. Really.

 My grandmother is in a nursing home. It's not bad. It doesn't smell like pee. It doesn't smell like anything. When I go to see her, as I walk through the hall past the common room and the nurses' station, old person after old person puts out his or her hand to me. Steven, one says. Ann, another calls. It's like being in a third-world country, but instead of food or money you are what is wanted, your company. In third-world coun­tries I have felt overwhelmingly American, calcium-rich, privileged, and white. Here, I feel young, lucky, and sad. Sad is one of those words that has given up its life for our country, it's been a martyr for the American dream, it's been neutralized, co-opted by our culture to suggest a tinge of discomfort that lasts the time it takes for this and then for that to happen, the time it takes to change a channel. But sadness is real because once it meant something real. It meant dignified, grave; it meant trustworthy; it meant exceptionally bad, deplor­able, shameful; it meant massive, weighty, forming a compact body; it meant falling heavily; and it meant of a color: dark. It meant dark in color, to darken. It meant me. I felt sad.

from Don't Let Me Be Lonely, by Claudia Rankine

Graywolf Press, 2004

1988 Sabbath IV (Monday Poem)

by Wendell Berry

 

The world of machines is running

Beyond the world of trees

Where only a leaf is turning

In a small high breeze.

 

 

from This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems, by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013 

 

 

This Morning (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

This morning the redbirds' eggs

have hatched and already the chicks

are chirping for food. They don't

know where it's coming from, they

just keep shouting, "More! More!"

As to anything else, they haven't

had a single thought. Their eyes

haven't yet opened, they know nothing

about the sky that's waiting. Or

the thousands, millions of trees.

They don't even know they have wings.

And just like that, like a simple

neighborhood event, a miracle is

taking place.

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, by Mary Oliver

Penguin Press, 2019

Don't Bother the Earth Spirit (Poetry Month)

By Joy Harjo

 

Don’t bother the earth spirit who lives here. She is working on a story. It is the oldest story in the world and it is delicate, changing. If she sees you watching she will invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread, and you will be obligated to stay and listen. But this is no ordinary story. You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning, the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty. It’s a story so compelling you may never want to leave; this is how she traps you. See that stone finger over there? That is the only one who ever escaped.

 

from Secrets from the Center of the World by Joy Harjo, with photographs by Stephen Strom. University of Arizona Press, 1989

The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee (Poetry Month)

 

By N. Scott Momaday

 

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things

You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive.

 

from In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961-1991, by N. Scott Momaday. 

St. Martin’s Press, 1991

 

 

Declaration (Poetry Month)

By Tracy K. Smith

 

He has
               sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people
  He has plundered our—
                                            ravaged our—
                                                                        destroyed the lives of our—
  taking away our­—

                                  abolishing our most valuable—

and altering fundamentally the Forms of our—

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms:
 
                                                                Our repeated
Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
 
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration
and settlement here.
 
                                    —taken Captive
                                                               on the high Seas
                                                                                                      to bear—

 

 

 

from Wade in the Water, by Tracy K. Smith.  

Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org, 2018

Dakota Homecoming (Poetry Month)

By Gwen Nell Westerman

 

We are so honored that
              you are here, they said.
We know that this is
             your homeland, they said.
The admission price
             is five dollars, they said.
Here is your button
             for the event, they said.
It means so much to us that
             you are here, they said.
We want to write
             an apology letter, they said.
Tell us what to say.

 

from New Poets of Native Nations, by Gwen Nell Westerman, 2018

 

 

Crossing (Poetry Month)

 

By Jericho Brown

 

The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God
I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing
To cross back. I’m set
On something vast. It reaches
Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.

 

from The Tradition, by Jericho Brown

Copper Canyon Press, 2019

Catch a Little Rhyme (Poetry Month)

 

By Eve Merriam

 

Once upon a time
I caught a little rhyme

I set it on the floor
but it ran right out the door

I chased it on my bicycle
but it melted to an icicle

I scooped it up in my hat
but it turned into a cat

I caught it by the tail
but it stretched into a whale

I followed it in a boat
but it changed into a goat

When I fed it tin and paper
it became a tall skyscraper

Then it grew into a kite
and flew far out of sight …

 

from Catch a Little Rhyme, by Eve Merriam

 Atheneum, 1966

Broken Promises (Monday Poem)

 

By David Kirby

 

I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;   
I have seen them playing cards under a single light-bulb   
and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,   
knowing I would only let them win.   
I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,   
coming back late from the interval   

long after the others have taken their seats,   
and in deserted shopping malls late at night,   
peering at things they can never buy,   
and I have found them wandering   
in a wood where I too have wandered.   

This morning I caught one;   
small and stupid, too slow to get away,   
it was only a promise I had made to myself once   
and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me   
and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach   
in their long, sad faces.
When I drew near them, they scurried away,   
even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.   
I hate them for their ingratitude,   
I who have kept countless promises,   
as dead now as Shakespeare’s children.   
“You bastards,” I scream,   
“you have to love me—I gave you life!”

 

from Big-Leg Music, by David Kirby

Orchises Press, 1995

Break, Break, Break (Poetry Month)

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

Break, break, break,
         On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
         The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
         That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
         That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
         To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
         And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break
         At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
         Will never come back to me.

 

from poetryoutloud.org

 

Boy and Egg (Poetry Month)

 

By Naomi Shihab Nye

 

Every few minutes, he wants
to march the trail of flattened rye grass
back to the house of muttering
hens. He too could make
a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh
it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it
to his ear while the other children
laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,
so little yet, too forgetful in games,
ready to cry if the ball brushed him,
riveted to the secret of birds
caught up inside his fist,
not ready to give it over
to the refrigerator
or the rest of the day.

 

from Fuel, by Naomi Shihab Nye

BOA Editions, 1998 

Border Boy (Poetry Month)

By Alberto Ríos 

I grew up on the border and though I left
I have brought it with me wherever I've gone.

Its line guides me, this long, winding thread of memory.
The border wasn't as big as they say—

It fit neatly behind my eyes and between my ears—
It guides me still, I know, but it is not a compass.

It is not a place out there but a place in here.
I catch on its barbed wire in both places.

It is a line I step over and a ledge I duck under.
I have looked underneath its skirts, and it has caught me—

Many times. We're old friends and we play the game well.
When someone says border, now, or frontera, or the line.

La línea, or the fence, or whatever else
We name the edge and the end of things—

I hear something missing in the words,
The what it all used to be. Its name does not include its childhood.

I grew up liking the border and its great scar,
Its drama always good for a story the way scars always are.

A scar is the place where the hurting used to be.
A scar the heroic signature of the healed.

The border is not a scar. Instead, it is something we keep picking at,
Something that has no name.

The border I knew was something with a history.
But this thing now, it is a stranger even to itself.

 

from Not go away is my name, by Alberto Rios.  

Copper Canyon Press, 2020  www.coppercanyonpress.org.

 

 

BLK History Month (Poetry Month)

By Nikki Giovanni

 

If Black History Month is not
viable then wind does not
carry the seeds and drop them
on fertile ground
rain does not
dampen the land
and encourage the seeds
to root
sun does not
warm the earth
and kiss the seedlings
and tell them plain:
You’re As Good As Anybody Else
You’ve Got A Place Here, Too

 

from Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Nikki Giovanni.  

HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 2002

A Blessing (Poetry Month)

 

By James Wright

 

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   
That 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 me   
And 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 ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

 

from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose, by James Wright

Wesleyan University Press, 1990

Being (Poetry Month)

 

By Tanaya Winder

 

Wake up, greet the sun, and pray.
Burn cedar, sweet grass, sage—
sacred herbs to honor the lives we’ve been given,
for we have been gifted these ways since the beginning of time.
Remember, when you step into the arena of your life,
think about those who stand beside you, next to, and with you.
Your ancestors are always in your corner, along with your people.
When we enter this world we are born hungry,
our spirits long for us to live out our traditions
that have been passed down for generations.
Prayer, ceremony, dance, language—our ways of being.
Never forget you were put on this earth for a reason—
honor your ancestors.
Be a good relative.

 

from poetryoutloud.org

Barter (Monday Poem)

 

By Sara Teasdale

 

Life has loveliness to sell,
     All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
     Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
     Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
     Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
     Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
     Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

 

from poetryoutloud.org

Awaking in New York (Poetry Month)

 

By Maya Angelou

 

Curtains forcing their will   
against the wind,
children sleep,
exchanging dreams with   
seraphim. The city
drags itself awake on   
subway straps; and
I, an alarm, awake as a   
rumor of war,
lie stretching into dawn,   
unasked and unheeded.

 

from Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?  by Maya Angelou

Random House, 1983

Auto-Lullaby (Poetry Month)

By Franz Wright

 

Think of   a sheep
knitting a sweater;
think of   your life
getting better and better.

Think of   your cat
asleep in a tree;
think of   that spot
where you once skinned your knee.

Think of   a bird
that stands in your palm.
Try to remember
the Twenty-first Psalm.

Think of   a big pink horse
galloping south;
think of   a fly, and
close your mouth.

If   you feel thirsty, then
drink from your cup.
The birds will keep singing
until they wake up.

 from Poetry Not Written for Children that Children Might Nevertheless Enjoy. by Lemony Snicket

Alfred A. Knopf, 2013

 

The Art Room (Poetry Month)

By Shara McCallum

Because we did not have threads
of turquoise, silver, and gold,
we could not sew a sun nor sky.
And our hands became balls of fire.
And our arms spread open like wings.

Because we had no chalk or pastels,
no toad, forest, or morning-grass slats
of paper, we had no colour
for creatures. So we squatted
and sprang, squatted and sprang.

Four young girls, plaits heavy
on our backs, our feet were beating
drums, drawing rhythms from the floor;
our mouths became woodwinds;
our tongues touched teeth and were reeds.

 

from Song of Thieves, by Shara McCallum

University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003

 

The Arrow and the Song (Poetry Month)

 

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend. 

 

from Poetryoutloud.org

April Midnight (Poetry Month)

 

By Arthur Symons

 

Side by side through the streets at midnight,
Roaming together,
Through the tumultuous night of London,
In the miraculous April weather.
 
Roaming together under the gaslight,
Day’s work over,
How the Spring calls to us, here in the city,
Calls to the heart from the heart of a lover!
 
Cool the wind blows, fresh in our faces,
Cleansing, entrancing,
After the heat and the fumes and the footlights,
Where you dance and I watch your dancing.
 
Good it is to be here together,
Good to be roaming,
Even in London, even at midnight,
Lover-like in a lover’s gloaming.
 
You the dancer and I the dreamer,
Children together,
Wandering lost in the night of London,
In the miraculous April weather.

 

 

from Poetryoutloud.org

And I Wonder Where You Are (Poetry Month)

 

By Tanaya Winder

Sacred stars blanket a nighttime sky,
each light reminds us of the preciousness of life.
Your memory lives along the Milky Way,
each twinkle saying don’t forget my name.

It’s an epidemic, a sickness of the earth,
a war we enter as soon as we are birthed.
Indigenous women, girls, our two-spirit, too.
When did this world start disappearing you?

Source: Poetry (March 2021)

All Thirst Quenched (Monday Poem)

 by Lois Red Elk

 

I didn’t want to scold the sky that year, but
 Grandma’s words taunted my senses. If there
is a thirst, then you need to pity the flowers
 
in a loud voice. Ask the frogs why they are
being punished, stomp on the ground and talk
to the dried clay about cracking open the earth.
 
I know challenging the storm is risky. “Last
but not least, burn cedar and pray the lightning
doesn’t strike your town.” That night, the stars
 
disappeared, so did the birds. Perhaps it was
the season for rain or the dance. In the western
distance, we thought we heard cannon blasts,
 
looking over we watched the horizon fill with
lightning strikes. Rain couldn’t pour hard enough
over the thirsty plain. Accompanying clouds,
 
called to thunder’s voice in extreme decimals
requesting all the water heaven could send forth,
to come. Rain and more rain filled empty stream
 
bottoms. Rivers who had pulled their dry banks
farther and farther from their center begged for
a drink to startle dusty beds with a flooding roar.
 
Lives in dormant places begin to stir and awaken.
 The lives of water beings, those that swim, the
ones that hop, and the ones that fly, begin to stir.
 
That year all thirst was quenched.
 

from Dragonfly Weather, by Lois Red Elk

Lost Horse Press, 2013

Boy and Egg (Poetry Month)

 by Naomi Shihab Nye

Every few minutes, he wants
to march the trail of flattened rye grass
back to the house of muttering
hens. He too could make
a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh
it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it
to his ear while the other children
laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,
so little yet, too forgetful in games,
ready to cry if the ball brushed him,
riveted to the secret of birds
caught up inside his fist,
not ready to give it over
to the refrigerator
or the rest of the day.

 

 

from Fuel, by Naomi Shihab Nye

BOA Editions by permission of the author. Copyright © 1998

The Last Word (Poetry Month)

 by Nikki Grimes

I am a door of metaphor
waiting to be opened.
You’ll find no lock, no key.
All are free to enter, at will.
Simply step over the threshold.
Remember to dress for travel, though.
Visitors have been known
to get carried away.

 

 

Source: Poetry (March 2021)

Here's an Ocean Tale (Poetry Month)

 

By Kwoya Fagin Maples

 

My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.

The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money. We all come to sit
at the feet of the surf, watch waves
drag the sand and crush shells for hours.

My brother’s feet are coated in sparkly powder
that leaves a sticky residue when dry.
He’s twenty-three, still unaware of his value.
It is too easy, reader, for me to call him

beautiful, standing against the sky
in cherrywood skin and almond
eyes in the sun, so instead I tell him
he is handsome. I remind him

of a day when I brought him to the beach
as a boy. He’d wandered, trailing a tourist,
a white man pointing toward his hotel—
all for a promised shark tooth.

I yelled for him, pulled him to me,
drove us home. Folly Beach. He was six.
He almost went.

 

Source: Poetry (July 2021)

 

 

 

 

 

A Wing and a Prayer (Poetry Month)

 by Beth Ann Fennelly

 

 

We thought the birds were singing louder. We were almost certain they
were. We spoke of this, when we spoke, if we spoke, on our zoom screens
or in the backyard with our podfolk. Dang, you hear those birds? Don’t
they sound loud? We shouted to the neighbor, and from behind her mask
she agreed. The birds are louder this spring. This summer. I’ve never
heard such loud birds. Listen to ’em sing. But the birds aren’t singing
louder. In fact, the opposite. Ornithologists have recorded lowered
decibel levels of bird song. In the absence of noise pollution—our planes
overhead, our cars rushing past with their motors and horns, our bars
leaking music onto the street corners—the birds don’t need to shout.
So why are we hearing birdsong now, when it is quieter? Because we
need it more. Poetry in the pandemic: birdsong that was there all along.

Source: Poetry (July 2021)

The Old Sailor (Poetry Month)

by A. A. Milne

 

 

There was an old sailor my grandfather knew

Who had so many things which he wanted to do

That, whenever he thought it was time to begin,

He couldn't because of the state he was in.

 

 

from Now We Are Six, by A. A. Milne

Dell, 1955 

The Hummingbird (Poetry Month)

 by Mary Oliver

It's morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it.

And again it is spring,

and there are the apple trees,

and the hummingbird in its branches.

On the green wheel of his wings

he hurries from blossom to blossom,

which is his work, that he might live.

He is a gatherer of the fine honey of promise,

and truly I go in envy

of the ruby fire at his throat,

and his accurate, quick tongue,

and his single-mindedness.

Meanwhile the knives of ambition are stirring

down there in the darkness behind my eyes,

and I should go inside now to my desk and my pages.

But still I stand under the trees, happy and desolate,

wanting for myself such a satisfying coat

and brilliant work.

 

 

What Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems by Mary Oliver

Da Capo Press, 2002 

Noisy, Noisy (Monday Poem)

by Jack Prelutsky

 

It's noisy, noisy overhead,

the birds are winging south,

and every bird is opening

a noisy, noisy mouth.

 

They fill the air with loud complaint,

they honk and quack and squawk --

they do not feel like flying,

but it's much too far to walk.

 

 

Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year

Selected by Fiona Waters

Candlewick, 2018 

Faith (Poetry Month)

by Emma Walton Hamilton

 

 

You said to us, your arms outstretched

-- a golden boy of three,

"I'm waiting for a butterfly

to come and land on me."

 

Your dad and I were worried.

We exchanged a little smile.

"You know," Dad offered tenderlly,

"that might take awhile."

 

"Try again," I added,

"when the bushes are in flower. . ."

But still you stood there motionless,

for what seemed like an hour.

 

"How about a game of catch?"

Dad hoped he could distract.

"After the butterfly," you said,

with confidence and tact.

 

We knew, as grown-ups do, of course,

this dream could not come true --

that tears and disappointment

would undoubtedly ensue.

 

Yet suddenly, from nowhere,

just the way you had foretold,

Her Majesty appreared

and settled lightly on your shoulder.

 

Your smile extended ear to ear.

You looked at Dad and me.

She flexed her lovely orange wings,

and you said, simply, "See?"

 

 

Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies

Selected by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton

Little Brown and Company, 2009 

Poetry Month

by Wendell Berry

 

 

Over the river in loud flood

in the wind deep and broad

under the unending sky, pair

by pair, the swallows again,

with tender exactitude,

play out their line

in arcs laid on the air,

as soon as made, not there.

 

 

from This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint Press, 2013