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