Monday, December 16, 2024
Give Yourself a Hug (Monday Poem)
Monday, December 9, 2024
The Eagle (Monday Poem)
Monday, December 2, 2024
And My Heart Soars (Monday Poem)
Monday, November 25, 2024
Morning (Monday Poem)
Monday, November 18, 2024
W (Monday Poem)
Monday, November 11, 2024
Singing Time (Monday Poem)
Monday, November 4, 2024
The Sun (Monday Poem)
Monday, October 28, 2024
The Poetry Teacher (Monday Poem)
Monday, October 21, 2024
Turtle Came to See Me (Monday Poem)
The first story I ever write
is a bright crayon picture
of a dancing tree, the branches
tossed by island wind.
I draw myself standing beside the tree,
with a colorful parrot soaring above me,
and a magical turtle clasped in my hand,
and two yellow wings fluttering
on the proud shoulders of my ruffled
Cuban rumba dancer’s
fancy dress.
In my California kindergarten class,
the teacher scolds me: REAL TREES
DON’T LOOK LIKE THAT.
It’s the moment
when I first
begin to learn
that teachers
can be wrong.
They have never seen
the dancing plants
of Cuba.
Monday, October 14, 2024
Smoke in Our Hair (Monday Poem)
The scent of burning wood holds
the strongest memory.
Mesquite, cedar, piñon, juniper,
all are distinct.
Mesquite is dry desert air and mild winter.
Cedar and piñon are colder places.
Winter air in our hair is pulled away,
and scent of smoke settles in its place.
We walk around the rest of the day
with the aroma resting on our shoulders.
The sweet smell holds the strongest memory.
We stand around the fire.
The sound of the crackle of wood and spark
is ephemeral.
Smoke, like memories, permeates our hair,
our clothing, our layers of skin.
The smoke travels deep
to the seat of memory.
We walk away from the fire;
no matter how far we walk,
we carry this scent with us.
New York City, France, Germany—
we catch the scent of burning wood;
we are brought home.
Monday, October 7, 2024
Silverly (Monday Poem)
Monday, September 30, 2024
A Poison Tree (Monday Poem)
By William Blake
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
from PoetryOutLoud.org
Monday, September 23, 2024
Little Wind (Monday Poem)
Monday, September 16, 2024
The Summer Day (Monday Poem)
Monday, September 9, 2024
Summer Goes (Monday Poem)
Monday, September 2, 2024
August (Monday Poem)
Monday, August 26, 2024
Let Me Go (Monday Poem)
Monday, August 19, 2024
Catching a Wave (Monday Poem)
Monday, August 12, 2024
Waiting for the Wave
Monday, August 5, 2024
Finding Shells (Monday Poem)
Monday, July 29, 2024
Sea Turtle (Monday Poem)
Monday, July 22, 2024
Sargasso (Monday Poem)
Monday, July 15, 2024
Picking Blueberries (Monday Poem)
Monday, July 8, 2024
People (Monday Poem)
Monday, July 1, 2024
The Snakes (Monday Poem)
Monday, June 24, 2024
Thirst (Monday Poem)
Monday, June 17, 2024
The Fist (Monday Poem)
Monday, June 10, 2024
Praying (Monday Poem)
Monday, June 3, 2024
Equality (Monday Poem)
Monday, May 27, 2024
Blue Iris (Monday Poem)
Monday, May 20, 2024
May (Monday Poem)
Monday, May 13, 2024
My Own Day (Monday Poem)
Monday, May 6, 2024
Life Doesn't Frighten Me (Monday Poem)
Monday, April 29, 2024
Human Family (Monday Poem)
Monday, April 22, 2024
Blow-Up (Monday Poem)
Monday, April 15, 2024
On Aging (Monday Poem)
Monday, April 8, 2024
Willie (Monday Poem)
Monday, April 1, 2024
Passing Time (Monday Poem)
Monday, March 25, 2024
The New Colossus (Monday Poem)
by Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
form Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings, 2002
Monday, March 18, 2024
My Father Sings, to My Embarrassment (Monday Poem)
by Sandra M. Castillo
at Las Villas, a small Carol City bar with a makeshift stage,
where he spends too much time drinking,
pretending he can learn to play the guitar at forty-five,
become a singer, a musician,
who writes about "Que Difícil Es…."
to live in Spanish in Miami,
a city yet to be translated,
in a restaurant where he has taken us for Cuban food,
where I sit, frozen, unable to make a sound,
where Mother smiles,
all her teeth exposed,
squeezes my hand,
where Mae and Mitzy hide
under the table shielding them from shame
with a blood-red tablecloth,
leaving my mother and me,
pale-faced, trapped by the spotlight shining in our eyes,
making it difficult for us to pretend
we do not know the man in the white suit
pointing to us.
Monday, March 11, 2024
The Mower (Monday Poem)
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.
Monday, March 4, 2024
The Mothering Blackness (Monday Poem)
by Maya Angelou
She came home running
back to the mothering blackness
deep in the smothering blackness
white tears icicle gold plains of her face
She came home running
She came down creeping
here to the black arms waiting
now to the warm heart waiting
rime of alien dreams befrosts her rich brown face
She came down creeping
She came home blameless
black yet as Hagar’s daughter
tall as was Sheba’s daughter
threats of northern winds die on the desert’s face
She came home blameless
from The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House Inc., 1994)
Monday, February 26, 2024
Momma Said (Monday Poem)
by Calvin Forbes
The slice I ate I want it back
Those crumbs I swept up
I’d like my share again
I can still taste it like it was
The memory by itself is delicious
Each bite was a small miracle
Both nourishing and sweet
I wish I had saved just a little bit
I know it wasn’t a literal cake
It’s the thought that counts
Like a gift that’s not store-bought
Making it even more special
Like a dream that makes you
Want to go back to sleep
You can’t have your cake
And eat it too Momma said
I was defiant and hardheaded
And answered yes I can too
The look she gave me said boy
I hope you aren’t a fool all your life
from Poetry (July 2011)
Monday, February 19, 2024
Makin' Jump Shots (Monday Poem)
by Michael S. Harper
He waltzes into the lane
’cross the free-throw line,
fakes a drive, pivots,
floats from the asphalt turf
in an arc of black light,
and sinks two into the chains.
One on one he fakes
down the main, passes
into the free lane
and hits the chains.
A sniff in the fallen air—
he stuffs it through the chains
riding high:
“traveling” someone calls—
and he laughs, stepping
to a silent beat, gliding
as he sinks two into the chains.
Monday, February 12, 2024
Mimesis (Monday Poem)
By Fady Joudah
That had nested
Between her bicycle handles
For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord
If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn’t a place to call home
And you’d get to go biking
She said that’s how others
Become refugees isn’t it?
Monday, February 5, 2024
Let Evening Come (Monday Poem)
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
Monday, January 29, 2024
The Lake Isle of Innisfree (Monday Poem)
by William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
from The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats 1989
Monday, January 22, 2024
Keeping Things Whole (Monday Poem)
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Monday, January 15, 2024
Invisible Children (Monday Poem)
by Mariana Llanos
Invisible children fall
through the cracks of the system
like Alice in the rabbit hole.
But these children won’t find
an eat-me cake or a drink-me bottle.
They won’t wake up on the lap
of a loving sister.
They’ll open their eyes on the hand
of a monster called Negligence
who’ll poke them with its sharp teeth
and bait them with its heartless laughter,
like a wild thing in a wild rumpus.
But the children won’t awake
to the smell of a warm supper,
nor will they find a purple crayon
to draw an escape door or a window.
Instead they’ll make a mirror
of a murky puddle on the city street
which won’t tell them they’re beautiful
but it’ll show their scars, as invisible to others
as these children are.
from Poetry (March 2021)
Monday, January 8, 2024
Ice (Monday Poem)
by Gail Mazur
In the warming house, children lace their skates,
bending, choked, over their thick jackets.
A Franklin stove keeps the place so cozy
it’s hard to imagine why anyone would leave,
clumping across the frozen beach to the river.
December’s always the same at Ware’s Cove,
the first sheer ice, black, then white
and deep until the city sends trucks of men
with wooden barriers to put up the boys’
hockey rink. An hour of skating after school,
then—twilight, the warming house steamy
with girls pulling on boots, their chafed legs
aching. Outside, the hockey players keep
playing, slamming the round black puck
until it’s dark, until supper. At night,
a shy girl comes to the cove with her father.
Although there isn’t music, they glide
arm in arm onto the blurred surface together,
braced like dancers. She thinks she’ll never
be so happy, for who else will find her graceful,
find her perfect, skate with her
in circles outside the emptied rink forever?
Monday, January 1, 2024
I, Too (Monday Poem)
by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.