Blue Iris (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I?

Can't fly, can't run, and see how slowly I walk.

Well, I think, I can read books.

            "What's that you're doing?

the green-headed fly shouts as it buzzes past.

I close the book.

Well, I can write down words, like these, softly.

"What's that you're doing?" whispers the wind, pausing

in a heap just outside the window.

Give me a little time, I say back to its staring, silver face.

It doesn't happen all of a sudden, you know.

"Doesn't it?" says the wind, and breaks open, releasing

distillation of blue iris.

And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be,

the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.

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

Penguin Random House, 2017

May (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

What lay on the road was not mere handful of snake. It was

the copperhead at last, golden under the street lamp. I hope

to see everything in this world before I die. I knelt on the 

road and stared. Its head was wedge-shaped and fell back to

the unexpected slimness of a neck. The body itself was thick,

tense, electric. Clearly this wasn't black snake looking down

from the limbs of a tree, or green snake, of the garter, whiz-

zing over the rocks. Where these had, oh, such shyness, this

one had none. When I moved a little, it turned and clamped

its eyes on mine; then it jerked toward me. I jumped back

and watched as it flowed on across the road and down into

the dark. My heart was pounding. I stood a while, listening

to the small sounds of the woods and looking at the stars.

After excitement we are so restful. When the thumb of fear

lifts, we are so alive.

 

 

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

Penguin Random House, 2017 

My Own Day (Monday Poem)

 by Jean Little

When I opened my eyes this morning,

The day belonged to me.

The sky was mine and the sun,

And my feet got up dancing.

The marmalade was mine and the squares of sidewalk

And all the birds in the trees.

So I stood and I considered

Stopping the world right there,

Making today go on and on forever.

But I decided not to.

I let the world spin on and I went to school.

I almost did it, but then, I said to myself,

"Who knows what you might be missing tomorrow?"

 

 

from The Family Read-Aloud Holiday Treasury, 

selected by Alice Low, 

Little, Brown and Company, 1991

Life Doesn't Frighten Me (Monday Poem)

 by Maya Angelou

Shadows on the wall

Noises down the hall

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking laud

Big ghosts in a cloud

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Mean old Mother Goose

Lions on the loose

They don't frighten me at all

Dragons breathing flame

On my counterpane

That doesn't frighten me at all.

I go boo

Make them shoo

I make fun

Way they run

I won't cry

So they fly

I just smile

They go wild

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Tough guys in a fight

All alone at night

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Panthers in the park

Strangers in the dark

No, they don't frighten me at all.

 

That new classroom where

Boys all pull my hair

(Kissy little girls

With their hair in curls)

They don't frighten me at all.

 

Don't show me frogs and snakes

And listen for my scream

If I'm afraid at all

It's only in my dreams.

 

I've got a magic charm

That I keep up my sleeve,

I can walk the ocean floor

And never have to breathe.

 

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Not at all

Not at all.

Life doesn't frighten me al all.

 

 

from The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, by Maya Angelou

Random House, 1994