Hum (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

 

 

What is this dark hum among the roses?

The bees have gone simple, sipping,

that's all. What did you expect? Sophistication?

They're small creatures and they are

filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not

moan in happiness? The little

worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.

Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand

that life is a blessing. I have found them -- haven't you?--

stopped in the very cups of the flowers, their wings

a little tattered -- so much flying about, to the hive,

then out into the world, then back, and perhaps dancing,

should the task be to be a scout -- sweet dancing bee.

I think there isn't anything in this world I don't

admire. If there is, I don't know what it is. I

haven't met it yet. Nor expect to. The bee is small,

and since I wear glasses, so I can see the traffic and

read books, I have to

take them off and bend close to study and

understand what is happening. It's not hard, it's in fact

as instructive as anything I have ever studied. Plus, too,

it's love almost too fierce to endure, the bee

nuzzling like that into the blouse

of the rose. And the fragrance, and the honey, and of course

the sun, the purely pure sun, shining, all the while, over

all of us.

 

 

 

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

by Mary Oliver

Penguin Random House, 2020  

 

 

 

Serenade (Monday Poem)

By Mary Weston Fordham

 

 

Sleep, sleep, love sleep,

The night winds sigh,

In soft lullaby.

The Lark is at rest
With the dew on her breast.
So close those dear eyes,
That borrowed their hue
From the heavens so blue,
Sleep, love sleep.

Sleep, love sleep,
The pale moon looks down
On the valleys around,
The Glow Moth is flying,
The South wind is sighing,
And I am low lying,
With lute deftly strung,
To pour out my song,
Sleep, love sleep.

from She Wields a Pen: American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century

University of Iowa Press, 1997

 

Invitation (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

 

 

Oh do you have time

   to linger

        for just a little while

             out of your busy

 

and very important day

    for the goldfinches

         that have gathered

              in a field of thistles

 

for a musical battle,

     to see who can sing

         the highest note,

              or the lowest,

 

or the most expressive of mirth,

     or the most tender?

         Their strong, blunt beaks

              drink the air

 

as they strive

    melodiously

        not for your sake

            and not for mine

 

and not for the sake of winning

     but for sheer delight and gratitude ---

          believe us, they say,

              it is a serious thing

 

just to be alive

     on this fresh morning

         in this broken world.

             I beg of you,

 

do not walk by

     without pausing

         to attend to this

              rather ridiculous performance.

 

It could mean something.

     It could mean everything.

          It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:

               You must change your life.

 

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

by Mary Oliver

Penguin Random House, 2020  

      

 

 

A Red, Red Rose (Monday Poem)

by Robert Burns

 

 

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
   That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
   That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
   So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
   Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
   And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
   While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
   And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
   Though it were ten thousand mile. 

from PoetryOutLoud.org

Recuerdo (Monday Poem)

 by Edna St Vincent Millay

 

 

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

 

from Collected Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1931