Rabbits and Fire

 By Alberto Ríos

 

Everything’s been said
But one last thing about the desert,
And it’s awful: During brush fires in the Sonoran desert,
Brush fires that happen before the monsoon and in the great,
Deep, wide, and smothering heat of the hottest months,
The longest months,
The hypnotic, immeasurable lulls of August and July—
During these summer fires, jackrabbits—
Jackrabbits and everything else
That lives in the brush of the rolling hills,
But jackrabbits especially—
Jackrabbits can get caught in the flames,
No matter how fast and big and strong and sleek they are.
And when they’re caught,
Cornered in and against the thick
Trunks and thin spines of the cactus,
When they can’t back up any more,
When they can’t move, the flame—
It touches them,
And their fur catches fire.
Of course, they run away from the flame,
Finding movement even when there is none to be found,
Jumping big and high over the wave of fire, or backing
Even harder through the impenetrable
Tangle of hardened saguaro
And prickly pear and cholla and barrel,
But whichever way they find,
What happens is what happens: They catch fire
And then bring the fire with them when they run.
They don’t know they’re on fire at first,
Running so fast as to make the fire
Shoot like rocket engines and smoke behind them,
But then the rabbits tire
And the fire catches up,
Stuck onto them like the needles of the cactus,
Which at first must be what they think they feel on their skins.
They’ve felt this before, every rabbit.
But this time the feeling keeps on.
And of course, they ignite the brush and dried weeds
All over again, making more fire, all around them.
I’m sorry for the rabbits.
And I’m sorry for us
To know this.

from The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, by Alberto Ríos. Copper Canyon Press, 2002

This Land is a Poem (Monday Poem)

by Joy Harjo

 

 

This land is a poem of ocher and burnt sand I could never write,

unless paper were the sacrament of sky, and ink the broken line of

wild horses staggering the horizon several miles away. Even then,

does anything written ever matter to the earth, wind and sky?

 

 

from How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems: 1975-2001

by Joy Harjo, W. W. Norton, 2002

Daffodowndilly (Monday Poem)

 by A. A. Milne

 

 

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,

She wore her greenest gown;

She turned to the south wind

And curtsied up and down.

She turned to the sunlight

And shook her yellow head,

And whispered to her neighbor:

"Winter is dead."

 

 

 

Queen Anne's Lace (Monday Poem)

by William Carlos Williams

 

 

Her body is not so white as
anemony petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
or nothing.

from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939, edited by Christopher MacGowan, New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1938

 

 

 

I'm Glad (Monday Poem)

 by Nelda Dishman

The trees share their shade with

all who pass by,

But their leaves whisper secrets

only to the wind.

from The Family Read-Aloud Holiday Treasury

selected by Alice Low, illustrated by Marc Brown

Little, Brown and Company, 1991

Blow-up (Monday Poem)

 by X. J. Kennedy

Our cherry tree

Unfolds whole loads

Of pink-white bloom--

It just explodes.

 

For three short days

Its petals last.

Oh, what a waste.

But what a blast.

 

 

from The Family Read-Aloud Holiday Treasury

selected by Alice Low, illustrated by Marc Brown

Little, Brown and Company, 1991

 

Perhaps the World Ends Here (Monday Poem)

 by Joy Harjo

 

 

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

 

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

 

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. The scrape their knees under it.

 

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

 

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

 

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

 

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

 

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

 

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

 

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

 

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

 

 

from 

How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems: 1975-2001 

by Joy Harjo

W. W. Norton & Company, 2002