The Sleeping
by Jacinta V. White

There are some who are meant to sleep
and live inside dreams. They come

as visitors to carry
messages from there to now.

You know them. The baby who looks
deeply into your eyes while stealing your heart.

The lover who hypnotizes you,
the old man who speaks in riddles

before falling off to sleep. We shake
them out of selfish yearnings but

do not wake them or chastise them
for not being among the woke.

Some need to sleep so that others
will know what it is like to be alive.

 

“The Sleeping” by Jacinta V. White, from Resurrecting the Bones. Press 53 © 2019.

Apple Season
by Joyce Sutphen

The kitchen is sweet with the smell of apples,
big yellow pie apples, light in the hand,
their skins freckled, the stems knobby
and thick with bark, as if the tree
could not bear to let the apple go.
Baskets of apples circle the back door,
fill the porch, cover the kitchen table.

My mother and my grandmother are
running the apple brigade. My mother,
always better with machines, is standing
at the apple peeler; my grandmother,
more at home with a paring knife,
faces her across the breadboard.
My mother takes an apple in her hand,

She pushes it neatly onto the sharp
prong and turns the handle that turns
the apple that swivels the blade pressed
tight against the apple's side and peels
the skin away in long curling strips that
twist and fall to a bucket on the floor.
The apples, coming off the peeler,

Are winding staircases, little accordions,
slinky toys, jack-in-the-box fruit, until
my grandmother's paring knife goes slicing
through the rings and they become apple
pies, apple cakes, apple crisp. Soon
they will be married to butter and live with
cinnamon and sugar, happily ever after.

 

Joyce Sutphen, “Apple Season” from Coming Back to the Body. Copyright © 2000 by Joyce Sutphen.

Rebecca Who Slammed Doors for Fun
And Perished Miserably
by Hilaire Belloc       (Public Domain)

A trick that everyone abhors
In little girls is slamming doors.
A wealthy banker’s little daughter
Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater
(By name Rebecca Offendort),
Was given to this furious sport.
She would deliberately go
And slam the door like billy-o!
To make her Uncle Jacob start.
She was not really bad at heart,
But only rather rude and wild;
She was an aggravating child…
It happened that a marble bust
Of Abraham was standing just
Above the door this little lamb
Had carefully prepared to slam,
And down it came! It knocked her flat!
It laid her out! She looked like that.
Her funeral sermon (which was long
And followed by a sacred song)
Mentioned her virtues, it is true,
But dwelt upon her vices too,
And showed the dreadful end of one
Who goes and slams the door for fun.

Sarah Byng, Who Could Not Read and Was Tossed into a Thorny Hedge by a Bull

by Hilaire Belloc    (Public Domain)

Some years ago you heard me sing

My doubts on Alexander Byng.

His sister Sarah now inspires

My jaded Muse, my failing fires.

Of Sarah Byng the tale is told

How when the child was twelve years old

She could not read or write a line.

Her sister Jane, though barely nine,

Could spout the Catechism through

And parts of Matthew Arnold too,

While little Bill who came between

Was quite unnaturally keen

On 'Athalie', by Jean Racine.

But not so Sarah! Not so Sal!

She was a most uncultured girl

Who didn't care a pinch of snuff

For any literary stuff

And gave the classics all a miss.

Observe the consequence of this!

As she was walking home one day,

Upon the fields across her way

A gate, securely padlocked, stood,

And by its side a piece of wood

On which was painted plain and full,

BEWARE THE VERY FURIOUS BULL

Alas! The young illiterate

Went blindly forward to her fate,

And ignorantly climbed the gate!

Now happily the Bull that day

Was rather in the mood for play

Than goring people through and through

As Bulls so very often do;

He tossed her lightly with his horns

Into a prickly hedge of thorns,

And stood by laughing while she strode

And pushed and struggled to the road.

The lesson was not lost upon

The child, who since has always gone

A long way round to keep away

From signs, whatever they may say,

And leaves a padlocked gate alone.

Moreover she has wisely grown

Confirmed in her instinctive guess

That literature breeds distress.

George, Who Played with a Dangerous Toy 

and Suffered a Catastrophe of Considerable Dimensions 

by Hilaire Belloc   (Public Domain)
 
When George’s Grandmamma was told
That George had been as good as gold,
She promised in the afternoon
To buy him an Immense BALLOON.
And so she did; but when it came,
It got into the candle flame,
And being of a dangerous sort
Exploded with a loud report!
The lights went out! The windows broke!
The room was filled with reeking smoke.
And in the darkness shrieks and yells
Were mingled with electric bells,
And falling masonry and groans,
And crunching, as of broken bones,
And dreadful shrieks, when, worst of all,
The house itself began to fall!
It tottered, shuddering to and fro,
Then crashed into the street below—
Which happened to be Savile Row.

When Help arrived, among the Dead
Were Cousin Mary, Little Fred,
The Footmen (both of them), the Groom,
The man that cleaned the Billiard-Room,
The Chaplain, and the Still-Room Maid.
And I am dreadfully afraid
That Monsieur Champignon, the Chef,
Will now be permanently deaf—
And both his aides are much the same;
While George, who was in part to blame,
Received, you will regret to hear,
A nasty lump behind the ear.

Moral:
The moral is that little boys
Should not be given dangerous toys.

So Much of the World
by Gregory Djanikian
So much of the world exists
without us

the mountain in its own steepness

the deer sliding
into the trees becoming
a darkness
in the woods' darkness.

So much of an open field
lies somewhere between the grass
and the dragonfly's drive and thrum

the seed and seedling,
the earth within.

But so much of it lies in someone
standing alone at the edge of a field
with a life apart

feeling for a moment
the plover's cry
on the tongue

the curve and plumb
of the apple bough
in limb and bone.

So much of it between
one thing and another,

days of invitation,
then of release and return.


Gregory Djanikian, “So Much of the World” from Dear Gravity.

from The Song of Hiawatha
In the green and silent valley,
By the pleasant water-courses,
Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.
In the green and silent valley.
“There he sang of Hiawatha,
Sang the Song of Hiawatha,
Sang his wondrous birth and being,
How he prayed and how be fasted,
How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,
That the tribes of men might prosper,
That he might advance his people!”
Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
And the rushing of great rivers
Through their palisades of pine-trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,
Whose innumerable echoes
Flap like eagles in their eyries;—
Listen to these wild traditions,
To this Song of Hiawatha!

"The Song of Hiawatha (excerpt)" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Public Domain.

Anyone Can Be President
by Naomi Cochran
Twenty days before the oath
I dream it's me.
Chosen at random.
Standing alone
at a plywood podium.
No one wanted the job.

I'm from northern Wisconsin, I say.
I don't know anything.
I just want people to tell the truth
and be kind.

A man interrupts.
I put my hand over his mouth.
Be quiet, I say.
I believe I have the floor.

 “Anyone Can Be President” by Naomi Cochran, from The Truth about Everything: In 3500 Words or Less. Just a Thought Press © 2019.

Signs
by Luci Shaw
In time of drought, let us be
thankful for this very gentle rain,

a gift not to be disdained
though it is little and brief,

reaching no great depth, barely
kissing the leaves' lips. Think of it as

mercy. Other minor blessings may
show up—tweezers for splinters,

change for the parking meter,
a green light at the intersection,

a cool wind that lifts away summer's
suffocating heat. An apology after

a harsh comment. A word that opens
an unfinished poem like a key in a lock.

“Signs” by Luci Shaw from Eye of the Beholder. Paraclete Press © 2018.

Bring me the sunflower, let me plant it in my field parched by the salt sea wind, and let it show the blue reflecting sky the yearning of its yellow face all day. Dark things tend to brightness, bodies die out in a flood of colors, colors in music. So disappearing is the destiny of destinies. Bring me the plant that leads the way to where blond transparencies rise, and life as essence turns to haze; bring me the sunflower crazed with light. From Ossi di seppia (Cuttlefish Bones, 1925) By Eugenio Montale, translated by Jonathan Galassi

Changing the Front Porch Light for Thanksgiving 

To balance there, again, in the early dark,
three rungs up on the old stepladder,
afraid to go any higher, it wobbles so—
to reach out and find the first set-screw
stripped of its thread, barely holding the lip
in place—to stretch even farther, twisting
the next one to break the rust, turning
the last with the tips of your fingers until
the white globe drops down smooth and round
in your hands, and you see inside a pool
of intermingled wings and bodies, so dry
it stirs beneath your breath. To watch them
flutter, again, across the grass, when you
climb down and shake them out in the wind.

by Jared Carter

Meeting the Light Completely 

Even the long-beloved
was once
an unrecognized stranger.

Just so,
the chipped lip
of a blue-glazed cup,
blown field
of a yellow curtain,
might also,
flooding and falling,
ruin your heart.

A table painted with roses.
An empty clothesline.

Each time,
the found world surprises—
that is its nature.

And then
what is said by all lovers:
"What fools we were, not to have seen."

 by Jane Hirshfield  (Ledger: Poems, from Knopf, Inc.)

Hard Facts (Especially)
by Hayden Saunier

Most everything we're taught
is wrong.

Especially fixed rules
about small engine

repair in adverse
marine conditions,

walking on ice,
and anything

to do with people.
Especially our own

strange selves.
And so the door

to the ordinary miracle
swings open.

“Hard Facts (Especially)” by Hayden Saunier 

from How to Wear This Body. Terrapin Books © 2017.

Proximity 

The young possum foraging
outside my office window
seems unconcerned by my presence—
after all, I'm the one who's trapped.
I snack on almonds, watch
it nibble whatever it can find,
and though I am inclined to share,
I know that opening the window
will change the world.

Karen Head

"Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook,
while the abundance around us continues to shimmer
on its own."
 
(Naomi Shihab Nye)

The Return 

We are heartened
when each year
the barn swallows
return.

They find their old nests,
teach their young to fly,
lining up on the barn roof
for their first flight.

They remind us,
for now, some rituals
of this good earth
continue.

Jonathan Greene, "The Return," from Afloat, (Broadstone Books, 2019)

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

“The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens. Public domain.

For the Sake of Strangers

No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy gives me directions
so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,
waiting patiently for my empty body to pass through.
All day it continues, each kindness
reaching toward another—a stranger
singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees
offering their blossoms, a child
who lifts his almond eyes and smiles.
Somehow they always find me, seem even
to be waiting, determined to keep me
from myself, from the thing that calls to me
as it must have once called to them—
this temptation to step off the edge
and fall weightless, away from the world.

     by Dorianne Laux, from Poetry of Presence:

     An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, Grayson Books

December  On the fire escape, one stupid petunia still blooms, purple trumpet blowing high notes at the sky long after the rest of the band has packed up and gone home. By Sarah Freligh (Sad Math, Moon City Press)

Those Hours
by Joyce Sutphen

There were moments, hours even,
when it was clear what I

was meant to do, as if
a landscape had revealed itself

in the morning light.
I could see the road

plainly now, imagining myself
walking towards the distant mountains

like a pilgrim in the old stories—
ready to take on any danger,

hapless but always hopeful,
certain that my simple belief

in the light
would be enough.

Advice
by Ted Kooser

We go out of our way to get home,
getting lost in a rack of old clothing,
fainting in stairwells,
our pulses fluttering like moths.
We will always be
leaving our loves like old stoves
in abandoned apartments. Early in life
there are signals of how it will be—
we throw up the window one spring
and the window weights break from their ropes
and fall deep in the wall.

"Advice" from Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985 by Ted Kooser

 

Seeing for a Moment

By Denise Levertov

 

I thought I was growing wings—

it was a cocoon.

I thought, now is the time to step   

into the fire—

it was deep water.

Eschatology is a word I learned

as a child: the study of Last Things;

facing my mirror—no longer young,

       the news—always of death,

       the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoring   

            and howling, howling,

nevertheless

I see for a moment   

that's not it: it is   

the First Things.

Word after word

floats through the glass.   

Towards me.

 

"Seeing for a Moment" from Oblique Prayers, by Denise Levertov

Mind Wanting More, by Holly J. Hughes 

Only a beige slat of sun
above the horizon, like a shade
pulled not quite down. Otherwise,
clouds. Sea rippled here and
there. Birds reluctant to fly.
The mind wants a shaft of sun to
stir the grey porridge of clouds,
an osprey to stitch sea to sky
with its barred wings, some dramatic
music: a symphony, perhaps
a Chinese gong.

But the mind always
wants more than it has—
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses—as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.

Holly J. Hughes, from Hold Fast (Empty Bowl Press, 2019)

Champion the Enemy’s Need
by Kim Stafford

Ask about your enemy's wounds and scars.
Seek his hidden cause of trouble.
Feed your enemy's children.
Learn their word for home.

Repair their well.
Learn their sorrow's history.
Trace their lineage of the good.
Ask them for a song.

Make tea. Break bread.

Kim Stafford, from Wild Honey, Tough Salt

Mimesis, by Fady Joudah My daughter                         wouldn’t hurt a spider 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?

Fady Joudah, “Mimesis” from Alight. Copyright © 2013 by Fady Joudah.