Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “poetry”
a poem by Jane Hirshfield 10 25 moleculesare enoughto call wood thrush or apple. A hummingbird, fewer.A wristwatch: 10 24. An alphabet’s molecules,tasting of honey, iron, and salt,cannot be counted— as some strings, untouched,sound when a near one is speaking. So it was when love slipped inside us.It looked out face to face in every direction. Then it was inside …
A poem about science that Sarah Howe wrote for Stephen Hawking. When we wake up brushed by panic in the darkour pupils grope for the shape of things we know. Photons loosed from slits like greyhounds at the trackreveal light’s doubleness in their cast shadows that stripe a dimmed lab’s wall—particles no more—and with a wave bid all certainties goodbye. …
wishes for sons (1987) i wish them cramps.i wish them a strange townand the last tampon.i wish them no 7-11. i wish them one week earlyand wearing a white skirt.i wish them one week late. later i wish them hot flashesand clots like youwouldn’t believe. let theflashes come when theymeet someone special.let the clots comewhen they want to. let them think they have …
Today, by Billy Collins If ever there were a spring day so perfect,so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze that it made you want to throwopen all the windows in the house and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, a day when the cool brick pathsand the garden bursting with peonies seemed …
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than …
a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke(1875 – 1926) English version by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy Want the change. Be inspired by the flamewhere everything shines as it disappears.The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so muchas the curve of the body as it turns away. What locks itself in sameness has congealed.Is it safer to be gray and numb?What turns …
Elizabeth Bishop’s heartfelt villanelle, One Art, eloquently speaks to our current moment. Bishop’s epitaph, which she wrote herself, is this: “All the untidy activity continues,awful but cheerful.” ONE ARTby Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn’t hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the …
An excerpt from Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander, which was read at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Praise Song for the Day (excerpt) Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself, others by first do no harm or take no more than you need. What if the mightiest word is love? Love beyond marital, filial, national,love that casts a …
When people say, “we have made it through worse before” — Clint Smith all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestonesof those who did not make it, those who did notsurvive to see the confetti fall from the sky, those who did not live to watch the parade roll down the street.I have grown accustomed to a lifetime …
… I love poet Lucille Clifton. Here’s her gorgeous short poem, “blessing the boats.” may the tidethat is entering even nowthe lip of our understandingcarry you outbeyond the face of fearmay you kissthe wind then turn from itcertain that it willlove your back may youopen your eyes to waterwater waving foreverand may you in your innocencesail through this …