someone else's poetry

Poem of the Day: Trees

BY JOYCE KILMER

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Source: Poetry (August 1913).

Poem of the Day: Women Like Me

BY WENDY ROSE

making promises they can’t keep.

For you, Grandmother, I said I would pull

each invading burr and thistle from your skin,

cut out the dizzy brittle eucalypt,

take from the ground the dark oily poison–

all to restore you happy and proud,

the whole of you transformed

and bursting into tomorrow.

           But where do I cut first?

Where should I begin to pull?

Should it be the Russian thistle

down the hill where backhoes

have bitten? Or African senecio

or tumbleweed bouncing

above the wind? Or the middle finger

of my right hand? Or my left eye

or the other one? Or a slice

from the small of my back, a slab of fat

from my thigh? I am broken

as much as any native ground,

my roots tap a thousand migrations.

My daughters were never born, I am

as much the invader as the native,

as much the last day of life as the first.

I presumed you to be as bitter as me,

to tremble and rage against alien weight.

Who should blossom? Who should receive pollen?

Who should be rooted, who pruned,

who watered, who picked?

Should I feed the white-faced cattle

who wait for the death train to come

or comb the wild seeds from their tails?

Who should return across the sea

or the Bering Strait or the world before this one

or the Mother Ground? Who should go screaming

to some other planet, burn up or melt

in a distant sun? Who should be healed

and who hurt? Who should dry

under summer’s white sky, who should shrivel

at the first sign of drought? Who should be remembered?

Who should be the sterile chimera of earth and of another place,

alien with a native face,

native with an alien face?

Poem of the Day: Tulips

BY A. E. STALLINGS

The tulips make me want to paint,

Something about the way they drop

Their petals on the tabletop

And do not wilt so much as faint,

Something about their burnt-out hearts,

Something about their pallid stems

Wearing decay like diadems,

Parading ďŹ nishes like starts,

Something about the way they twist

As if to catch the last applause,

And drink the moment through long straws,

And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

The way they’re somehow getting clearer,

The tulips make me want to see—

The tulips make the other me

(The backwards one who’s in the mirror,

The one who can’t tell left from right),

Glance now over the wrong shoulder

To watch them get a little older

And give themselves up to the light.

Poem of the Day: A Drinking Song BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh. Poem of the Day: Dover Beach BY MATTHEW ARNOLD The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. Lynne Sharon Schwartz about a similar man. We all enjoy writing that confirms what we’ve privately observed about the world. Schwartz lives in New York City.  Cement Backyard  My father had our yard cemented over. He couldn’t tell a flower from a weed. The neighbors let their backyards run to clover and some grew dappled gardens from a seed, but he preferred cement to rampant green. Lushness reeked of anarchy’s profusion. Better to tamp the wildness down, unseen, than tolerate its careless brash intrusion. The grass interred, he felt well satisfied: his first house, and he took an owner’s pride, surveying the uniform, cemented yard. Just so, he labored to cement his heart. Cement Backyard  My father had our yard cemented over. He couldn’t tell a flower from a weed. The neighbors let their backyards run to clover and some grew dappled gardens from a seed, but he preferred cement to rampant green. Lushness reeked of anarchy’s profusion. Better to tamp the wildness down, unseen, than tolerate its careless brash intrusion. The grass interred, he felt well satisfied: his first house, and he took an owner’s pride, surveying the uniform, cemented yard. Just so, he labored to cement his heart. Poem of the Day: A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme BY BEN JONSON Rhyme, the rack of finest wits, That expresseth but by fits          True conceit, Spoiling senses of their treasure, Cozening judgment with a measure,          But false weight; Wresting words from their true calling, Propping verse for fear of falling          To the ground; Jointing syllabes, drowning letters, Fast'ning vowels as with fetters          They were bound! Soon as lazy thou wert known, All good poetry hence was flown,          And art banish'd. For a thousand years together All Parnassus' green did wither,          And wit vanish'd. Pegasus did fly away, At the wells no Muse did stay,          But bewail'd So to see the fountain dry, And Apollo's music die,          All light failed! Starveling rhymes did fill the stage; Not a poet in an age          Worth crowning; Not a work deserving bays, Not a line deserving praise,          Pallas frowning; Greek was free from rhyme's infection, Happy Greek by this protection          Was not spoiled. Whilst the Latin, queen of tongues, Is not yet free from rhyme's wrongs,          But rests foiled. Scarce the hill again doth flourish, Scarce the world a wit doth nourish          To restore Phoebus to his crown again, And the Muses to their brain,          As before. Vulgar languages that want Words and sweetness, and be scant          Of true measure, Tyrant rhyme hath so abused, That they long since have refused          Other cæsure. He that first invented thee, May his joints tormented be,          Cramp'd forever. Still may syllabes jar with time, Still may reason war with rhyme,          Resting never. May his sense when it would meet The cold tumor in his feet,          Grow unsounder; And his title be long fool, That in rearing such a school             Was the founder.

In “Devotions,” a series of eight sonnets, Bruce Snider contemplates the more down-to-earth life of a rural same-sex couple as they wait to hear news about adopting a child:      Each day John jumps when he hears the phone. We walk over and over down the worn path to the empty mailbox: Maybe soon.Some nights we make love. We sleep arm to arm. We wake to our neighbor yelling at his son. Poem of the Day: George Washington’s Birthday: Wondering BY BOBBI KATZ I wonder what I would have said if my dad asked me, "Son, do you know who cut down my pretty cherry tree?" I think I might have closed my eyes and thought a little bit about the herds of elephants I'd seen attacking it. I would have heard the rat-a-tat of woodpeckers, at least, or the raging roar of a charging boar or some such other beast! Perhaps a hippopotamus with nothing else to do had wandered through our garden and stopped to take a chew. We all know George said, "Father, I cannot tell a lie." Yet I can't help but wonder ... Did he really try? American Life in Poetry: Column 413 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE Portraits  Mother came to visit today. We hadn’t seen each other in years. Why didn’t you call? I asked. Your windows are filthy, she said. I know, I know. It’s from the dust and rain. She stood outside. I stood in, and we cleaned each one that way, staring into each other’s eyes, rubbing the white towel over our faces, rubbing away hours, years. This is what it was like when you were inside me, she said. What? I asked, though I understood. Afterwards, indoors, she smelled like snow melting. Holding hands we stood by the picture window, gazing into the December sun, watching the pines in flame. Poem of the Day: February BY BILL CHRISTOPHERSEN The cold grows colder, even as the days grow longer, February's mercury vapor light buffing but not defrosting the bone-white ground, crusty and treacherous underfoot. This is the time of year that's apt to put a hammerlock on a healthy appetite, old anxieties back into the night, insomnia and nightmares into play; when things in need of doing go undone and things that can't be undone come to call, muttering recriminations at the door, and buried ambitions rise up through the floor and pin your wriggling shoulders to the wall; and hope's a reptile waiting for the sun. Source: Poetry (February 2002).