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  1. TopTop #2881
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Memory

    Climbing through a dark shower
    I came to the edge of the mountain

    I was a child
    and everything was there

    the flight of eagles the passage of warriors
    watching the valley far below

    the wind on the cliff the cold rain blowing upward
    from the rock face

    everything around me had burned
    and I was coming back

    walking on charcoal among the low green bushes
    wet to the skin and wide awake


    - W.S. Merwyn
    Last edited by Barry; 05-05-2016 at 02:28 PM.
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  3. TopTop #2882
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    On Another's Sorrow


    Can I see another's woe,
    And not be in sorrow too?
    Can I see another's grief,
    And not seek for kind relief?

    Can I see a falling tear,
    And not feel my sorrow's share?
    Can a father see his child
    Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

    Can a mother sit and hear
    An infant groan, an infant fear?
    No, no! never can it be!
    Never, never can it be!

    And can He who smiles on all
    Hear the wren with sorrows small,
    Hear the small bird's grief and care,
    Hear the woes that infants bear --

    And not sit beside the next,
    Pouring pity in their breast,
    And not sit the cradle near,
    Weeping tear on infant's tear?

    And not sit both night and day,
    Wiping all our tears away?
    Oh no! never can it be!
    Never, never can it be!

    He doth give his joy to all:
    He becomes an infant small,
    He becomes a man of woe,
    He doth feel the sorrow too.

    Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
    And thy Maker is not by:
    Think not thou canst weep a tear,
    And thy Maker is not near.

    Oh He gives to us his joy,
    That our grief He may destroy:
    Till our grief is fled and gone
    He doth sit by us and moan.

    - William Blake
    Last edited by Barry; 05-06-2016 at 01:59 PM.
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  4. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  5. TopTop #2883
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I’m Listening


    I'm listening. But I don't know
    If what I hear is silence or God.
    I'm listening. But I can't tell
    If I hear the plane of emptiness echoing
    Or a keen consciousness
    That at the bounds of the universe
    Deciphers and watches me.
    I only know I walk like someone
    Beheld, Beloved and Known.
    And because of this
    I put into my every movement
    Solemnity and Risk.

    - Sophia DeMello-Breyner
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  7. TopTop #2884

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    wow, so much said in so few words!
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  8. TopTop #2885
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Looking for Mother


    He stands among the white painted racks –
    An older man who could be any woman's son.
    He is looking for mother in the words and phrases
    Penned on the inside of each greeting card.
    She is not there.

    I wonder – will this be my son
    When his time comes to choose?
    Will he find me among the Hallmark deities,
    Second only to Mary or Mother Teresa?

    From what palette of memories
    Will he paint my portrait?
    Will it be the goodnight hugs, sweet moments of tenderness,
    Or sometimes, tears of despair?

    Will he select, as this man does,
    The blank page on which to write?
    Will he remember that I had my own life,
    And mother was only one of my names?

    - Jackie Huss Hallerberg
    Last edited by Barry; 05-08-2016 at 12:35 PM.
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  9. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  10. TopTop #2886
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Kaddish for My Mother


    Sarah Sarah shtetl child
    of peddler Sholem, sheytled Mintzi,
    you bore the griefs of history to Brooklyn,
    hungry for the taste of liberation
    in the cage of a tenement
    where you sang your exiled songs.

    Sarah of dark curls and heart-shaped face,
    what a beauty you were, girl of seventeen
    smiling under April blossom trees
    with Sam, namesake of your father;
    in you he saw the Medina's promised gold.

    The litany of your three day labor,
    your apocalyptic screams
    while Bubbe Sonia muttered in his ear
    bad luck to kiss before a birth.

    His male hesitation
    his fear of uncleanness
    The kiss too late.

    I was yours, Mother.

    Friday sundowns you lit the Sabbath candles,
    chanted the prayers with covered head,
    cupped fingers beseeching the flame
    while I gazed speechless
    aching with the sudden beauty that lit the kitchen
    to a temple.

    Bungalow summers, blackberry picking days,
    nights when I lay my head in your lap
    feeling your heart beat, your blood flow,
    as you sang with the women Yiddish songs
    of struggle and yearning.

    I'm older now than you would ever be;
    sickness stopped your May Day marches
    stilled your voice,
    stilled your mind.

    Sleep now, bride, in the final bed.
    Now you are one with your dreams,
    perfect, your cells in cosmic silence,
    clear and light, an open channel
    for the simple forms of nature to pass through
    and claim you as their own.

    My daughter sings your songs,
    keeps the funny dolls you made
    with shaky button eyes,
    and I, I keep a rain-cap,
    travel-kit, gifts you gave,
    good for one on a journey.
    You knew.

    I journeyed to your grave again
    sat in the quiet of earth and stones
    saw a sparrow land
    where you lie as if flying
    from the blossom trees of Brooklyn.

    - Mara Levine
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  12. TopTop #2887
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Pact


    It was broken before
    We arrived, the pact with
    Life. Shattered like crystal
    Heaved in fearful fury. All our
    Lives, we walk across
    The sparkling glass
    Bleeding out breathing
    In the agony of Ages.


    How could we know
    We came as witnesses?
    Our job to see beyond
    Even our own cynicism
    The pessimism inherited
    From millennia and millions.


    Our work
    Immerse in mourning
    Inhale distilled sorrow
    Become an alchemist
    Convert loss into love.


    - Rebecca del Rio
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  14. TopTop #2888
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Leave Me Hidden

    I was having trouble deciding
    which to watch: Night
    of the Living Bloggers, or
    Attack of the Neck-Brace People.
    In the end I just went for a walk.

    In the woods I stopped wondering why
    of all trees
    this one: my hand
    pressed to fissures
    and ridges of

    bark’s hugely magnified
    fingerprint, forehead
    resting against it
    finally, feeling
    distinctly

    a heartbeat, vast, silently
    booming there deep in
    my hidden leaves, blessed
    motherworld, personal
    underworld, thank you

    thank you.

    - Franz Wright
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  15. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  16. TopTop #2889
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Stream of Enough


    After decades of meandering hither and yon,
    like a sleep-deprived pilot with neither destination nor flight plan,
    attaching tentatively wherever I landed,
    as you learn to do when you grow up with your bags packed,
    searching for more,
    yearning for more,
    sometimes strategically, sometimes artfully,
    mostly haphazardly,
    I wandered awhile back, almost by chance, into contentment.

    I feel settled now,
    remembering afresh the sweet dreaminess of being four,
    lying on the grass, idling timelessly,
    nothing to do, nowhere to go,
    staring happily at white clouds floating in a Pennsylvania blue sky,
    rowing my mental boat gently down an untroubled stream
    for which I have, at long last, found a name:
    enough!

    - Bill Dickinson
    Last edited by Barry; 05-12-2016 at 11:46 AM.
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  17. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  18. TopTop #2890
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Care


    My 16-month old daughter wakes from her nap
    and cries. I pick her up, press her against my chest

    and rub her back until my palm warms
    like an old family quilt. “Daddy’s here, daddy’s here,”

    I whisper. Here is the island of Oʻahu, 8,500 miles
    from Syria. But what if Pacific trade winds suddenly

    became helicopters? Flames, nails, and shrapnel
    indiscriminately barreling towards us? What if shadows

    cast against our windows aren’t plumeria
    tree branches, but soldiers and terrorists marching

    in heat? Would we reach the desperate boats of
    the Mediterranean in time? If we did, could I straighten

    my legs into a mast, balanced against the pull and drift
    of the current? “Daddy’s here, daddy’s here,” I

    whisper. But am I strong enough to carry her across
    the razor wires of sovereign borders and ethnic

    hatred? Am I strong enough to plead: “please, help
    us, please, just let us pass, please, we aren’t

    suicide bombs.” Am I strong enough to keep walking
    even after my feet crack like Halaby pepper fields after

    five years of drought, after this drought of humanity.
    Trains and buses rock back and forth to detention centers.

    Yet what if we didn’t make landfall? What if here
    capsized? Could you inflate your body into a buoy

    to hold your child above rising waters? “Daddy’s
    here, daddy’s here,” I whisper. Drowning is

    the last lullaby of the sea. I lay my daughter
    onto bed, her breath finally as calm as low tide.

    To all the parents who brave the crossing: you and your
    children matter. I hope your love will teach the nations

    that emit the most carbon and violence that they should,
    instead, remit the most compassion. I hope, soon,

    the only difference between a legal refugee and
    an illegal migrant will be how willing

    we are to open our homes, offer refuge, and
    carry each other towards the horizon of care.


    - Craig Carlos Perez

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  19. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  20. TopTop #2891
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Anniversary


    The day will come

    when you’ll be dead longer
    than alive—thankfully

    not soon.
    There are of course years

    long before, without you
    breathing—and your years

    without me even
    an idea. Then there are those

    infant months, when I knew
    your voice, your bearded

    face, not your name—
    at least to speak

    it aloud. And in the night,
    father, I cried out

    and in the day—
    like now.

    - Kevin Young
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  21. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  22. TopTop #2892
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Clouds


    My brother is a birder.
    He has a life list
    and when he adds new birds
    it’s considered polite
    to feign excitement.
    And I am excited
    for him.


    But I’m a cloudspotter.
    So far this is a much less
    legitimized pasttime.
    When I remark on a cool cloud
    or a sky phenomenon,
    and there are lots—
    halos, coronas, glories, sun dogs,
    cloud iridescence, virga, fallstreak holes—
    cumulus, stratus, cirrus
    and their genus and species and varieties—
    it tends to make people self-conscious.
    Or silent.
    Or bored.
    Kinda like when I used to
    quote Shakespeare to my kids.
    They hated it.
    Still do.


    What’s wrong with Shakespeare?
    Doesn’t anybody look up?


    One of these days
    The Cloud Appreciation Society
    will have a meet in the US.
    Like minds
    who like clouds.
    On that day
    Earth’s water atmosphere
    will get its due.


    No frenetic birds flitting from branch to branch,
    but slow-moving arabesques
    of water vapor and droplets
    and ice crystals.


    Which remind us
    as the stars do at night
    that life
    is sometimes


    miraculous.


    - Kerry Lichlyter
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  23. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  24. TopTop #2893
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundews

    An ingenuity too astonishing
    to be quite fortuitous is
    this bog full of sundews, sphagnum-
    lined and shaped like a teacup.

    A step
    down and you’re into it; a
    wilderness swallows you up:
    ankle-, then knee-, then midriff-
    to-shoulder-deep in wetfooted
    understory, an overhead
    spruce-tamarack horizon hinting
    you’ll never get out of here.

    But the sun
    among the sundews, down there,
    is so bright, an underfoot
    webwork of carnivorous rubies,
    a star-swarm thick as the gnats
    they’re set to catch, delectable
    double-faced cockleburs, each
    hair-tip a sticky mirror
    afire with sunlight, a million
    of them and again a million,
    each mirror a trap set to
    unhand unbelieving,

    that either
    a First Cause said once, “Let there
    be sundews,” and there were, or they’ve
    made their way here unaided
    other than by that backhand, round-
    about refusal to assume responsibility
    known as Natural Selection.

    But the sun
    underfoot is so dazzling
    down there among the sundews,
    there is so much light
    in the cup that, looking,
    you start to fall upward.

    - Amy Clampitt
    Last edited by Barry; 05-16-2016 at 11:32 AM.
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  26. TopTop #2894
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Declaring Peace


    Enough. Say it slow, revel in the eff
    disguised as a cough, slide on the E
    until you give everything you've got
    to WHEE; you're free of anything
    coming next. No preference, no
    acceptance. No next at all. Just
    the chasm between that lonely E
    and the expansive tangle
    of all those letters making one
    sound. Enough. Content.
    All my masks in insouciant
    disarray on the gleaming floor.


    - Patrick Woodworth
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  27. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  28. TopTop #2895
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Patience Taught by Nature
    ‘O dreary life,’ we cry, ‘O dreary life!’
    And still the generations of the birds
    Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
    Serenely live while we are keeping strife
    With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
    Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds
    Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
    Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
    Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees
    To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
    In their old glory: O thou God of old,
    Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!
    But so much patience as a blade of grass
    Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.
    - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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  29. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  30. TopTop #2896
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What If We Were Alone?


    What if there weren't any stars?
    What if only the sun and the earth
    circled alone in the sky? What if
    no one ever found anything outside
    this world right here? -- no Galileo
    could say, "Look -- it is out there,
    a hint of whether we are everything."


    Look out at the stars. Yes -- cold
    space. Yes, we are so distant that
    the mind goes hollow to think it.
    But something is out there. Whatever
    our limits, we are led outward. We glimpse
    company. Each glittering point of light
    beckons: "There is something beyond."


    The moon rolls through the trees, rises
    from them, and waits. In the river all
    night a voice floats from rock
    to sandbar, to log. What kind of listening
    can follow quietly enough? We bow, and
    the voice that falls through the rapids
    calls all the rocks by their secret names.


    - William Stafford
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  32. TopTop #2897
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction
    VIII

    What am I to believe? If the angel in his cloud,
    Serenely gazing at the violet abyss,
    Plucks on his strings to pluck abysmal glory,

    Leaps downward through evening’s revelations, and
    On his spredden wings, needs nothing but deep space,
    Forgets the gold centre, the golden destiny,

    Grows warm in the motionless motion of his flight,
    Am I that imagine this angel less satisfied?
    Are the wings his, the lapis-haunted air?

    Is it he or is it I that experience this?
    Is it I then that keep saying there is an hour
    Filled with expressible bliss, in which I have

    No need, am happy, forget need’s golden hand,
    Am satisfied without solacing majesty,
    And if there is an hour there is a day,

    There is a month, a year, there is a time
    In which majesty is a mirror of the self:
    I have not but I am and as I am, I am.

    These external regions, what do we fill them with
    Except reflections, the escapades of death,
    Cinderella fulfilling herself beneath the roof?

    - Wallace Stevens
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  33. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  34. TopTop #2898
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Before You Cut Loose,


    put dogs on the list
    of difficult things to lose. Those dogs ditched
    on the North York Moors or the Sussex Downs
    or hurled like bags of sand from rented cars
    have followed their noses to market towns
    and bounced like balls into their owners’ arms.
    I heard one story of a dog that swam
    to the English coast from the Isle of Man,
    and a dog that carried eggs and bacon
    and a morning paper from the village
    surfaced umpteen leagues and two years later,
    bacon eaten but the eggs unbroken,
    newsprint dry as tinder, to the letter.
    A dog might wander the width of the map
    to bury its head in its owner’s lap,
    crawl the last mile to dab a bleeding paw
    against its own front door. To die at home,
    a dog might walk its four legs to the bone.
    You can take off the tag and the collar
    but a dog wears one coat and one colour.
    A dog got rid of—that’s a dog for life.
    No dog howls like a dog kicked out at night.
    Try looking a dog like that in the eye.

    - Simon Armitage
    Last edited by Barry; 05-21-2016 at 12:16 PM.
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  35. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  36. TopTop #2899
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ladies With White Hair Seen From A Second Storey Window

    Look down with me,
    below, upon the heads of these mares.
    Their calling-card to death is silver,
    white as bone, grey as going mist.
    How can you not love them for their courage
    to wear the cap of departure,
    wear it anyhow, just like anything?

    The clouds upon their napes,
    this declaration of what’s to come,
    neither waited for, denied, nor bragged,

    I with my own white hair
    glorify the locks that shall unlock
    the curls of snow so soon to melt,
    declaring their purchase in advance
    of the white graves of heaven, which are also white,
    whiter than white, whiter than anything.

    - Bruce Moody
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  37. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  38. TopTop #2900
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Afternoon in Manhattan

    Once upon a book
    We walked through your Manhattan
    While smoke-scented air
    Drew cool in our nostrils
    We strolled its wasted streets.

    Your hand held mine
    And I looked into your face –
    “There is a man” you whispered to me,
    Pointing with your voice
    “With all he owns in that paper sack.”
    And I knew you knew, but never how.

    We paused before a new brick house
    Pressed between buildings of crumbling stone.
    “There,” you spoke “is where your great uncle lived,
    “But his building was old and torn down.”
    And I thought I felt your clear eyes cry
    For the lost bricks
    For those lost dead bricks that you loved.

    On we walked
    Through the yellowfaced streets of Chinatown
    My Chinatown
    With paper fans and parasols
    And the odor of food spelling CHOW MEIN
    In capital letters in the narrow streets.

    All that afternoon we were filled with each other
    No street looked dirty,
    No building old and worn.
    All we knew were each other’s joys
    Which mingled with our own.
    Then, laughing together we rode the slow train home.

    - Nan Fuchs
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  39. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  40. TopTop #2901
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Last Words
    for Harry

    I love you, repeated
    Four times over
    Your daughter, ours
    Listening to your breath
    Quiet as the moments
    Between the chimes
    On the Hour.

    I love you, you
    Told her. I stood
    outside your circle
    Self-exile of years
    Years that allowed us
    To love each other
    In ways marriage couldn't.

    I love you
    your gift to her,
    To me to know
    Your anger, disappointment
    Dissipated.

    I love you, you said
    To who? What?
    Four times over.
    The penultimate perhaps to Life
    The last to Love itself
    As you fell into eternity's embrace.

    - Rebecca del Rio
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  41. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  42. TopTop #2902
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Man's A Man for A' That

    Is there for honest poverty
    That hings his head, an a' that?
    The coward slave, we pass him by -
    We dare be poor for a' that!
    For a' that, an a' that,
    Our toils obscure, an a' that,
    The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
    The man's the gowd for a' that.

    What though on hamely fare we dine,
    Wear hoddin grey, an a' that?
    Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine -
    A man's a man for a' that.
    For a' that, an a' that.
    Their tinsel show, an a' that,
    The honest man, tho e'er sae poor,
    Is king o men for a' that.

    Ye see yon birkie ca'd 'a lord,'
    What struts, an stares, an a' that?
    Tho hundreds worship at his word,
    He's but a cuif for a' that.
    For a' that, an a' that,
    His ribband, star, an a' that,
    The man o independent mind,
    He looks an laughs at a' that.

    A prince can mak a belted knight,
    A marquis, duke, an a' that!
    But an honest man's aboon his might -
    Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
    For a' that, an a' that,
    Their dignities, an a' that,
    The pith o sense an pride o worth.
    Are higher rank than a' that.

    Then let us pray that come it may
    [As come it will for a' that],
    That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth,
    Shall bear the gree an a' that.
    For a' that, an a' that,
    It's comin yet for a' that,
    That man to man, the world, o'er
    Shall brithers be for a' that.

    - Robert Burns
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  44. TopTop #2903

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    And it has a lovely tune as well....

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    A Man's A Man for A' That

    ...
    Last edited by Barry; 05-25-2016 at 09:44 PM.
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  45. TopTop #2904
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Belonging

    The small plot of ground
    on which you were born
    cannot be expected
    to stay forever
    the same.

    Earth changes,
    and home
    becomes different
    places.

    You took flesh
    from clay
    but the clay
    did not come
    from just one
    place.

    To feel alive,
    important, and safe,
    know your own waters
    and hills, but know
    more.

    You have stars
    in your bones
    and oceans
    in blood.

    You have opposing
    terrain in each eye.

    You belong to the land
    and sky of your first cry,
    you belong to infinity.

    - Alla Renee Bozarth
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  47. TopTop #2905
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    won’t you celebrate with me

    won't you celebrate with me
    what i have shaped into
    a kind of life? i had no model.
    born in babylon
    both nonwhite and woman
    what did i see to be except myself?
    i made it up
    here on this bridge between
    starshine and clay,
    my one hand holding tight
    my other hand; come celebrate
    with me that everyday
    something has tried to kill me
    and has failed.

    - Lucille Clifton
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  48. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  49. TopTop #2906
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Mystery of You



    If you’re not careful,

    you can give your

    whole life away


    one chapter at a time.

    Rarely living your own

    wild nature.


    Thinking

    you will have time

    later


    to follow that beckoning

    inner compass

    - Kay Crista
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  50. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  51. TopTop #2907
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ermeo di San Francesco
    At the Hermitage of St. Francis in Assisi

    If he were to speak to me today, he would smile
    slightly, laughing at my concerns about this, about
    that. He would extend his hand, opened palm,
    inviting me to sit down, to find my spot exactly
    where I am. If today he were to speak to me, he
    would open his arms to the comforts of life right
    here, on this ground where I stand, the sun baking
    my back, the cool rock supporting me. Without
    words, he would tell me, wherever I am I can lay
    my head, wherever I walk is the place to be. He
    would point to the sky, the trees, the ground below
    my feet, cup his ear to the birds, the breeze, the
    words that need not be spoken.

    - Clara Rosemarda
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  52. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  53. TopTop #2908
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Becoming Bostonian

    I hear the music of seven languages
    on a four-block stretch of Harvard Square,
    see the copper glow of the Hancock
    Tower at sunset, feel the familiar
    bump of cobblestones under my feet.
    Mark Twain said people in New York ask
    "How much is he worth?" while Bostonians
    ask "How much does he know?" That burning
    desire to discover keeps the city humming,
    yet we’re grounded in history, too,
    still treading on sidewalks made of
    baked clay. I stand
    one night on Beacon Hill, gaze up at the
    few stars city lights allow to shine,
    feel myself stretched between past and future
    the pull of the earth on which
    our forefathers stood, the pull of the moon,
    which they could not have dreamed their descendants
    would visit. Or perhaps they did.
    One historian reports that
    "there were books on Beacon Hill while wolves
    still howled from the summit." Perhaps some
    Englishman closed his book one night and stood
    where I stand, dreaming of what we’ve become.

    - Lawrence Kessenich
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  54. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  55. TopTop #2909
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Disillusion

    I would be simple again,
    Simple and clean
    Like the earth,
    Like the rain,
    Nor ever know,
    Dark Harlem,
    The wild laughter
    Of your mirth
    Nor the salt tears
    Of your pain.
    Be kind to me,
    Oh, great dark city.
    Let me forget.
    I will not come
    To you again.

    - Langston Hughes
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  56. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  57. TopTop #2910
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Place for No Story


    The coast hills at Sovranes Creek;
    No trees, but dark scant pasture drawn thin
    Over rock shaped like flame;
    The old ocean at the land’s foot, the vast
    Gray extension beyond the long white violence;
    A herd of cows and the bull
    Far distant, hardly apparent up the dark slope;
    And the gray air haunted with hawks:
    This place is the noblest thing I have ever seen. No imaginable
    Human presence here could do anything
    But dilute the lonely self-watchful passion.

    - Robinson Jeffers
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  58. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

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