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  1. TopTop #2971
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Enemies

    If you are not to become a monster,
    you must care what they think.
    If you care what they think,

    how will you not hate them,
    and so become a monster
    of the opposite kind? From where then

    is love to come—love for your enemy
    that is the way of liberty?
    From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

    free of you, and you of them;
    they are to you as sunlight
    on a green branch. You must not

    think of them again, except
    as monsters like yourself,
    pitiable because unforgiving.

    - Wendell Berry
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  3. TopTop #2972
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    “Chin Up, Stiff Upper Lip,”

    the father would intone, winking his eyes,
    with the accent he pilfered from the movies of his youth,
    with the demeanor of the rabbi he never became,
    with the style of the Borscht-Belt comedian he couldn’t embody.

    “That’s Dad,” the sons would agree, rolling their eyes,
    with the sigh of the unwelcome,
    with the sarcasm of the unacknowledged,
    with the suppressed rage of the uninitiated.

    Where does this poem need to go?

    Toward the weeping mother who would rub her eyes
    with undisguised longing for her carefree youth,
    with the comfortable self-pity of her domestic prison,
    with the dangerous hunger of an unsatisfied woman?

    Or toward the happy gods who would avert their eyes
    as they toyed with each other,
    as they cast flame and flood down upon mortals,
    as they consumed their own children?

    What about the sons who pluck out their eyes
    as they accept less and less,
    as they tolerate more and more,
    as they suck in their frozen chests?

    Or the city that glazes its eyes in false innocence,
    guarding its walls of imagined security,
    closing its gates to the impure,
    erecting its towers on unstable soil?

    Or should we welcome the sons who pry open their eyes
    as they demand their inheritance,
    as they offer us their essence,
    as they envision a world that doesn’t need this poem?

    - Barry Spector
    Last edited by Barry; 07-24-2016 at 12:07 PM.
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  4. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  5. TopTop #2973
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Candles in Babylon

    Through the midnight streets of Babylon
    between the steel towers of their arsenals,
    between the torture castles with no windows,
    we race by barefoot, holding tight
    our candles, trying to shield
    the shivering flames, crying
    "Sleepers Awake!"
    hoping
    the rhyme's promise was true,
    that we may return
    from this place of terror
    home to a calm dawn and
    the work we had just begun.

    - Denise Levertov
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  6. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  7. TopTop #2974
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    American Dream

    American Dream,
    American Nightmare
    America the beautiful,
    prophecy of Blake,
    democratic vista of Whitman,

    harbinger of a new humanity,
    melting pot for Europeans,
    Russians, Asians, Middle-Easterners,
    Latinos, Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists,
    Christians, Jews, Santaria,

    Where are you bound?
    You future is in your own hands,
    grappling with each other
    in grim clinch,

    The White Mask, inflexible—
    not even white, really,
    more like “pinko-grey”,
    as Kipling said —
    firm against the Rainbow?

    But is it not all One Spectrum:
    under God, indivisible,
    and some day with
    liberty and justice
    for all!

    - Max Reif
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  8. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  9. TopTop #2975
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Let America Be America Again


    Let America be America again.
    Let it be the dream it used to be.
    Let it be the pioneer on the plain
    Seeking a home where it is free.

    (America never was America to me.)

    Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
    Let it be that great strong land of love
    Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
    That anyone be crushed by one above.

    (It never was America to me.)

    O, let my land be a land where Liberty
    Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
    But opportunity is real, and life is free,
    Equality is in the air we breathe.

    (There's never been equality for me,
    Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free".)

    Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
    And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

    I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
    I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
    I am the red man driven from the land,
    I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-
    And finding only the same old stupid plan
    Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

    I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
    Tangled in that ancient endless chain
    Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
    Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
    Of work the people! Of take the pay!
    Of owning everything for one's own greed!

    I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
    I am the worker sold to the machine.
    I am the Negro, servant to you all.
    I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-
    Hungry yet today despite the dream.
    Beaten yet today-O, Pioneers!
    I am the man who never got ahead,
    The poorest worker bartered through the years.

    Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
    In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
    Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
    That even yet its mighty daring sings
    In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
    That's made America the land it has become.
    O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
    In search of what I meant to be my home-
    For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
    And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
    And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
    To build a "homeland of the free".

    The free?

    Who said the free? Not me?
    Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
    The millions shot down when we strike?
    The millions who have nothing for our pay?
    For all the dreams we've dreamed
    And all the songs we've sung
    And all the hopes we've held
    And all the flags we've hung,
    The millions who have nothing for our pay-
    Except the dream that's almost dead today.

    O, let America be America again-
    The land that never has been yet-
    And yet must be-the land where every one is free.
    The land that's mine-the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-
    Who made America,
    Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
    Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
    Must bring back our mighty dream again.

    Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-
    The steel of freedom does not stain.
    From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
    We must take back our land again,
    America!

    O, yes,
    I say it plain,
    America never was America to me,
    And yet I swear this oath-
    America will be!

    Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
    The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
    We, the people, must redeem
    The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
    The mountains and the endless plain-
    All, all the stretch of these great green states-
    And make America again!

    - Langston Hughes
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  10. TopTop #2976
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Before Evil

    Before evil
    my own goodness shrinks
    before self-righteousness
    my voice quavers
    before those who know an angry God
    with contempt for life
    I tremble,
    before those who hold
    in their minds, in their hands
    the lives of others
    in hostage for their own,
    before absolute Right
    I am wrong
    I am naked
    without weapons
    except for this determination
    not to be defeated, but instead
    to affirm the best in us,
    to acknowledge our own power
    to survive against whatever odds
    and to seize the day
    for love, for beauty, for humanity,
    to make this day and the days following,
    not theirs, not made by those who destroy,
    but our own. We are the builders.
    This day is in our hands.

    - Doug Stout
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  11. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  12. TopTop #2977
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    American Tune

    Many's the time I've been mistaken and many times
    confused.

    Yes, and often felt forsaken and certainly misused.

    But I'm all right, I'm all right, I'm just weary to my
    bones.

    Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant so
    far away from home, so far away from home.

    And I don't know a soul who's not been battered I
    don't have a friend who feels at ease.

    I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or
    driven to its knees.

    But it's all right, it's all right, for we've lived so
    well so long.

    Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on, I
    wonder what went wrong, I can't help but wonder what
    went wrong.

    And I dreamed I was dying.

    I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly and looking
    back down at me smiled reassuringly, and I dreamed I
    was flying.

    And high above my eyes could clearly see the Statue of
    Liberty sailing away to sea, and I dreamed I was
    flying.

    And we come on the ship they call the Mayflower, we
    come on the ship that sailed the moon.

    We come in the age's most uncertain hour and sing an
    American tune

    oh, but it's all right, it's all right, it's all
    right, you can't be forever blessed.

    Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day and
    I'm trying to get some rest, that's all I'm trying is
    to get some rest.

    - Paul Simon
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  13. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  14. TopTop #2978

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    "We come in the age's most uncertain hour and sing an American tune"--Yes.
    Thank you, Larry. And thank you, Paul Simon.
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 07-29-2016 at 12:06 PM.
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  15. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  16. TopTop #2979
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Another Woman

    Another woman
    would keep her mouth shut,
    not spout fervent beliefs
    like a speaker on a soapbox.

    Another woman
    would have chosen
    equity over experience,
    settling down or
    just plain settling.

    Another woman
    would have stayed the course,
    refusing distraction and
    the pangs of the heart
    that lead to upheaval.

    Another woman
    would not vacillate hearing
    the voices that preach security and
    the voices that harp on ideals.

    Another woman
    would not succumb to worry,
    knowing that it never helps
    and only constricts.

    Another woman
    would revel in her children’s independence
    instead of mourning
    their day-to-day absence in her life.

    Another woman
    would live in gratitude every moment
    for her sojourn on this gorgeous planet
    and not slip into the mundane
    routine of forgetting.

    But I am not
    another woman.
    I am this woman,
    led by my heart and
    pulled by conflicting voices,
    a woman who
    worries,
    mourns,
    forgets.

    I am this woman,
    this aging, outspoken, heart-stirred,
    frightened and sometimes grateful woman,
    This woman,
    with this particular life
    and not another.

    - Maya Spector
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 07-30-2016 at 09:51 AM.
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  17. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  18. TopTop #2980
    Roland Jacopetti's Avatar
    Roland Jacopetti
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Well, if you had your choice between this great Paul Simon song, and an English drinking song that's really hard for most people to sing that's all about the War of 1812, which would you choose for a national anthem?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    American Tune

    Many's the time I've been mistaken and many times
    confused....
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 07-30-2016 at 09:52 AM.
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  19. Gratitude expressed by:

    Sam
  20. TopTop #2981
    wisewomn's Avatar
    wisewomn
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Neither. I'd go for "America, the Beautiful." Easy to sing and more upbeat than "American Tune." JMTC

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Roland Jacopetti: View Post
    Well, if you had your choice between this great Paul Simon song, and an English drinking song that's really hard for most people to sing that's all about the War of 1812, which would you choose for a national anthem?
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  21. TopTop #2982
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Be Angry With The Sun

    That public men publish falsehoods
    Is nothing new. That America must accept
    Like the historical republics corruption and empire
    Has been known for years

    Be angry with the sun for setting
    If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
    They are all bound on the wheel, these people,
    those warriors.
    This republic, Europe, Asia.

    Observe them gesticulating,
    Observe them going down. The gang serves lies,
    the passionate
    Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
    Hunts in no pack.

    You are not Catullus, you know,
    To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You
    are far
    From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
    Political hatreds.

    Let boys want pleasure, and men
    Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
    And the servile to serve a leader and the dupes
    to be duped.
    Yours is not theirs.

    - Robinson Jeffers
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  23. TopTop #2983

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    It's a powerful and universal poem! There may be a range of opinion about its precise contemporary application.
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  24. TopTop #2984

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Wow. Robinson Jeffers got it! No point in being ANGRY with the sun for setting, etc., etc. Maybe sad and regretful. Not angry.
    Thanks, Larry.
    Janet
    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Be Angry With The Sun

    That public men publish falsehoods
    Is nothing new. That America must accept
    Like the historical republics corruption and empire
    Has been known for years...
    Last edited by Bella Stolz; 07-31-2016 at 10:37 AM.
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  26. TopTop #2985
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Credo


    I cannot find my way: there is no star
    In all the shrouded heavens anywhere;
    And there is not a whisper in the air
    Of any living voice but one so far
    That I can hear it only as a bar
    Of lost, imperial music, played when fair
    And angel fingers wove, and unaware,
    Dead leaves to garlands where no roses are.
    No, there is not a glimmer, nor a call,
    For one that welcomes, welcomes when he fears,
    The black and awful chaos of the night;
    For through it all, -- above, beyond it all, --
    I know the far-sent message of the years,
    I feel the coming glory of the Light!

    - Edwin Arlington Robinson
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  27. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  28. TopTop #2986
    wisewomn's Avatar
    wisewomn
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    It's interesting to note that Jeffers lived 1887-1962.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by REALnothings: View Post
    It's a powerful and universal poem! There may be a range of opinion about its precise contemporary application.
    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Be Angry With The Sun

    That public men publish falsehoods
    Is nothing new. That America must accept
    Like the historical republics corruption and empire
    Has been known for years

    Be angry with the sun for setting
    If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
    They are all bound on the wheel, these people,
    those warriors.
    This republic, Europe, Asia.

    Observe them gesticulating,
    Observe them going down. The gang serves lies,
    the passionate
    Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
    Hunts in no pack.

    You are not Catullus, you know,
    To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You
    are far
    From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
    Political hatreds.

    Let boys want pleasure, and men
    Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
    And the servile to serve a leader and the dupes
    to be duped.
    Yours is not theirs.

    - Robinson Jeffers
    Last edited by Barry; 08-01-2016 at 06:08 PM.
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  29. TopTop #2987
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Although the wind
    blows terribly here,
    the moonlight also leaks
    between the roof planks
    of this ruined house.

    - Izumi Shikibu

    (Translated by Jane Hirshfield )
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  30. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  31. TopTop #2988
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Consider the Generosity of the One-Year-Old

    who has no words to exchange with you yet
    and instead offers up her favorite drooled-on blanket
    her green rhinoceros as big as she is,
    her cloth doll with the long blond pigtails,
    her battered cardboard books, swung open on their
    soggy pages.

    If you were outdoors she would hand you a dead beetle,

    a fistful of grass, a pebble,
    by way of introduction or just because.

    And if, a moment later, she wanted it back,
    it would be for the joy of the game
    that makes of every simple object an offering:
    This is me. Here is who I am.

    In the same way, sun
    drapes a buttered scarf across your face,
    rose opens herself to your glance,
    and rain shares its divine melancholy.

    The whole world keeps whispering or shouting to you,
    nibbling your ear like a neglected lover,
    while you worry over matters of finance
    of "relationship,"

    important issues related to getting and spending,
    having and hoarding,
    though you were once that baby,
    though you are still that world.


    - Alison Luterman
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  32. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  33. TopTop #2989
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Driving The Car

    Getting into my car,
    I vow that I will drive with
    Mindful care and caution.
    If, in fact, this is my vehicle,
    For I often step into
    Someone else’s car
    By accident.
    If I have done so now, here in the parking lot of Stop & Shop,
    May I smile with self-compassion,
    And not curse my cluelessness,
    As the cars where I live are all Subarus,
    And all the same model, and all the same “jasmine green,”
    A bewildering forest of Foresters.

    - Jenny Allen
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  35. TopTop #2990

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    funny, where I live
    they're all gold
    Toyota Camry's
    like mine!
    Whole parades of them, it seems!
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  36. TopTop #2991
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Killing

    Black wasps build a nest in the bamboo chime.
    I smile as I discover
    the lattice of their honeycomb,
    gamine youth playing 'round the rim.

    Long-limbed dancers, pendant legs
    dangle from elegant wasp waists;
    my mind spins wild imaginings
    around this entomological crèche.

    And yet they strafe me when I weed
    dive-bomb the cats into the hedge,
    dare to cruise the kitchen air
    wreck my peace so I make a pledge.

    I comb the list of euphemisms.
    No poison for me, though the die's been cast:
    a heavy stream of soapy water
    I trust will be the fix that lasts.

    I pass the night in fitful naps.
    serenity finds no purchase in my dreams.
    My parrot mind yammers on
    through backroom murders, shady schemes.

    Next morning, when I check the nest
    the wasps seem drugged, about to die.
    Bodies larded, oiled with glue
    they barely lift their wings to fly.

    I feel sorrow, but relief as well
    for creatures whose only mortal sin
    was making their home in a human space.
    The cats put on a somber face.

    - Sandra Anfang
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  37. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  38. TopTop #2992
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Expect Nothing

    Expect nothing. Live frugally
    On surprise.
    Become a stranger
    To need of pity
    Or, if compassion be freely
    Given out
    Take only enough
    Stop short of urge to plead
    Then purge away the need.
    Wish for nothing larger
    Than your own small heart
    Or greater than a star;
    Tame wild disappointment
    With caress unmoved and cold
    Make of it a parka
    For your soul.
    Discover the reason why
    So tiny a human midget
    Exists at all
    So scared unwise
    But expect nothing. Live frugally
    On surprise.

    - Alice Walker
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  39. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  40. TopTop #2993
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Rubai Sixty Seven


    Enervating and hopeless
    you may imagine the work awaiting you.
    And you would be right.

    Worse still, to succeed now you must be cruel
    in order not to feel the wrong you must do.

    Be as dumb as geese who change-off leading
    as they victory together across a fresh and ancient sky.

    Be dumb if you are dumb.
    Be smart if that.
    But listen, for you all have the same thing to say:

    The come-and-go of God –
    that is the gratitude stammering as you voice it.

    You have, in yourselves, employment.
    An old man tells you this.
    Although in no way can you imagine that
    in the room of youth that is yours.

    Other rooms will come
    slowly surprising you.
    Your life’s job is to live it to its end.
    But your Life’s job awaits you,
    stored.

    So never mind “correctness” –
    that groupspeak of long-faced worthies.

    Already you hear this this: I once felt as you feel now.
    And didn’t know of
    all the rooms to come – I had no idea –
    the rooms – the wonderful terrible rooms.

    - Bruce Moody
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  41. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  42. TopTop #2994
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Horses


    In truth I am puzzled most in life
    by nine horses.

    I’ve been watching them for eleven weeks
    in a pasture near Melrose.
    Two are on one side of the fence and seven
    on the other side.
    They stare at one another from the same places
    hours and hours each day.
    This is another unanswerable question
    to haunt us with the ordinary.
    They have to be talking to one another
    in a language without a voice.
    Maybe they are speaking the wordless talk of lovers,
    sullen, melancholy, jubilant.
    Linguists say that language comes after music
    and we sang nonsense syllables
    before we invented a rational speech
    to order our days.
    We live far out in the country where I hear
    creature voices night and day.
    Like us they are talking about their lives
    on this brief visit to earth.
    In truth each day is a universe in which
    we are tangled in the light of stars.
    Stop a moment. Think about these horses
    in their sweet-smelling silence.

    - Jim Harrison
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  43. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  44. TopTop #2995
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Trillium


    How ever bad it was, she must have loved the dog, their walks by the river. How the man who brought her here or what he thought no longer mattered. Say she was spindrift. That’s how it felt. Nothing engaged her. Days went by before she’d bathe. She could smell the animal like anguish in her hair and reveled in it. But for the dog she might have hanged herself, or filled her pockets full of stones instead of scraps for Cerberus. Two steps at a time she took the dark staircases. Outside the gates, among the beggar dead, she’d find him, kneel, unlock his chains. He leaned against her, as they walked, his sphinx’s shoulders. What he knew of her of course, no one can say. Call it a nearness like a room you make inside yourself for sorrow. Few are invited in. And she to him? Cerberus was welcome. In spring among the trillium she longed for him. Who could believe it was a pomegranate seed secured her soul? It was the dog that kept her going back.

    - Deborah Digges
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  45. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  46. TopTop #2996
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Today

    The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
    a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays
    come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
    your hands, lift them: morning rings
    all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
    Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
    you could close your eyes and go on full of light.

    And it is already begun, the chord
    that will shiver glass, the song full of time
    bending above us. Outside, a sign:
    a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
    “Be warm.” No one is out there, but a giant
    has passed through town, widening streets, touching
    the ground, shouldering away the stars.

    - William Stafford
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  47. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  48. TopTop #2997
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Salty Like Tears


    When my daughter moved away to college

    was the same week I had to give all our chickens away,

    their sweet voices murmuring in the garden no more


    was the same week her friend walked into the mountains of the Pacific Coast Trail and disappeared without a trace.

    Our candle vigil burning through the days of packing


    was not only the time of our own separation

    but her dog and my dog, my dog and her, her dog and me,

    our pack now 200 miles apart


    And that night I read Ellen Bass’ poem

    “When You Came Back”,

    and for a moment

    I felt our lives rewind until you were

    once again that little magic bean

    growing inside me.


    Today I sat in a parking lot

    with a bag of chips,

    thinking how all my life I’ve had a sweet tooth

    but now I want everything

    salty like tears.



    - Kay Crista
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  49. Gratitude expressed by 7 members:

  50. TopTop #2998
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    When You Return

    Fallen leaves will climb back into trees.
    Shards of the shattered vase will rise
    and reassemble on the table.
    Plastic raincoats will refold
    into their flat envelopes. The egg,
    bald yolk and its transparent halo,
    slide back in the thin, calcium shell.
    Curses will pour back into mouths,
    letters un-write themselves, words
    siphoned up into the pen. My gray hair
    will darken and become the feathers
    of a black swan. Bullets will snap
    back into their chambers, the powder
    tamped tight in brass casings. Borders
    will disappear from maps. Rust
    revert to oxygen and time. The fire
    return to the log, the log to the tree,
    the white root curled up
    in the un-split seed. Birdsong will fly
    into the lark’s lungs, answers
    become questions again.
    When you return, sweaters will unravel
    and wool grow on the sheep.
    Rock will go home to mountain, gold
    to vein. Wine crushed into the grape,
    oil pressed into the olive. Silk reeled in
    to the spider’s belly. Night moths
    tucked close into cocoons, ink drained
    from the indigo tattoo. Diamonds
    will be returned to coal, coal
    to rotting ferns, rain to clouds, light
    to stars sucked back and back
    into one timeless point, the way it was
    before the world was born,
    that fresh, that whole, nothing
    broken, nothing torn apart.


    - Ellen Bass
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  51. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  52. TopTop #2999
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Song on the End of the World


    On the day the world ends
    A bee circles a clover,
    A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
    Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
    By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
    And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.


    On the day the world ends
    Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
    A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
    Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
    And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
    The voice of a violin lasts in the air
    And leads into a starry night.


    And those who expected lightning and thunder
    Are disappointed.
    And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
    Do not believe it is happening now.
    As long as the sun and the moon are above,
    As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
    As long as rosy infants are born
    No one believes it is happening now.


    Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
    Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
    Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
    There will be no other end of the world,
    There will be no other end of the world.

    Warsaw, 1944

    - Czeslaw Milosz
    (translated by Anthony Milosz)
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  53. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  54. TopTop #3000
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Holding Up The Sky


    We women who walk the earth

    petaled with phlox and rhododendrons,
    delight in flushing out its beauty

    We women are fields of purple daisies
    gathered in crystal vases,
    singing the virtues of sunshine

    Summer is all a ruckus;
    squirrel’s pitching walnuts, a clarinet and robin duet,
    a whistling bamboo and howling dogs too

    We women have extraterrestrial ears
    tuned to stellar pulses,
    resonating in our veins

    We women have meandering muses
    drawn to barnyard scents,
    and orchards - laden with poetry

    Where hens cackle all day,
    proud of their creations
    made fresh from scratch

    We women travel light,
    when our eggs are all gone
    love keeps us moving

    On we climb
    guided by sisterly sherpas,
    who have been to where we’re going

    Above the Redwood spires
    diamonds - set in blue,
    crown our heads each night

    We women are living circles,
    some fixed - some wandering
    tethered - only by our imagination

    We women hold each other up
    and let the sky
    rest on our shoulders

    - Emily Marie Bording
    Last edited by Barry; 08-17-2016 at 12:07 PM.
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  55. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

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