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  1. TopTop #4351
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    All Souls

    Did someone say that there would be an end,
    An end, Oh, an end, to love and mourning?
    Such voices speak when sleep and waking blend,
    The cold bleak voices of the early morning
    When all the birds are dumb in dark November -
    Remember and forget, forget, remember.

    After the false night, warm true voices, wake!
    Voice of the dead that touches the cold living,
    Through the pale sunlight once more gravely speak.
    Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:
    “Dear child, what has been once so interwoven
    Cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungiven.”

    Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,
    Mother and child, lover and lover mated,
    Are wound and bound together and enflowing.
    What has been plaited cannot be unplaited—
    Only the strands grow richer with each loss
    And memory makes kings and queens of us.

    Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
    When all the birds have flown to some real haven,
    We who find shelter in the warmth within,
    Listen, and feel new-cherished, new-forgiven,
    As the lost human voices speak through us and blend
    Our complex love, our mourning without end.

    - May Sarton
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  3. TopTop #4352
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    All That is Gold Does Not Glitter

    All that is gold does not glitter,
    Not all those who wander are lost;
    The old that is strong does not wither,
    Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
    From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
    A light from the shadows shall spring;
    Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
    The crownless again shall be king.

    - JRR Tolkien
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  4. Gratitude expressed by 8 members:

  5. TopTop #4353
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Truth

    And if sun comes
    How shall we greet him?
    Shall we not dread him,
    Shall we not fear him
    After so lengthy a
    Session with shade?

    Though we have wept for him,
    Though we have prayed
    All through the night-years—
    What if we wake one shimmering morning to
    Hear the fierce hammering
    Of his firm knuckles
    Hard on the door?

    Shall we not shudder?—
    Shall we not flee
    Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
    Of the familiar
    Propitious haze?

    Sweet is it, sweet is it
    To sleep in the coolness
    Of snug unawareness.

    The dark hangs heavily
    Over the eyes.

    - Gwendolyn Brooks
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  6. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  7. TopTop #4354
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Dream

    I cried a lot today,
    in a way I wish we all could cry.
    I cried because
    I am part of something
    that is dangerously
    out of control,
    something that started so long ago
    none of us can remember.

    It seems we have come apart, Beloved.
    We have named the distance
    between us
    and so have given it meaning.

    We have turned our backs
    on one another
    and pretend we just can't help it.

    We have fallen asleep in the midst
    of such incredible beauty
    that even the angels
    are crying
    for the tragedy of our blindness.

    Wake up, Beloved, wake up to the soulful
    energy that rises within you right now,
    this very moment.

    Wake up to the dream we all share.

    - Rabon Saip
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  8. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  9. TopTop #4355
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Wolves

    At my gate, I'll always greet you
    At my door, you’re welcome in
    There can be no transgression
    As a means to an end
    On the wind, the wolves are howling
    Open arms are closed in fear
    Helping hands are clenched in anger
    Broken hearts beyond repair
    Everything's so great, can't get better, makes me wanna cry
    That I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight

    There she stands, so tall and mighty
    With her keen and watchful eye
    And the heart of a mother
    Holding out her guiding light
    Well, it's a hard road to travel
    Solid rock from end to end
    The sun, it rises on her brow
    And sets upon the great expanse
    Everything's so great, can't get better, makes me wanna cry
    That I'll go out howling at the moon tonight

    There she stands, so tall and mighty
    Her gaze facing the east
    At her back, our doors are closing
    As we grin and bare our teeth
    On the wind the wolves are howling
    She cries to draw him near
    Well, turn around, turn around my darling
    Oh, the wolves are here
    Everything's so great, can't get better, makes me wanna cry
    That I'll go out howling at the moon tonight
    Yeah, I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight


    - Mandolin Orange

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  10. Gratitude expressed by:

    M/M
  11. TopTop #4356
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Walking by Stolen Creek


    the meaning of its name forgotten,

    the word remembered.

    Whatever happened here

    is recalled

    in another time and it’s remembered

    inside the stolen self

    that my blood river passes through

    in thin and beautiful veins, not gold

    but only a mere human heartbeat,

    a circle of people

    standing, talking, making their plans

    as water passes by.

    Something, someone is still alive, telling.

    They think these are only stories

    not what holds the world together

    in its balance.



    - Linda Hogan
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  12. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  13. TopTop #4357
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Anasazi

    How can we die when we're already
    prone to leaving the table mid-meal
    like Ancient Ones gone to breathe
    elsewhere. Salt sits still, but pepper's gone
    rolled off in a rush. We've practiced dying
    for a long time: when we skip dance or town,
    when we chew. We've rounded out
    like dining room walls in a canyon, eaten
    through by wind—Sorry we rushed off;
    the food wasn't ours. Sorry the grease sits
    white on our plates, and the jam that didn't set—
    use it as syrup to cover every theory of us.

    - Tacey M. Atsitty
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  14. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  15. TopTop #4358
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    As Fall Approaches


    As fall approaches.
    The distillation of summer’s sun
    Overflows like golden syrup
    Down the mountainside

    Insects suck the last sustenance,
    Now turned to molasses
    Before inevitable cooling winds interrupt their busyness
    And make way for thunder and rain

    Colors of autumn burst forth,
    Transition visible to the human eye
    And always, change, the only constant.

    As you gaze around
    Pay attention!
    Savor these halcyon days
    And all those you’re gifted to encounter

    Stand still in wonder,
    Notice what stirs within
    Welcome the coruscation of your senses

    Vibrant life will surely reemerge from death’s compost
    Now pungent with the rotting of summer flora.
    Decay’s elemental richness will infuse
    The roots of trees for branches yet to be born

    For now, the copper haze of this shortened afternoon
    Clutches briefly at the warmth of a sleeveless day
    Having lived this long, you know the sudden evening cooling
    Waits to enfold you with promise of darkened months

    You are a part of the vicissitudes
    One season to the next
    Within this very moment,
    The persistence of change cries out to be known within you.

    - Lynn Robinson
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  16. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  17. TopTop #4359
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Carrying Our Words


    We travel carrying our words.
    We arrive at the ocean.
    With our words we are able to speak
    of the sounds of thunderous waves.
    We speak of how majestic it is,
    of the ocean power that gifts us songs.
    We sing of our respect
    and call it our relative.

    - Ofelia Zepeda
    (Translated into English from O’odham by the poet.)



    ’U’a g T-ñi’okı˘


    T-ñi’okı˘ ’att ’an o ’u’akc o hihi
    Am ka:ck wui dada.
    S-ap ‘am o ’a: mo has ma:s g kiod.
    mat ’am ’ed.a betank ’i-gei.
    ’Am o ’a: mo he’es ’i-ge’ej,
    mo hascu wud. i:da gewkdagaj
    mac ’ab amjed. behě g ñe’i.
    Hemhoa s-ap ‘am o ’a: mac si has elid, mo d. ’i:mig.

    - Ofelia Zepeda
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  18. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  19. TopTop #4360
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    José Dominguez, the First Latino in Outer Space

    In that very first episode
    the transmission is received on the starship Enterprise
    that Space Commander Dominguez urgently needs his supplies.
    Kirk tells Uhura to assure him
    that the peppers are “prime Mexican reds
    but he won’t die if he goes a few more days without ’em.”
    Calm down Mexican.
    You can wait a few more days to get your chile peppers.

    In the corner of my eye I see Uhura’s back hand twitch
    and though I never see him on the screen
    I image José giving Kirk a soplamoco to the face.

    But this is the year 2266 and there are Latinos in Outer Space!
    We never see them, but they’ve survived with their surnames
    and their desire, deep in the farthest interplanetary reaches,
    for a little heat to warm the bland food on the starbase at Corinth 4.
    As it is on earth so it shall be in heaven.

    Ricardo Montalbán will show up 21 episodes later
    to play a crazy mutant Indio,
    superhuman and supersmart
    who survived two centuries
    to slap Kirk around and take over his ship.

    - Dan Vera
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  21. TopTop #4361
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Body of Rags, International Bridge Between the U.S. and Mexico


    Is it alive?
    —neither a head,
    legs nor arms!
    ...................
    ... torpid against
    the flange of the supporting girder . ?
    an inhuman shapelessness,
    knees hugged tight up into the belly
    Egg-shaped!
    —William Carlos Williams, 1950 visit to El Paso, from “Desert Music”





    Yes, I am a body of rags lying
    here on the bridge waiting for

    a hot rain to wash me open,
    dissolve me off the bridge

    because this border is closed.
    I rot on the boundary line

    and can’t enter Juarez,
    pennies thrown at me

    when a drunk El Pasoan
    returns in the darkness

    and sees my shape that
    makes him hurry across.

    No head, decades ago they threw
    it in the river without my screams.

    My arms were the first to go
    when I couldn’t climb the wall.

    I can never leave this bridge.
    I live on the pure line that divides

    countries and grabs my hunger
    from sliding into Mexico with

    my outstretched hands.
    I still have my knees.

    I used to be sold in Juarez and
    smuggled into El Paso, the egg

    that floated down the Rio Grande
    to break hundreds of miles away

    before being thrown back.
    I stay on the bridge and can’t move.

    Do not cross to El Paso without wiping
    your shoes of me, one foot on US

    concrete, the other scraping away
    at my Mexican rags.

    When I struggle against the wire fence,
    I make sure I salute two flags.

    - Ray Gonzalez

    Last edited by Barry; 11-23-2019 at 01:15 PM.
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  22. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  23. TopTop #4362
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Well


    Every Day
    We drop our biggest buckets down
    On the strongest ropes we have,
    Hoist up as much cool and soothing water as we can lift.


    We love,
    So the water level never falls.


    It’s not that we don’t get enough to drink and keep our lives clean.
    It’s not that the water is bad.


    It is knowing about the existence of the deeper liquid:
    Most, pure, clear, mysterious.
    Dark, actually, it is so rarely seen (though it is not rare itself).


    I want THAT.
    It can only be retrieved by the many,
    And only when you drink together
    Does it change all of you,
    Sending you down the swiftest rivers
    To the sea
    That is connected
    To all seas.


    - BSue Stephenson
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  24. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  25. TopTop #4363
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    November

    From the sky in the form of snow
    comes the great forgiveness.
    Rain grown soft, the flakes descend
    and rest; they nestle close, each one
    arrived, welcomed and then at home.


    If the sky lets go some day and I'm
    requested for such volunteering
    toward so clean a message, I’ll come.
    The world goes on and while friends touch down
    beside me, I too will come.


    - William Stafford
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  26. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  27. TopTop #4364
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Gratitude Goulash


    Take down your biggest pot,
    bigger than you think you need.
    Slice, dice or cut into manageable pieces
    the desiccated remains
    of all your life's
    calamitous events.


    Look around for missed ingredients.
    Add clean water, local honey and vinegar.
    Bring this mess to a rolling boil then
    simmer on a back burner for several days.


    When your kitchen smells good,
    Ask a close friend to come over.
    Get out two old bowls,
    they need not match.
    Just before serving add a dollop of success
    and a smidgen of failure.
    Then be very liberal with paprika.


    Solemnly bless the goulash,
    and take a few bites…
    Laugh together, forgive yourself,
    then gratefully
    go out to eat.


    - Doug von Koss
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  28. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  29. TopTop #4365
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Earth Your Dancing Place


    Beneath heaven's vault
    remember always walking
    through halls of cloud
    down aisles of sunlight
    or through high hedges
    of the green rain
    walk in the world
    highheeled with swirl of cape
    hand at the swordhilt
    of your pride
    Keep a tall throat
    Remain aghast at life


    Enter each day
    as upon a stage
    lighted and waiting
    for your step
    Crave upward as flame
    have keenness in the nostril
    Give your eyes
    to agony or rapture


    Train your hands
    as birds to be
    brooding or nimble
    Move your body
    as the horses
    sweeping on slender hooves
    over crag and prairie
    with fleeing manes
    and aloofness of their limbs


    Take earth for your own large room
    and the floor of the earth
    carpeted with sunlight
    and hung round with silver wind
    for your dancing place

    - May Swenson
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  30. Gratitude expressed by:

  31. TopTop #4366
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Grace


    Thanks and blessing be
    to the Sun and the Earth
    for this bread and this wine,----

    this fruit, this meat, this salt,
    ---------------this food;
    thanks be
    and blessing to them
    who prepare it, who serve it;
    thanks
    and blessing to them
    who share it
    -----(
    and also the absent and the dead.)
    Thanks
    and blessing to them who bring it
    --------(may they not want),
    to them who plant
    and tend it,
    harvest
    and gather it
    --------(may they not want);
    thanks
    and blessing to them who work
    --------
    and blessing to them who cannot;
    may they not want — for their hunger
    ------sours the wine
    ----------
    and robs the salt of its taste.
    Thanks be for the sustenance
    and strength
    for our dance
    and the work of justice, of peace.

    - Rafael Jesús González-



    Gracias


    Gracias y benditos sean
    el Sol y la Tierra
    por este pan y este vino,
    -----esta fruta, esta carne, esta sal,
    ----------------este alimento;
    gracias y bendiciones
    a quienes lo preparan, lo sirven;
    gracias y bendiciones
    a quienes lo comparten
    (y también a los ausentes y a los difuntos.)
    Gracias y bendiciones a quienes lo traen
    --------(que no les falte),
    a quienes lo siembran y cultivan,
    lo cosechan y lo recogen
    -------(que no les falte);
    gracias y bendiciones a los que trabajan
    -------y bendiciones a los que no puedan;
    que no les falte — su hambre
    -----hace agrio el vino
    -----------y le roba el gusto a la sal.
    Gracias por el sustento y la fuerza
    para nuestro bailar y nuestra labor
    --------por la justicia y la paz.

    - Rafael Jesús González
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  32. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  33. TopTop #4367
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Thanksgiving

    The feast of life
    asks nothing of us
    but our death,


    our final giving back
    for all the death
    that feeds us

    It’s only what we ask
    of ourselves that makes
    this day holy

    only what we praise -
    how brightly
    the parsley gleams

    only what we bless -
    the hands, so many hands
    that brought abundance

    to our laden tables,
    our warm nests of instinct
    and care

    only what we give -
    to the hungry, the
    desperate, the homeless

    as winter scents
    rich with coming rain
    bask in the waning light

    and resins nipped awake
    by wind’s cold teeth
    ride the quickened air

    only what we revere –
    as Sun hums another close
    to Earth’s turning

    and pulsing multitudes
    of leaf and grass
    shift into silence


    - Cynthia Poten
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  34. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  35. TopTop #4368
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Giving Thanks At The Turning Of The Seasons


    At times I’ve imagined that there lived a little
    man, a gnome, that having awakened from his
    quarterly nap, rubbed his eyes, and from his
    underground hollow festooned with oak
    leaves and prayer grottos, tugged upon a rope
    that shifted a huge gear and so transformed
    the bewildering heat of Indian summers into
    crisp fall mornings where persimmon trees
    started dropping their orange leaves as they
    offered us the perfect gift of their seasonal fruit.


    Then I remembered the earth’s tilt, and the
    predictable gambit of light and dark and our
    planet’s precise distance from the star at the
    center of our galaxy that sustains humans,
    the curious fruits of this corner of the cosmos.
    And I reflected upon the scientists revealing
    these machinations and remembered that,
    somehow, even those sober physicists with
    skinny black ties, knew that the whirling of
    moons and seasons and galaxies were a part
    of some great ongoing feast, and that this
    turning should be called the Milky Way.


    And that gnome living under this hallowed
    earth is the gatekeeper who, like us, lives
    between the bewildering questions of this
    world and the open arms of a great loving
    mother who feeds so many, but not all of
    us. So this prayer of thanksgiving comes
    with a caveat.


    - Bruce Silverman
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  36. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  37. TopTop #4369
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Van Gogh at sunset


    After the first rain storm of the season,

    three days of record setting,

    moderate to heavy rain,

    accompanied by

    a fierce north west wind,

    I walked into our backyard

    as the sun was sinking low

    in the western sky, around five o’clock,

    the giant white oak which filled

    the crystalline, cloudless, azure sky,

    the oak whose deep green leaves,

    just weeks before had been silhouetted

    against the white, smoke-filled sky

    of the Eagle Creek fire,

    had morphed into a Van Gogh pallet

    of yellows, gold, burnt sienna and browns,

    so astonishing, so breathtaking

    I stood in stunned silence,

    absorbing its beauty,

    knowing beyond a single doubt

    how precious this gift of life,

    how important to steward

    our small, shrinking,

    beautiful planet.

    - Bill Denham
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  38. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  39. TopTop #4370
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    In the Art Gallery After the 2017 Fires

    Inside the gallery bright color is everywhere
    as a medicine of happiness or as
    a uniquely distilled garden.

    Outside evening streetlights start
    to come on. Safe in here
    we remember together the fierce
    walls of fire that can, and have
    taken so much, from friends.

    Not like the golden flowers of light,
    in the twilight streets, warm like stars,
    but closer, like tiny camp fires
    warming nearby hands and hearts
    warming the darkness and
    making it friendly and soft as velvet.

    A knowing fortune teller thinks it best
    to let this moment be. Next winter’s
    flooding will come soon enough, and
    make a lake of these streets. Children
    in kayaks will float by like water lilies.
    This gallery and all its gardens of color
    will be exiled in rising water.


    - Judith Stone
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  40. Gratitude expressed by:

    M/M
  41. TopTop #4371
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Dusting


    Thank you for these tiny
    particles of ocean salt,
    pearl-necklace viruses,
    winged protozoans:
    for the infinite,
    intricate shapes
    of submicroscopic
    living things.


    For algae spores
    and fungus spores,
    bonded by vital
    mutual genetic cooperation,
    spreading their
    inseparable lives
    from equator to pole.


    My hand, my arm,
    make sweeping circles.
    Dust climbs the ladder of light.
    For this infernal, endless chore,
    for these eternal seeds of rain:
    Thank you. For dust.


    - Marilyn Nelson





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  42. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  43. TopTop #4372
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Live in Town Now


    We heard
    the rains were coming.


    Around midnight a slow drizzle
    and that wonderful new-rain smell,
    and then, by 3,
    a steady, hard rain,
    continuous,
    a deluge.


    We lay in bed listening.


    Silvia worried
    about the sump-pump screen
    in the driveway,
    and we were up,
    rain jackets,
    hats and boots,
    flashlights in our mouths.


    I turned the power off,
    Silvia held the corners
    of the hardware cloth,
    I lifted the two sections of grate,
    leaned them against the house.


    It was pouring.
    We were getting wet.


    Silvia cleaned the screen
    with the hose.


    I rolled the right arm of my jacket
    as far up as I could,
    reached down into the sump,
    and swung the pump out.


    Cold water ran past my shoulder
    into my underarm
    and down onto my chest.


    I pulled twigs, leaves
    and a crush of privet berries
    from the intake,
    and reached back down into
    the sump.


    I pulled more leaves from the water.
    A dozen screen scoops
    of silt below that.


    Rain running under my jacket.


    I swung the pump
    back into place.


    Silvia held the corners
    of the cloth,
    while I refitted the heavy grates.


    We swept the nearby concrete
    clear of leaves, berries, and dirt.


    We were soaked.


    I remembered the years
    I’d lived at Slide,
    and before that
    below Windmill Pasture:
    a flashlight or a head-lamp,
    patrolling all night
    with a long pole
    and a McLeod,
    following the rain’s
    unequivocal demand:
    keep the culverts clear,
    or you’ll get a washout.


    And one long afternoon
    standing waist deep in
    a redwood water tank,
    completely drenched by rain,
    reaching again and again
    into the cold water
    to fix a clogged valve.


    Finally done,
    Boissesvain
    and I looked at each other
    with huge grins,
    and agreed that this work,
    uncomfortable to the bone,
    doing what has to be done,
    and getting it done,
    was somehow
    the best.


    I live in town now.


    Silvia and I smiled
    as we turned from the driveway
    and climbed the back stairs
    into our home.


    - Trout Black
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  44. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  45. TopTop #4373
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Alina Candeleria



    I.
    I thought it was an incantation, her name,
    the way she said it in the singsong voice of a proud 5 year old.
    alinaramondiazamorosacalenderia


    Or a jingle, the way her lips pursed
    perfectly in a subtle smile, vowels accentuated.


    She waits in the salon while mother gets her hair cut.
    Shows me her leopard print vinyl coat with bubble gum pink polyester lining.
    Crosses her ankles, feet in ballet slippers.
    Hair, a cape down her back. Quizzical brown eyes.
    alinaramondiazamorosacalenderia


    II.
    Alina tells me her brother, Hector is in 4th grade and he’s 16.
    Her father, Ernesto is 16 too. Alina says,“They are very old.”
    She tells me a story.


    Once upon a time there was a little girl named Alina. Her mother, Silvia, is having her hair cut so Alina has to wait in the salon. Her mother cooks. Her father builds fences. Her brother eats pizza and tacos.


    I ask her to draw a picture.
    Square lines create a house.
    Windows radiate light.
    Stick figure of Alina waving.
    Figure of Hector eating a taco.


    III.
    But the house is sinking.
    Glass on the ground.
    Broken door.
    Tacos are burning.
    Stick figures disappear.


    IV.
    Will Alina know about the deep rivers
    and that her mother had to learn to swim
    right then and there, never falter?
    Clothes on her back like skin.
    Father in detention camp on floor cold as fear.
    Alina Ramon Diaz Amorosa Calenderia




    - Pamela Stone Singer
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  46. TopTop #4374
    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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  47. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  48. TopTop #4375
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Bearing Witness


    Sometimes we are asked to stop and bear witness:
    this, the elephants say to me in dreams
    as they thunder through the passageways
    of my heart, disappearing
    into a blaze of stars. On the edge
    of the 6th mass extinction, with species
    vanishing before our eyes, we’d be a people
    gone mad, if we did not grieve.

    This unmet grief,
    an elder tells me, is the root
    of the root of the collective illness
    that got us here. His people
    stay current with their grief—
    they see their tears as medicine—
    and grief a kind of generous willingness
    to simply see, to look loss in the eye,
    to hold tenderly what is precious,
    to let the rains of the heart fall.

    In this way, they do not pass this weight on
    in invisible mailbags for the next generation
    to carry. In this way, the grief doesn’t build
    and build like sets of waves, until,
    at some point down the line—
    it simply becomes an unbearable ocean.

    We are so hungry when we are fleeing
    our grief, when we are doing all
    we can to distract ourselves
    from the crushing heft of the unread
    letters of our ancestors.
    Hear us, they call. Hear us.

    In my dreams, the elephants stampede
    in herds, trumpeting, shaking the earth.
    It is a kind of grand finale, a last parade
    of their exquisite beauty. See us, they say.
    We may not pass this way again.

    What if our grief, given as a sacred offering,
    is a blessing not a curse?
    What if our grief, not hidden away in corners,
    becomes a kind of communion where we shine?
    What if our grief becomes a liberation song
    that returns us to our innocence?
    What if our fierce hearts
    could simply bear witness?

    - Laura Weaver
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  49. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  50. TopTop #4376
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Noiseless Patient Spider

    A noiseless patient spider,
    I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
    Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
    It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
    Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

    And you O my soul where you stand,
    Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
    Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
    Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
    Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

    - Walt Whitman
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  51. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  52. TopTop #4377
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Speaking Tree


    I had a beautiful dream I was dancing with a tree.
    - Sandra Cisneros


    Some things on this earth are unspeakable:
    Genealogy of the broken—
    A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre,
    Or the smell of coffee and no one there—

    Some humans say trees are not sentient beings,
    But they do not understand poetry—

    Nor can they hear the singing of trees when they are fed by
    Wind, or water music—
    Or hear their cries of anguish when they are broken and bereft—

    Now I am a woman longing to be a tree, planted in a moist, dark earth
    Between sunrise and sunset—

    I cannot walk through all realms—
    I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—

    What shall I do with all this heartache?

    The deepest-rooted dream of a tree is to walk
    Even just a little ways, from the place next to the doorway—
    To the edge of the river of life, and drink—

    I have heard trees talking, long after the sun has gone down:

    Imagine what would it be like to dance close together
    In this land of water and knowledge. . .

    To drink deep what is undrinkable.

    - Joy Harjo
    Last edited by Barry; 12-10-2019 at 11:48 AM.
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  53. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  54. TopTop #4378
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Writing To Iraq


    It would
    take them
    no trouble
    to approve
    your next
    hour
    by seconds
    and minutes


    with a
    rag tied
    over
    your eyes


    The next
    morning
    could be
    put into
    a rubber
    hose


    and used
    to beat
    you


    When you
    march
    in the streets
    together


    when you
    ask them
    to give
    you back
    your country


    And then
    many
    are shot /
    killed
    and wounded
    around you


    They tell you
    there is
    still time
    to turn back
    into history


    But instead you
    keep moving


    And the streets
    under your
    sky
    continue to
    gather


    to swell
    with even
    more voices


    All pain
    can be
    doubled


    But you
    see a way
    to welcome
    another future
    into your
    hands


    And that
    keeps you moving forward




    - Beau Beausoleil
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  55. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  56. TopTop #4379
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Possibilties


    I prefer movies.
    I prefer cats.
    I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
    I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
    I prefer myself liking people
    to myself loving mankind.
    I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
    I prefer the color green.
    I prefer not to maintain
    that reason is to blame for everything.
    I prefer exceptions.
    I prefer to leave early.
    I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
    I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
    I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
    to the absurdity of not writing poems.
    I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
    that can be celebrated every day.
    I prefer moralists
    who promise me nothing.
    I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
    I prefer the earth in civvies.
    I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
    I prefer having some reservations.
    I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
    I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.
    I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
    I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
    I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
    I prefer desk drawers.
    I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here
    to many things I’ve also left unsaid.
    I prefer zeroes on the loose
    to those lined up behind a cipher.
    I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
    I prefer to knock on wood.
    I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
    I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
    that existence has its own reason for being.


    - Wisława Szymborska
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  57. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  58. TopTop #4380
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Everything Has a Deep Dream

    I’ve spent many years learning
    how to fix life, only to discover
    at the end of the day
    that life is not broken.

    There is a hidden seed of great wholeness
    in everyone and everything.
    We serve life best
    when we water it and befriend it.
    When we listen before we act.

    In befriending life,
    we do not make things happen
    according to our own design.
    We uncover something that is already happening
    in us and around us and
    create conditions that enable it.

    Everything is moving toward its place of wholeness,
    always struggling against odds.

    Everything has a deep dream of itself and its fulfillment.

    - Rachel Naomi Remen
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  59. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

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