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  1. TopTop #4471
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Civic Duty


    Not long ago a man mailed 100 letters.
    A message to each United States senator.
    It cost him sixty-eight dollars and change.
    But, with the fate of the nation at stake,
    He considered it a patriotic investment.


    Each letter was personalized and signed.
    Every enveloped addressed by hand.
    A gesture of respect for that august body.
    Certainly not a special-interest robo-mailing.


    He quoted some great Americans and noted that
    Managing a representative republic is messy.
    He said his civic duty required him to remind them
    That an impeachment trial should be a real trial.


    He politely and respectfully implored them
    Both left and right, to do what they knew history
    Would judge as being wise and true.
    He felt that given the gravity of the circumstances,
    They might appreciate his earnest petition.


    Every one of the 100 letters went unanswered.
    No senator could be bothered to acknowledge
    The concerns of an active and engaged citizen.
    The sound of those letters landing in wastebaskets,
    Soft thuds of portent.


    - Mark Telles
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  3. TopTop #4472
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Day Dream

    One day people will touch and talk perhaps easily,
    And loving be natural as breathing and warm as sunlight,
    And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
    Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
    Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
    And work will be simple and swift as a seagull flying,
    And play will be casual and quiet as a seagull settling,
    And the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder or care or notice,
    And people will smile without reason, even in winter, even in the rain.

    - A. S. J. Tessimond
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  5. TopTop #4473
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Small Kindnesses


    I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
    down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
    to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
    when someone sneezes, a leftover
    from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
    And sometimes, when you spill lemons
    from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
    pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
    We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
    and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
    at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
    to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
    and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
    We have so little of each other, now. So far
    from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
    What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
    fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
    have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”


    - Danusha Lameris
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  7. TopTop #4474

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Nicely done! I wrote something with a similar sentiment, a couple years ago:
    DRIVERS' SACRAMENT

    The ancient Romans built shrines at crossroads, and then the life and death of Jesus further layered the archetype of the cross.

    We continue to approach Intersections in a special way as we drive, observing a moment of awareness, acknowledging a common Center,
    coming to a stop and quietly determining as one mind the order of going forth.

    Once in awhile, a driver refuses this ritual, but mostly we join brothers and sisters at the wheel,
    and there’s an authority to the way everyone knows how we should move on.

    This is the way we need to live.
    ******
    c 2018 from The Well At World's End by Max Reif, New Humanity Publications
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  9. TopTop #4475
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Cataclysm


    It begins subtly:
    the maple
    withdraws an inch from the birch tree.

    .

    The porcupine
    wants nothing to do with the skink.

    .

    Fish unschool,
    sheep unflock to separately graze.

    .

    Clouds meanwhile
    declare to the sky
    they have nothing to do with the sky,
    which is not visible as they are,

    .

    nor knows the trick of turning
    into infant, tumbling pterodactyls.

    .

    The turtles and moonlight?
    Their long arrangement is over.

    .

    As for the humans.
    Let us not speak of the humans.
    Let us speak of their language.

    .

    The first person singular
    condemns the second person plural
    for betrayals neither has words left to name.

    .

    The fed consider the hungry
    and stay silent.


    - Jane Hirshfield
    Last edited by Barry; 03-06-2020 at 12:49 PM.
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  11. TopTop #4476
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Passing Through
    - on my seventy-ninth birthday


    Nobody in the widow’s household
    ever celebrated anniversaries.
    In the secrecy of my room
    I would not admit I cared
    that my friends were given parties.
    Before I left town for school
    my birthday went up in smoke
    in a fire at City Hall that gutted
    the Department of Vital Statistics.
    If it weren’t for a census report
    of a five-year-old White Male
    sharing my mother’s address
    at the Green Street tenement in Worcester
    I’d have no documentary proof
    that I exist. You are the first,
    my dear, to bully me
    into these festive occasions.


    Sometimes, you say, I wear
    an abstracted look that drives you
    up the wall, as though it signified
    distress or disaffection.
    Don’t take it so to heart.
    Maybe I enjoy not-being as much
    as being who I am. Maybe
    it’s time for me to practice
    growing old. The way I look
    at it, I’m passing through a phase:
    gradually I’m changing to a word.
    Whatever you choose to claim
    of me is always yours;
    nothing is truly mine
    except my name. I only
    borrowed this dust.


    - Stanley Kunitz
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  12. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  13. TopTop #4477
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Daffodils



    Each spring daffodils like a secret happiness
    Are everywhere again as if they did not care
    That the world is so messed up
    Or are depressed by the tragedies of last year
    We admonish the bright inquisitive faces.
    Don’t you realize you are arriving in a drought
    Global warming, even extinctions.
    The next day even more daffodils crowd
    The edges of fences, careen across a field.
    They seem to lack a sense of trepidation
    Or have self-esteem issues or are intimidated
    By changes in weather or a hostile environment.
    They are the loyal canines of the plant world
    Assured that everyone is glad to see them,
    Like your dog in whose eyes you know
    You are loved more than you believe
    Anyone could. We have to admit we have longed
    To look into the eyes of flowers
    To ask how they do it
    So free to share with equanimity
    Their finite beauty
    Without hesitation
    No questions asked, no disturbing borders.
    I am your flower they say
    You are my flower they say
    We are here for you.
    Springtime may just be
    Humanity’s other
    Best friend.


    - Gail Onion

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  15. TopTop #4478
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)




    I was born in the congo
    I walked to the fertile crescent and built
    the sphinx
    I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
    that only glows every one hundred years falls
    into the center giving divine perfect light
    I am bad


    I sat on the throne
    drinking nectar with allah
    I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
    to cool my thirst
    My oldest daughter is nefertiti
    the tears from my birth pains
    created the nile
    I am a beautiful woman


    I gazed on the forest and burned
    out the sahara desert
    with a packet of goat's meat
    and a change of clothes
    I crossed it in two hours
    I am a gazelle so swift
    so swift you can't catch me


    For a birthday present when he was three
    I gave my son hannibal an elephant
    He gave me rome for mother's day
    My strength flows ever on


    My son noah built new/ark and
    I stood proudly at the helm
    as we sailed on a soft summer day
    I turned myself into myself and was
    jesus
    men intone my loving name
    All praises All praises
    I am the one who would save


    I sowed diamonds in my back yard
    My bowels deliver uranium
    the filings from my fingernails are
    semi-precious jewels
    On a trip north
    I caught a cold and blew
    My nose giving oil to the arab world
    I am so hip even my errors are correct
    I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
    the earth as I went
    The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
    across three continents


    I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
    I cannot be comprehended
    except by my permission


    I mean . . . I . . . can fly
    like a bird in the sky . . .


    - Nikki Giovanni
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  16. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  17. TopTop #4479
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    If You’re Staying, I’ll Stay Too


    Maybe it’s easier, having been named
    after someone: nobody
    expects that you’ll rule the underworld
    or judge the dead, but
    they call you Pluto anyway. Planet, too.
    I know a girl like you
    who used to be a thing she isn’t anymore
    but hasn’t changed at all.
    Whose orbit didn’t circle straight—whose
    size & distance never quite
    seemed right—but no one cared til now.
    I was a woman once:
    rounded by my own gravity, cat-called
    into hades by men who
    could not see this gem of a hard rock
    was not made magnetic
    for the likes of them. Hey little mama—
    don’t take it so hard.
    So we are frigid. So we stay relegated
    out here with our kin.
    I’ll wear my fade tight & my tie loose
    if you play your radio loud.
    They say we’re known only in comparison
    to that which surrounds
    us, so I’d guess they’ll hear our signal soon.
    I was a woman once,
    but that’s not the farthest thing from the sun
    another universe might’ve
    let me be: another universe might’ve let us be.


    - Meg Day
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  18. TopTop #4480
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Unrest in Baton Rouge

    after the photo by Jonathan Bachman


    Our bodies run with ink dark blood.
    Blood pools in the pavement’s seams.

    Is it strange to say love is a language
    Few practice, but all, or near all speak?

    Even the men in black armor, the ones
    Jangling handcuffs and keys, what else

    Are they so buffered against, if not love’s blade
    Sizing up the heart’s familiar meat?

    We watch and grieve. We sleep, stir, eat.
    Love: the heart sliced open, gutted, clean.

    Love: naked almost in the everlasting street,
    Skirt lifted by a different kind of breeze.


    - Tracy K. Smith


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    Last edited by Barry; 03-11-2020 at 01:55 PM.
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  20. TopTop #4481
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Everybody Knows

    Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
    Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
    Everybody knows that the war is over
    Everybody knows the good guys lost
    Everybody knows the fight was fixed
    The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
    That's how it goes
    Everybody knows
    Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
    Everybody knows the captain lied
    Everybody got this broken feeling
    Like their father or their dog just died
    Everybody talking to their pockets
    Everybody wants a box of chocolates
    And a long stem rose
    Everybody knows
    Everybody knows that you love me baby
    Everybody knows that you really do
    Everybody knows that you've been faithful
    Ah give or take a night or two
    Everybody knows you've been discreet
    But there were so many people you just had to meet
    Without your clothes
    And everybody knows
    Everybody knows, everybody knows
    That's how it goes
    Everybody knows
    Everybody knows, everybody knows
    That's how it goes
    Everybody knows
    And everybody knows that it's now or never
    Everybody knows that it's me or you
    And everybody knows that you live forever
    Ah when you've done a line or two
    Everybody knows the deal is rotten
    Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
    For your ribbons and bows
    And everybody knows
    And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
    Everybody knows that it's moving fast
    Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
    Are just a shining artifact of the past
    Everybody knows the scene is dead
    But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
    That will disclose
    What everybody knows
    And everybody knows that you're in trouble
    Everybody knows what you've been through
    From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
    To the beach of Malibu
    Everybody knows it's coming apart
    Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
    Before it blows
    And everybody knows
    Everybody knows, everybody knows
    That's how it goes
    Everybody knows
    Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
    That's how it goes
    Everybody knows
    Everybody knows

    - Leonard Cohen
    Last edited by Barry; 03-12-2020 at 02:03 PM.
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  21. Gratitude expressed by 8 members:

  22. TopTop #4482
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Wash your hands

    like you are washing the only teacup left that your great grandmother
    carried across the ocean, like you are washing the hair of a beloved who is
    dying, like you are washing the feet of Grace Lee Boggs, Beyonce, Jesus,
    your auntie, Audre Lorde, Mary Oliver- you get the picture.


    Like this water is poured from a jug your best friend just carried for
    three miles from the spring they had to climb a mountain to reach.
    Like water is a precious resource
    made from time and miracle

    Wash your hands and cough into your elbow, they say.
    Rest more, stay home, drink water, have some soup, they say.


    To which I would add: burn some plants your ancestors burned when there was
    fear in the air,
    Boil some aromatic leaves in a pot on your stove until your windows steam
    up.
    Open your windows
    Eat a piece of garlic every day. Tie a clove around your neck.
    Breathe.

    My friends, it is always true, these things.
    It has already been time.


    It is always true that we should move with care and intention, asking
    Do you want to bump elbows instead? with everyone we meet.

    It is always true that people are living with one lung, with immune systems
    that don?t work so well, or perhaps work too hard, fighting against
    themselves. It is already true that people are hoarding the things that the
    most vulnerable need.
    It is already time that we might want to fly on airplanes less and not go
    to work when we are sick.


    It is already time that we might want to know who in our neighborhood has
    cancer, who has a new baby, who is old, with children in another state, who
    has extra water, who has a root cellar, who is a nurse, who has a garden
    full of elecampane and nettles.


    It is already time that temporarily non-disabled people think about people
    living with chronic illness and disabled folks, that young people think
    about old people.
    It is already time to stop using synthetic fragrances to not smell like
    bodies, to pretend like we?re all not dying. It is already time to remember
    that those scents make so many of us sick.


    It is already time to not take it personally when someone doesn?t want to
    hug you.
    It is already time to slow down and feel how scared we are.

    We are already afraid, we are already living in the time of fires.

    When fear arises,
    and it will,
    let it wash over your whole body instead of staying curled up tight in your
    shoulders.
    If your heart tightens,
    contract
    and expand.
    science says: compassion strengthens the immune system
    We already know that, but capitalism gives us amnesia
    and tricks us into thinking it?s the thing that protect us
    but it?s the way we hold the thing.
    The way we do the thing.

    Those of us who have forgotten amuletic traditions,
    we turn to hoarding hand sanitizer and masks.
    we find someone to blame.
    we think that will help.
    want to blame something?
    Blame capitalism. Blame patriarchy. Blame white supremacy.

    It is already time to remember to hang garlic on our doors
    to dip our handkerchiefs in thyme tea
    to rub salt on our feet
    to pray the rosary, kiss the mezuzah, cleanse with an egg.
    In the middle of the night,
    when you wake up with terror in your belly,
    it is time to think about stardust and geological time
    redwoods and dance parties and mushrooms remediating toxic soil.
    it is time
    to care for one another
    to pray over water
    to wash away fear
    every time we wash our hands.

    - Dori Midnight
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  23. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  24. TopTop #4483
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Pandemic


    What if you thought of it
    as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
    the most sacred of times?
    Cease from travel.
    Cease from buying and selling.
    Give up, just for now,
    on trying to make the world
    different than it is.
    Sing. Pray. Touch only those
    to whom you commit your life.
    Center down.
    And when your body has become still,
    reach out with your heart.
    Know that we are connected
    in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
    (You could hardly deny it now.)
    Know that our lives
    are in one another’s hands.
    (Surely, that has come clear.)
    Do not reach out your hands.
    Reach out your heart.
    Reach out your words.
    Reach out all the tendrils
    of compassion that move, invisibly,
    where we cannot touch.
    Promise this world your love--
    for better or for worse,
    in sickness and in health,
    so long as we all shall live.


    - Lynn Ungar
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  25. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  26. TopTop #4484

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    "Do not reach out your hands.
    Reach out your heart."
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  28. TopTop #4485
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Panicdemic



    That buzzing you hear

    Getting louder louder

    Clogging the mind

    Irritating panic

    You tell everyone

    "I've had enough

    I can't take it anymore"

    Maybe just maybe

    It's the sound of bees

    Making honey

    For your sweet starved soul


    - David McNair
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  29. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  30. TopTop #4486
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Instructions for the Honorable Harvest


    Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may
    take care of them.
    Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
    Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
    Never take the first. Never take the last.
    Take only what you need.
    Take only that which is given.
    Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
    Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
    Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
    Share.
    Give thanks for what you have been given.
    Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
    Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.


    - Robin Wall Kimmerer
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  31. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  32. TopTop #4487
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Praise the Rain


    Praise the rain, the seagull dive
    The curl of plant, the raven talk—
    Praise the hurt, the house slack
    The stand of trees, the dignity—
    Praise the dark, the moon cradle
    The sky fall, the bear sleep—
    Praise the mist, the warrior name
    The earth eclipse, the fired leap—
    Praise the backwards, upward sky
    The baby cry, the spirit food—
    Praise canoe, the fish rush
    The hole for frog, the upside-down—
    Praise the day, the cloud cup
    The mind flat, forget it all—


    Praise crazy. Praise sad.
    Praise the path on which we’re led.
    Praise the roads on earth and water.
    Praise the eater and the eaten.
    Praise beginnings; praise the end.
    Praise the song and praise the singer.


    Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
    Praise the rain; it brings more rain.


    - Joy Harjo

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  34. TopTop #4488
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    And the people stayed home.
    And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art,
    and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.
    And listened more deeply.
    Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
    Some met their shadows.
    And the people began to think differently.


    And the people healed.
    And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
    the earth began to heal.


    And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again,
    they grieved their losses, and made new choices,
    and dreamed new images,
    and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully,
    as they had been healed.


    - Irene Vella


    (translated from the Italian by Kitty O’Meara)
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  35. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  36. TopTop #4489
    M/M's Avatar
    M/M
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    And the people stayed home.
    And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art,
    and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.
    And listened more deeply.
    Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
    Some met their shadows.
    And the people began to think differently.


    And the people healed.
    And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
    the earth began to heal.


    And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again,
    they grieved their losses, and made new choices,
    and dreamed new images,
    and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully,
    as they had been healed.


    - Irene Vella


    (translated from the Italian by Kitty O’Meara)
    Beautiful... thanks for this, though it apparently was actually written by Kitty O'Meara:

    In the Time of Pandemic
    https://the-daily-round.com/2020/03/...e-of-pandemic/

    More information - including link to what Vella actually wrote: https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainme...ara-interview/
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  37. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  38. TopTop #4490
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Keeping Quiet

    Now we will all count to twelve
    and we will all keep still.


    This one time upon the earth,
    let’s not speak any language,
    let’s stop for one second,
    and not move our arms so much.


    It would be a delicious moment,
    without hurry, without locomotives,
    all of us would be together
    in a sudden uneasiness.


    The fisherman in the cold sea
    would do no harm to the whales
    and the peasant gathering salt
    would look at his torn hands.


    Those who prepare green wars,
    wars of gas, wars of fire,
    victories without survivors,
    would put on clean clothing
    and would walk alongside their brothers
    in the shade, without doing a thing.


    What I want shouldn’t be confused
    with final inactivity:
    life alone is what matters,
    I want nothing to do with death.


    If we weren’t unanimous
    about keeping our lives so much in motion,
    if we could perhaps do nothing for once,
    perhaps a great silence would interrupt this sadness,
    this never understanding ourselves
    and threatening ourselves with death,
    perhaps the earth is teaching us
    when everything seems to be dead
    and everything is alive.


    Now I will count to twelve
    and you keep quiet and I’ll go.


    - Pablo Neruda


    (English translation by Stephen Mitchell)
    Last edited by Barry; 03-20-2020 at 12:21 PM.
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  39. TopTop #4491
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Corona

    Bursting red flowers

    Invisible to the eye

    Your beauty slays us

    We lather our hands

    And with only you in mind

    Close ourselves from life

    We listen for stars

    For wind rapping at our doors

    And discover peace

    In our solitude

    In the true present moment

    It is all we have

    It is all we need

    Our essential bouquet


    - Katherine Hastings
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  40. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  41. TopTop #4492
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Funeral During A Pandemic


    You will die.Everyone you know will die.
    You know this.
    But you don’t know when.


    Until now it has been easy
    to believe it will be some time off
    in the far distant future; too far
    to really consider it a factor
    in how you live your life.


    But now can you feel the angel circling,
    coming in for a landing somewhere near.


    At the graveside service
    we keep our bodies distant
    as prudence and patriotism advise.


    But we touch with eyes,
    with voices joined in song,
    wondering who will be next and
    how often we will gather this way
    to remember…


    How precious these days and
    how precious these glances that say
    “I see you; you are not alone!”


    May we learn to hold each life tenderly
    and see it for the fragile,
    luminous and improbable gift that it is.


    - Larry Robinson

    Last edited by Barry; 03-23-2020 at 05:06 PM.
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  42. Gratitude expressed by 10 members:

  43. TopTop #4493
    Ronaldo's Avatar
    Ronaldo
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

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  44. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  45. TopTop #4494
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Today, When I Could Do Nothing


    Today, when I could do nothing,
    I saved an ant.

    It must have come in with the morning paper,
    still being delivered
    to those who shelter in place.

    A morning paper is still an essential service.

    I am not an essential service.

    I have coffee and books,
    time,
    a garden,
    silence enough to fill cisterns.

    It must have first walked
    the morning paper, as if loosened ink
    taking the shape of an ant.

    Then across the laptop computer — warm —
    then onto the back of a cushion.

    Small black ant, alone,
    crossing a navy cushion,
    moving steadily because that is what it could do.

    Set outside in the sun,
    it could not have found again its nest.
    What then did I save?

    It did not move as if it was frightened,
    even while walking my hand,
    which moved it through swiftness and air.

    Ant, alone, without companions,
    whose ant-heart I could not fathom—
    how is your life, I wanted to ask.

    I lifted it, took it outside.

    This first day when I could do nothing,
    contribute nothing
    beyond staying distant from my own kind,
    I did this.

    - Jane Hirshfield
    Last edited by Barry; 03-24-2020 at 01:42 PM.
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  47. TopTop #4495
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    shelter in place


    while we shelter in place
    look in quiet at the wild green grasses
    see the red there a hinge at the sides of each leaf
    red purple
    at the end of the awns of each forming seed
    purple red
    and so many fine white hairs held in the cup of each leaf
    all colors of green grass


    curl up by a tree rest your head on a sweater
    hear the crickets frogs birds
    ducks fly by and honk
    the breeze gently rustles the old man’s beard lichen
    hanging from trees


    as we shelter in place busy ants run along a fallen branch
    a spring peeper sends his hopeful “creeeeeh “ out into the air
    dreaming of puddles where froggy eggs meet froggy sperm
    and soon tadpoles wriggle
    dream on calling frog egrets and the kick and splash of new froggy legs
    into the pond all await you
    ducks paddle nearby onward in life


    as we shelter under the clouds long enough
    to watch the flotilla make their slow silent cumulus way across the wide sky
    “to weet “ calls the red wing blackbird “to weet “


    we shelter on green grass under trees
    beneath cloud ships within a sound tapestry of birds frogs bugs breeze
    we shelter on our beautiful living Earth

    - Theresa Roach Melia
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  49. TopTop #4496
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Peace of Wild Things


    When despair grows in me
    and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
    in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
    I go and lie down where the wood drake
    rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
    I come into the peace of wild things
    who do not tax their lives with forethought
    of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
    And I feel above me the day-blind stars
    waiting for their light. For a time
    I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


    - Wendell Berry
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  50. Gratitude expressed by 9 members:

  51. TopTop #4497
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Listening

    In the dark
    pre-dawn mornings,
    I listen to the trees.
    Sometimes I hear nothing,
    but feel their reassuring presence.
    Sometimes words sail
    into my head,
    like the goldfinches
    landing on my bird feeder.
    Today they told me:
    Ground! Ground deeply.
    You will know people
    who get ill.
    You may know some who
    will die.
    You could even be
    one of them.
    Your task today
    is to ground and be
    a solid presence
    on this patch of earth.
    Watch us
    and follow suit.


    - Maya Spector
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  52. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  53. TopTop #4498
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Meditation on Not Touching My Face


    I should be practiced at this.
    I should have mastery after
    Minutes becoming hours, becoming days,
    Becoming this explicit eternity.


    Still I’m a beginner on the
    Planet of my body
    That may or may not be
    Toxic to myself, my so-
    Vulnerable, dressed in a layer
    Of naked skin, like the rest of
    My kind, Self.


    All this time, living,
    Knowing our delusions,
    Dreams of eternal, forever
    Freedom from Fate’s cruel,
    Kind or indifferent reach
    Were illusions and
    Still


    As time becomes itself a type
    Of enemy, I find, for once
    My own face
    A dangerous place.


    - Rebecca del Rio
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  54. Gratitude expressed by:

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  55. TopTop #4499
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mary Oliver for Corona Times
    (Thoughts after the poem Wild Geese)


    You do not have to become totally zen,
    You do not have to use this isolation to make your marriage better,
    your body slimmer, your children more creative.
    You do not have to “maximize its benefits”
    By using this time to work even more,
    write the bestselling Corona Diaries,
    Or preach the gospel of ZOOM.
    You only have to let the soft animal of your body unlearn
    everything capitalism has taught you,
    (That you are nothing if not productive,
    That consumption equals happiness,
    That the most important unit is the single self.
    That you are at your best when you resemble an efficient machine).




    Tell me about your fictions, the ones you’ve been sold,
    the ones you sheepishly sell others,
    and I will tell you mine.
    Meanwhile the world as we know it is crumbling.
    Meanwhile the virus is moving over the hills,
    suburbs, cities, farms and trailer parks.
    Meanwhile The News barks at you, harsh and addicting,
    Until the push of the remote leaves a dead quiet behind,
    a loneliness that hums as the heart anchors.
    Meanwhile a new paradigm is composing itself in our minds,
    Could birth at any moment if we clear some space
    From the same tired hegemonies.
    Remember, you are allowed to be still as the white birch,
    Stunned by what you see,
    Uselessly shedding your coils of paper skins
    Because it gives you something to do.
    Meanwhile, on top of everything else you are facing,
    Do not let capitalism coopt this moment,
    laying its whistles and train tracks across your weary heart.
    Even if your life looks nothing like the Sabbath,
    Your stress boa-constricting your chest.
    Know that your ancy kids, your terror, your shifting moods,
    Your need for a drink have every right to be here,
    And are no less sacred than a yoga class.
    Whoever you are, no matter how broken,
    the world still has a place for you, calls to you over and over
    announcing your place as legit, as forgiven,
    even if you fail and fail and fail again.
    remind yourself over and over,
    all the swells and storms that run through your long tired body
    all have their place here, now in this world.
    It is your birthright to be held
    deeply, warmly in the family of things,
    not one cell left in the cold.




    - Adrie Kusserow
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  56. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  57. TopTop #4500
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Dispatch From Seattle

    or, Nervous in the Hot Zone
    Yes, we’re scared but we also make
    zombie apocalypse jokes
    By texts. I don’t know when I’ll see
    my friends in person again.
    We don’t want to panic and overreact
    but we don’t want
    To underreact. Some of my friends
    are still hosting parties.
    Some of them are still planning
    to take their previously
    Scheduled trips overseas. Some are
    the polite looters
    Who are buying all the toilet paper
    in Seattle.
    “Good for you,” I text to one of them.
    “You’ll be
    The most hygienic and well-stocked
    shitter in the city.”
    Some of my fellow Native Americans
    are performing
    The highly sacred Indigenous shrug,
    as in, “Dude,
    They’re not giving us smallpox
    blankets.”
    But, hey, it’s the Trumps. Their
    wicked incompetence
    And delusional arrogance is
    striking us
    With smallpox of the soul.
    I try to listen
    Only to the health experts,
    but the dipshits,
    Conspiracy theorists, partisan
    hacks, trolls,
    And the mentally ill dominate
    the discourse,
    As they always do. How did
    we get to a place
    Where the borderline personalities
    get quoted
    As if they were experts by borderline
    journalists
    Who also act as if they’re experts,
    as well?
    Maybe the true pandemic is
    immodesty.
    Maybe the true pandemic is
    the loss
    Of a shared and common
    decency.
    But, hell, that’s big talk
    for someone
    Like me, who just angrily,
    impulsively,
    And paranoidly bought
    $500 worth
    Of canned food. And yet,
    I also know
    That people are good. I know
    that most of us
    Will reflexively switch
    into kindness
    Mode. That’s what humans,
    at their best,
    Have almost always done.
    In the meantime,
    Here I am, re-binging on Parks
    and Recreation
    As I serve myself another bowl
    of lactose-free
    Ice cream and rhyme my way
    through self-quarantine.

    - Sherman Alexie
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