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  1. TopTop #91
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Man Born To Farming
    The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
    whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
    to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
    yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
    in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
    His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
    What miraculous seed has he swallowed
    That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
    Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
    Descending in the dark?
    - Wendell Berry
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  2. TopTop #92
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Fountain
    *
    Don’t say, don’t say there is no water
    To solace the dryness at our hearts.
    I have seen
    *
    The fountain springing out of the rock wall
    And you drinking there. And I too
    Before your eyes
    *
    Found footholds and climbed
    to drink the cool water.
    *
    The woman of that place, shading her eyes,
    Frowned as she watched—but not because
    she grudged the water,
    *
    Only because she was waiting
    to see we drank our fill and were
    refreshed.
    *
    Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.
    That fountain is there among its scalloped
    green and gray stones,
    *
    It is still there and always there
    with its quiet song and strange power
    to spring in us,
    up and out through the rock.

    - Denise Levertov
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  3. TopTop #93
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Cannot Tell You

    I do not know
    if god us a thing
    or a process,
    or a being
    or a presence.

    I cannot tell you
    how the world
    was constructed,
    or when it began
    or by whom.

    I cannot unravel
    the tables of meaning,
    the diagrams
    and the scales of comparison,
    the charts and the long explanations
    of everything
    that has ever been.

    What I know is this:
    this moment,
    this kiss,
    this infinite longing,
    endless loving and being loved
    by no one
    who has a name
    in a place
    that does not exist.

    - Dorothy Walters
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  4. TopTop #94
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Skater

    She was all in black but for a yellow pony tail
    that trailed from her cap, and bright blue gloves
    that she held out wide, the feathery fingers spread,
    as surely she stepped, click-clack, onto the frozen
    top of the world. And there, with a clatter of blades,
    she began to braid a loose path that broadened
    into a meadow of curls. Across the ice she swooped
    and then turned back and, halfway, bent her legs
    and leapt into the air the way a crane leaps, blue gloves
    lifting her lightly, and turned a snappy half-turn
    there in the wind before coming down, arms wide,
    skating backward right out of that moment, smiling back
    at the woman she'd been just an instant before.

    - Ted Kooser
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  5. TopTop #95
    josan48
    Guest

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I found this piece and wanted to reach out and say thank you. Thank you for your heart-mind - one that would choose such a piece. You have choosen many pieces and this one speaks to me - as it always has - it was lovely to say hello to "it" again.
    Thank you for your heart-mind, Larry.
    Jo
    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    SELF-PORTRAIT

    It doesn't interest me if there is one God
    or many gods.
    I want to know if you belong or feel
    abandoned.
    If you know despair or can see it in others.
    I want to know
    if you are prepared to live in the world
    with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back
    with firm eyes
    saying this is where I stand. I want to know
    if you know
    how to melt into that fierce heat of living
    falling toward
    the center of your longing. I want to know
    if you are willing
    to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
    and the bitter
    unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

    I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even
    the gods speak of God.

    - David Whyte
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  6. TopTop #96
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    ARTICLES OF FAITH


    Faith is a priceless treasure which some would invest in money and power, seeking private gain. Others of us invest in a vision of a world which may yet come to be: a world of justice, peace and beauty. We place our faith in life itself.

    We Believe

    Life is infinitely creative, resourceful, reliable and ultimately good.

    Human beings are an expression of that life force and, as such, are creative, resourceful, reliable and fundamentally good.

    All life is inextricably connected - what happens to any of us happens to all of us.

    Evil exists as a potential in all human beings and it derives from the illusion that we are separate from each other and from the fountain of life.

    Evil cannot be vanquished by force of arms or by fear. It can only be conquered by love.

    In the power of love and direct non-violent action to
    transform institutions, social systems and the human heart.

    The arc of human history moves toward democracy, justice and an appreciation for our wondrous multiplicity of expression.

    It is the right of all people to enjoy life, liberty and the security of person; to be treated equally under the law; to enjoy freedom of thought, conscience and religion; to free expression and association; to have free access to clean water and air.

    It is possible for all human beings to be free from economic want and poverty and to live with dignity.

    Peace among and within nations is only possible when these rights are assured to everyone.

    The most fundamental responsibility of government is to ensure the health and well-being of the land and of all its inhabitants.

    Individual rights must be balanced with responsibility for the well-being of the community.

    The success and survival of our civilization and, possibly, that of the human race are in increasing jeopardy because of our commitment to an unsustainable pattern of resource consumption, particularly our dependence upon fossil fuels.

    While our planet’s physical resources are finite, the resources of love and imagination are without end.

    It is indeed possible to create a society which lives sustainably and harmoniously within the parameters of our planetary life support systems.

    We have a responsibility to live in such a way that we do not diminish the opportunity for future generations to enjoy the same quality of life which we enjoy.

    A human birth is a precious gift that is accompanied by a responsibility to act with generosity, sensitivity and compassion for all living beings.

    In doing our best to leave a better world for our children.

    All people, individually and collectively, are capable of learning from their mistakes.

    Life inherently includes suffering, but we have a responsibility as members of the human family to do what we can to ease that suffering and to structure our social institutions in such a way as to minimize unnecessary suffering due to poverty, disease, war, injustice and environmental degradation.

    Joy is also an inherent feature of life and it is possible to participate joyfully in the suffering of the world.

    Each and every life has inherent value and is worthy of respect.

    In poetry, art, music, dancing and the spirit of play.

    In the power of truth.

    At the heart of all things is an ineffable mystery worthy of awe and wonder.

    It is this faith which informs, guides and sustains our work in the world.

    - Larry Robinson
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  7. TopTop #97
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    what to do with your goat in a drowning world

    hear the helicopters come over the roof
    water's up to my attic windows
    and I'm stuck here with my goat
    I can see my neighbor in the hole on his roof
    he's got two dachsies and a tomcat
    just across the rushing river is his sister
    she's cradling her baby and a rooster
    circling helicopters circling helicopters
    will take me but not my goat
    will lift me up from muck and flood
    but they won't take my neighbor's dogs or cat
    or his sister's baby's rooster
    helicopters overhead nation to the rescue
    take the people damn their friends
    I'm not going without my goat
    he's not going without his pets
    baby won't leave without her rooster
    lord oh lord why don't we have an ark
    that's the helicopters leaving
    that's the nation to the rescue
    leaving us here in the dark

    - Andrei Codrescu
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  8. TopTop #98
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Men Gardening

    Men gardening, knees bent as if
    In prayer to something forgotten, trying
    To be remembered.

    Men gardening, centuries of civilization
    Dropping off them like husks, shadows of
    Stalks, leaves, laying across them
    Like tribal tattoos.

    Men gardening, brows muddy
    Painted with sweat, soil, swirling designs of
    Passion and desire.

    Men planting, knees bent in submission
    In some remembered act of insemination
    Some means of participating in a miracle.

    Flowers spring forth from frustration of
    Days in offices, from days behind the wheels of cars.
    Vegetables growing, plumping from the pain of
    Days arguing in court rooms and nights
    Pouring over accounts.

    Men gardening, knees bent as if in prayer,
    For something better, for something different.
    Praying for something forgotten
    And trying
    To be remembered.

    - Rebecca del Rio-Ruso
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  9. TopTop #99
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Waking
    I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
    I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
    I learn by going where I have to go.

    We think by feeling. What is there to know?
    I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
    I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

    Of those so close beside me, which are you?
    God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
    And learn by going where I have to go.

    Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
    The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
    I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

    Great Nature has another thing to do
    To you and me; so take the lively air,
    And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

    This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
    What falls away is always. And is near.
    I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
    I learn by going where I have to go.
    - Theodore Roethke
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  10. TopTop #100
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    There I No One But Us

    There is no one but us.
    There is no one to send,
    nor a clean hand nor a pure heart
    on the face of the earth,
    but only us,
    a generation comforting ourselves
    with the notion that we have come at an awkward time,
    that our innocent fathers are all dead
    - as if innocence had ever been -
    and our children busy and troubled,
    and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready,
    having each of us chosen wrongly,
    made a false start, failed,
    yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures,
    and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved.
    But there is no one but us.
    There never has been.

    - Annie Dillard
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  11. TopTop #101
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Holy Pools

    There is nothing but water in the holy pools,
    I know, I have been swimming in them.
    All the gods sculpted of wood and ivory
    can't say a word.
    I know, I have been crying out to them.
    The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words.
    I looked through their covers one day sideways.
    What Kabir talks about is only what he has lived through.
    If you have not lived through something,
    It is not true.

    - Kabir
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  12. TopTop #102
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Whittled Forest


    My father taught himself
    to play the violin in
    the pantry

    with jellies and jams,
    the garbage can and a broom. He
    scraped the strings with

    a stringed bow, the cold
    curved wood in the winter tucked
    under his chin,

    like the arc
    of a whittled forest unknown.
    It sounded awful.

    He was a poor man
    job-raising a family, struggling
    with daybreak.

    He worked at a night job
    and practiced half the day on
    scales. That is

    why we mocked
    his effort.

    - Jane Mayhall
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  13. TopTop #103
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For Light

    Light cannot see inside things.
    That is what the dark is for:
    Minding the interior,
    Nurturing the draw of growth
    Through places where death
    In its own way turns into life.

    In the glare of neon times,
    Let our eyes not be worn
    By surfaces that shine
    With hunger made attractive.

    That our thoughts may be true light,
    Finding their way into words
    Which have the weight of shadow
    To hold the layers of truth.

    That we never place our trust
    In minds claimed by empty light,
    Where one-sided certainties
    Are driven by false desire.

    When we look into the heart,
    May our eyes have the kindness
    And reverence of candlelight.

    That the searching of our minds
    Be equal to the oblique
    Crevices and corners where
    The mystery continues to dwell,
    Glimmering in fugitive light.

    When we are confined inside
    The dark house of suffering
    That moonlight might find a window.

    When we become false and lost
    That the severe noon-light
    Would cast our shadow clear.

    When we love, that dawn-light
    Would lighten our feet
    Upon the waters.

    As we grow old, that twilight
    Would illuminate treasure
    In the fields of memory.

    And when we come to search for God,
    Let us first be robed in night,
    Put on the mind of morning
    To feel the rush of light
    Spread slowly inside
    The color and stillness
    Of a found word.

    - John O'Donohue
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  14. TopTop #104
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    It's More Than The Morning

    It’s more than the morning we must wake up to
    The birds have been singing for hours in our dreams
    Let us not be too sleepy to remember the countless blessings
    Waiting to unfold in a day remembered with grace

    Let us not forget to love
    To smile, to breathe the simple truth
    That life is precious in all its configurations
    Designed to guide us to our awakening

    What a paradox that we must sleep to dream
    And awaken to fulfill our dreams
    What a paradox that we must die to fully live
    Give to receive, and empty to fill up again.

    Even our longing is a blessing
    For it carries the wind across the sea
    And stirs the ocean of the soul
    Into the creative matrix of wonder.

    - Anodea Judith
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  15. TopTop #105
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Having A Poem Arrive


    Having a poem arrive

    is like coming downstairs

    and finding coffee and pancakes made for you

    by your daughter who left early.


    Having a poem arrive

    is like the first clearing breath

    of the day on your zafu.


    Having a poem arrive

    is like seeing tiny green leaves

    sprouted from the dry brown husk

    of a tree you have been trying to rescue.


    Having a poem arrive

    is like noticing a sapling, once

    tormented by gophers and deer,

    finally take its place in the orchard.


    True, having poem arrive can be like

    a small rock in your hiking boot,

    high-laced,

    with your arms full.


    And it can be like the car alarm

    of the city visitor

    outside your neighbor’s barn

    beyond the forest.


    The butterfly

    which left

    while you took a moment

    to get your camera.


    But mostly,

    it can be like making dinner

    with your true love

    using nothing but local, fresh surprises.



    - Scott O'Brien
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  16. TopTop #106
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For/From Lew

    Lew Welch just turned up one day,
    live as you and me. "Damn, Lew" I said,
    "you didn't shoot yourself after all."
    "Yes I did" he said,
    and even then I felt the tingling down my back.
    "Yes you did, too" I said—"I can feel it now."
    "Yeah" he said,
    "There's a basic fear between your world and
    mine. I don't know why.
    What I came to say was,
    teach the children about the cycles.
    The life cycles. All other cycles.
    That's what it's all about, and it's all forgot."

    - Gary Snyder
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  17. TopTop #107
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For A Row Of Laurel Shrubs

    They don't want to be your hedge,
    Your barrier, your living wall, the no-go
    Go-between between your property
    And the prying of dogs and strangers. They don't

    Want to settle any of your old squabbles
    Inside or out of bounds. Their new growth
    In three-foot shoots goes thrusting straight
    Up in the air each April or goes off

    Half-cocked sideways to reconnoiter
    Wilder dimensions: the very idea
    Of squareness, of staying level seems
    Alien to them, and they aren't in the least

    Discouraged by being suddenly lopped off
    Year after year by clippers or the stuttering
    Electric teeth of trimmers hedging their bets
    To keep them all in line, all roughly

    In order. They don't even
    Want to be good-neighborly bushes
    (Though under the outer stems and leaves
    The thick, thick-headed, soot-blackened

    Elderly branches have been dodging
    And weaving through so many disastrous springs,
    So many whacked-out, contra-
    Dictory changes of direction, they've locked

    Themselves together for good). Yet each
    Original planting, left to itself, would be
    No fence, no partition, no crook-jointed
    Entanglement, but a tree by now outspread

    With all of itself turned upward at every
    Inconvenient angle you can imagine,
    And look, on the ground, the fallen leaves,
    Brown, leathery, as thick as tongues, remain

    Almost what they were, tougher than ever,
    Slow to molder, to give in, dead slow to feed
    The earth with themselves, there at the feet
    Of their fathers in the evergreen shade

    Of their replacements. Remember, admirers
    Long ago would sometimes weave fresh clippings
    Into crowns and place them squarely on the heads
    Of their most peculiar poets.

    - David Wagoner
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  18. TopTop #108
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Let History Be My Judge

    We made all possible preparations,
    Drew up a list of firms,
    Constantly revised our calculations
    And allotted the farms,

    Issued all the orders expedient
    In this kind of case:
    Most, as was expected, were obedient,
    Though there were murmurs, of course;

    Chiefly against our exercising
    Our old right to abuse:
    Even some sort of attempt at rising,
    But these were mere boys.

    For never serious misgiving
    Occurred to anyone,
    Since there could be no question of living
    If we did not win.

    The generally accepted view teaches
    That there was no excuse,
    Though in the light of recent researches
    Many would find the cause

    In a not uncommon form of terror;
    Others, still more astute,
    Point to possibilities of error
    At the very start.

    As for ourselves there is left remaining
    Our honour at least,
    And a reasonable chance of retaining
    Our faculties to the last.

    - W. H. Auden
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  19. TopTop #109
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Mennonites

    We keep our quilts in closets and do not dance.
    We hoe thistles along fence rows for fear
    we may not be perfect as our Heavenly Father.
    We clean up his disasters. No one has to
    call; we just show up in the wake of tornadoes
    with hammers, after floods with buckets.
    Like Jesus, the servant, we wash each other's feet
    twice a year and eat the Lord's Supper,
    afraid of sins hidden so deep in our organs
    they could damn us unawares,
    swallowing this bread, his body, this juice.
    Growing up, we love the engravings in Martyrs Mirror:
    men drowned like cats in burlap sacks,
    the Catholic inquisitors,
    the woman who handed a pear to her son,
    her tongue screwed to the roof of her mouth
    to keep her from singing hymns while she burned.
    We love Catherine the Great and the rich tracts
    she gave us in the Ukraine, bright green winter wheat,
    the Cossacks who torched it, and Stalin,
    who starved our cousins while wheat rotted
    in granaries. We must love our enemies.
    We must forgive as our sins are forgiven,
    our great-uncle tells us, showing the chain
    and ball in a cage whittled from one block of wood
    while he was in prison for refusing to shoulder
    a gun. He shows the clipping from 1916:
    Mennonites are German milksops, too yellow to fight.
    We love those Nazi soldiers who, like Moses,
    led the last cattle cars rocking out of the Ukraine,
    crammed with our parents - children then -
    learning the names of Kansas, Saskatchewan, Paraguay.
    This is why we cannot leave the beliefs
    or what else would we be? why we eat
    'til we're drunk on shoofly and moon pies and borscht.
    We do not drink; we sing. Unaccompanied on Sundays,
    those hymns in four parts, our voices lift with such force
    that we lift, as chaff lifts toward God.

    - Julia Kasdorf
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  20. TopTop #110
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Beginners
    Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla

    “From too much love of living,
    Hope and desire set free,
    Even the weariest river
    Winds somewhere to the sea—“

    But we have only begun
    To love the earth.

    We have only begun
    To imagine the fullness of life.

    How could we tire of hope?
    —so much is in bud.

    How can desire fail?
    —we have only begun

    to imagine justice and mercy,
    only begun to envision

    how it might be
    to live as siblings with beast and flower,
    not as oppressors.

    Surely our river
    cannot already be hastening
    into the sea of nonbeing?

    Surely it cannot
    drag, in the silt,
    all that is innocent?

    Not yet, not yet—
    there is too much broken
    that must be mended,

    too much hurt we have done to each other
    that cannot yet be forgiven.

    We have only begun to know
    the power that is in us if we would join
    our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

    So much is unfolding that must
    complete its gesture,

    so much is in bud.

    - Denise Levertov
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  21. TopTop #111
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Way It Is

    There is a thread you follow. It goes among
    things that change. But it doesn't change.
    People wonder about what things you are pursuing.
    You have to explain about the thread.
    But it is hard for others to see.
    While you hold it you can't get lost.
    Tragedies happen; people get hurt
    or die; and you suffer and get old.
    Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
    But you don't ever let go of the thread.

    - William Stafford
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  22. TopTop #112
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    On Another's Sorrow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    - William Blake
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  23. TopTop #113
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Sekhmet, the Lion-headed Goddess of War

    He was the sort of man
    who wouldn't hurt a fly.
    Many flies are now alive
    while he is not.
    He was not my patron.
    He preferred full granaries, I battle.
    My roar meant slaughter.
    Yet here we are together
    in the same museum.
    That's not what I see, though, the fitful
    crowds of staring children
    learning the lesson of multi-
    cultural obliteration, sic transit
    and so on.

    I see the temple where I was born
    or built, where I held power.
    I see the desert beyond,
    where the hot conical tombs, that look
    from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats,
    hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh
    and bones, the wooden boats
    in which the dead sail endlessly
    in no direction.

    What did you expect from gods
    with animal heads?
    Though come to think of it
    the ones made later, who were fully human
    were not such good news either.
    Favour me and give me riches,
    destroy my enemies.
    That seems to be the gist.
    Oh yes: And save me from death.
    In return we're given blood
    and bread, flowers and prayer,
    and lip service.

    Maybe there's something in all of this
    I missed. But if it's selfless
    love you're looking for,
    you've got the wrong goddess.

    I just sit where I'm put, composed
    of stone and wishful thinking:
    that the deity who kills for pleasure
    will also heal,
    that in the midst of your nightmare,
    the final one, a kind lion
    will come with bandages in her mouth
    and the soft body of a woman,
    and lick you clean of fever,
    and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck

    - Margaret Atwood
    and caress you into darkness and paradise.
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  24. TopTop #114
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Fall Song
    *
    Another year gone, leaving everywhere
    its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
    *
    the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
    in the shadows, unmattering back
    *
    from the particular island
    of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
    *
    except underfoot, moldering
    in that black subterranean castle
    *
    of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
    and the wanderings of water. This
    *
    I try to remember when time's measure
    painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
    *
    flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
    to stay - how everything lives, shifting
    *
    from one bright vision to another, forever
    in these momentary pastures.
    *
    - Mary Oliver
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  25. TopTop #115
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Autumn Sky

    In my great grandmother's time,
    All one needed was a broom
    To get to see places
    And give the geese a chase in the sky.



    The stars know everything,
    So we try to read their minds.
    As distant as they are,
    We choose to whisper in their presence.



    Oh Cynthia,
    Take a clock that has lost its hands
    For a ride.
    Get me a room at Hotel Eternity
    Where Time likes to stop now and then.



    Come, lovers of dark corners,
    The sky says,
    And sit in one of my dark corners.
    There are tasty little zeroes
    In the peanut dish tonight.

    - Charles Simic
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  26. TopTop #116
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Saw Myself

    I saw myself
    a ring of bone
    in the clear stream
    of all of it

    and vowed
    always to be open to it
    that all of it
    might flow through

    and then heard
    "ring of bone" where
    ring is what a

    bell does

    - Lew Welch
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  27. TopTop #117
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Dream of Trees

    There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
    A quiet house, some green and modest acres
    A little way from every troubling town,
    A little way from factories, schools, laments.
    I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
    With only streams and birds for company,
    To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
    And then it came to me, that so was death,
    A little way away from everywhere.

    There is a thing in me still dreams of trees.
    But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
    Half the world's artists shrink or fall away.
    If any find solution, let him tell it.
    Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
    Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
    The blades of every crisis point the way.

    I would it were not so, but so it is.
    Who ever made music of a mild day?

    - Mary Oliver
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  28. TopTop #118
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Beautiful Changes

    One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
    The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
    On water; it glides
    So from the walker, it turns
    Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
    Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

    The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
    By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
    As a mantis, arranged
    On a green leaf, grows
    Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
    Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

    Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
    They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
    In such kind ways,
    Wishing ever to sunder
    Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose
    For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

    - Richard Wilbur
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  29. TopTop #119
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Boarder Crossing

    As the day cools
    he waits his turn,
    checking the grip tape
    on his deck.

    Then suddenly he’s up:
    with a kick, he’s in motion,
    dropping down into
    the smooth, open bowl.

    His lithe young limbs
    sway with the curve
    of the concrete,
    ollying on the return.

    A one eighty, then
    a quick kickflip.
    For one eternal moment
    he is gravity-free.

    We hold our breaths:
    maybe this time
    Icarus will stay aloft
    carrying our dreams.

    Then, with a sigh,
    we see him land.
    He is human,
    after all.

    - Larry Robinson

    Laguna Skategarden
    Grand Opening

    The Laguna Skategarden, Sebastopol’s newest park, will be
    dedicated at 11 a.m. on Saturday, September 27, 2008. The
    Laguna Skategarden includes a state-of-the art 15,000 sq ft
    skate park featuring a beginner bowl, a street course, a
    rocket bowl, and an advanced deep-pool bowl. The park also
    includes community garden plots, a playground-type climb-
    ing rock, a beautiful shade arbor, park benches, picnic ta-
    bles, drinking fountain, and a public restroom.



    The Laguna Skategarden is located at
    6700 Laguna Park Way, between
    Morris Street and Flynn Street in the
    City of Sebastopol.

    See you there!
    City of Sebastopol
    Sebastopol: Local flavor. Global vision.
    City Hall
    7120 Bodega Avenue
    Sebastopol, California 95472

    Phone: 707-823-1153
    Fax: 707-823-1135


    For more information: Planning Department 823-6167
    City of Sebastopol
    Date: 09/27/08
    Time: 11:00 a.m.—5:00 p.m.
    Last edited by Larry Robinson; 09-24-2008 at 09:05 AM.
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  30. TopTop #120
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Everything

    I want to make poems that say right out, plainly,
    what I mean, that don't go looking for the
    laces of elaboration, puffed sleeves. I want to
    keep close and use often words like
    heavy, heart, joy, soon, and to cherish
    the question mark and her bold sister

    the dash. I want to write with quiet hands. I
    want to write while crossing the fields that are
    fresh with daises and everlasting and the
    ordinary grass. I want to make poems while thinking of
    the bread of heaven and the
    cup of astonishment; let them be

    songs in which nothing is neglected,
    not a hope, not a promise. I want to make poems
    that look into the earth and the heavens
    and see the unseeable. I want them to honor
    both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;
    the gladness that says, without any words, everything.

    - Mary Oliver
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