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  1. TopTop #1231
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Finding What You Didn't Lose


    When someone deeply listens to you
    it is like holding out a dented cup
    you've had since childhood
    and watching it fill up with
    cold, fresh water.
    When it balances on top of the brim,
    you are understood.
    When it overflows and touches your skin,
    you are loved.
    When someone deeply listens to you,
    the room where you stay
    starts a new life
    and the place where you wrote
    your first poem
    begins to glow in your mind's eye.
    It is as if gold has been discovered!
    When someone deeply listens to you,
    your bare feet are on the earth
    and a beloved land that seemed distant
    is now at home within you.


    - John Fox
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  3. TopTop #1232
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Seasons


    You know when
    the first ruby buds appear
    on the tips of winter trees
    a season begins to take her
    graceful bow

    we may find annoyance in
    the first sight
    of the intrepid dandelion
    but know the orange of a poppy
    is sure to follow
    filling in a space
    with hope

    or the way the sweet gum
    is reluctant to drop
    the last red leaf
    risking nakedness
    to a towering figure
    its promise though
    is in the seeds
    which will remain
    like it or not,
    in every yard beneath it
    a blooming, omniscient green
    come summer

    after all this
    I am reminded of how easily
    a marriage
    might slip into focus
    without knowing it
    following its seasoned path
    to trust
    in an old, familiar way
    the fall, after summer
    to winter’s barrenness
    only to begin
    lush again.

    - Danielle Bryant
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  4. TopTop #1233
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    MY CAMELLIA IN FULL, GLORIOUS BLOOM


    What is it about
    this tree
    that gives it
    the will
    year after year
    to burst forth
    every spring
    in full, radiant bloom
    every bright pink
    perfectly, elegantly,
    shaped blossom
    showing itself off
    to anyone
    passing casually nearby?


    - Lilith Rogers
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  6. TopTop #1234
    ChristmasCarla's Avatar
    ChristmasCarla
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Joy in tasting life
    Thrusts the bloom to full glory;
    Faith that beauty thrives.




    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    MY CAMELLIA IN FULL, GLORIOUS BLOOM


    What is it about
    this tree
    that gives it
    the will
    year after year
    to burst forth
    every spring
    in full, radiant bloom
    every bright pink
    perfectly, elegantly,
    shaped blossom
    showing itself off
    to anyone
    passing casually nearby?


    - Lilith Rogers
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  7. TopTop #1235
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Castile

    Orange blossoms blowing over Castile
    children begging for coins


    I met my love under an orange tree
    or was it an acacia tree
    or was he not my love?


    I read this, then I dreamed this:
    can waking take back what happened to me?
    Bells of San Miguel
    ringing in the distance
    his hair in the shadows blond-white


    I dreamed this,
    does that mean it didn't happen?
    Does it have to happen in the world to be real?


    I dreamed everything, the story
    became my story:


    he lay beside me,
    my hand grazed the skin of his shoulder


    Mid-day, then early evening:
    in the distance, the sound of a train


    But it was not the world:
    in the world, a thing happens finally, absolutely,
    the mind cannot reverse it.


    Castile: nuns walking in pairs through the dark garden.
    Outside the walls of the Holy Angels
    children begging for coins


    When I woke I was crying,
    has that no reality?


    I met my love under an orange tree:
    I have forgotten
    only the facts, not the inference—
    there were children, somewhere, crying, begging for coins


    I dreamed everything, I gave myself
    completely and for all time


    And the train returned us
    first to Madrid
    then to the Basque country


    - Louise Gluck
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  8. TopTop #1236
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Defending Walt Whitman


    Basketball is like this for young Indian boys, all arms and legs
    and serious stomach muscles. Every body is brown!
    These are the twentieth-century warriors who will never kill,
    although a few sat quietly in the deserts of Kuwait,
    waiting for orders to do something, to do something.
    God, there is nothing as beautiful as a jumpshot
    on a reservation summer basketball court
    where the ball is moist with sweat,
    and makes a sound when it swishes through the net
    that causes Walt Whitman to weep because it is so perfect.
    There are veterans of foreign wars here
    although their bodies are still dominated
    by collarbones and knees, although their bodies still respond
    in the ways that bodies are supposed to respond when we are young.
    Every body is brown! Look there, that boy can run
    up and down this court forever. He can leap for a rebound
    with his back arched like a salmon, all meat and bone
    synchronized, magnetic, as if the court were a river,
    as if the rim were a dam, as if the air were a ladder
    leading the Indian boy toward home.
    Some of the Indian boys still wear their military hair cuts
    while a few have let their hair grow back.
    It will never be the same as it was before!
    One Indian boy has never cut his hair, not once, and he braids it
    into wild patterns that do not measure anything.
    He is just a boy with too much time on his hands.
    Look at him. He wants to play this game in bare feet.
    God, the sun is so bright! There is no place like this.
    Walt Whitman stretches his calf muscles
    on the sidelines. He has the next game.
    His huge beard is ridiculous on the reservation.
    Some body throws a crazy pass and Walt Whitman catches it
    with quick hands. He brings the ball close to his nose
    and breathes in all of its smells: leather, brown skin, sweat,
    black hair, burning oil, twisted ankle, long drink of warm water,
    gunpowder, pine tree. Walt Whitman squeezes the ball tightly.
    He wants to run. He hardly has the patience to wait for his turn.
    "What's the score?" he asks. He asks, "What's the score?"
    Basketball is like this for Walt Whitman. He watches these Indian boys
    as if they were the last bodies on earth. Every body is brown!
    Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God.
    Walt Whitman dreams of the Indian boy who will defend him,
    trapping him in the corner, all flailing arms and legs
    and legendary stomach muscles. Walt Whitman shakes
    because he believes in God. Walt Whitman dreams
    of the first jumpshot he will take, the ball arcing clumsily
    from his fingers, striking the rim so hard that it sparks.
    Walt Whitman shakes because he believes in God.
    Walt Whitman closes his eyes. He is a small man and his beard
    is ludicrous on the reservation, absolutely insane.
    His beard makes the Indian boys righteously laugh. His beard
    frightens the smallest Indian boys. His beard tickles the skin
    of the Indian boys who dribble past him. His beard, his beard!
    God, there is beauty in every body. Walt Whitman stands
    at center court while the Indian boys run from basket to basket.
    Walt Whitman cannot tell the difference between
    offense and defense. He does not care if he touches the ball.
    Half of the Indian boys wear t-shirts damp with sweat
    and the other half are bareback, skin slick and shiny.
    There is no place like this. Walt Whitman smiles.
    Walt Whitman shakes. This game belongs to him.


    - Sherman Alexie
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  9. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  10. TopTop #1237
    The A Team's Avatar
    The A Team
    Supporting Member

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I love Sherman Alexie, his novel "The Absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian" took my heart by storm. One of the best of all time.
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  11. TopTop #1238
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Darling


    1.


    I break this toast for the ghost of bread in Lebanon.
    The split stone the toppled doorway.


    Someone's kettle has been crushed.
    Someone's sister has a gash above her right eye.


    And now our tea has trouble being sweet.
    A strawberry softens, turns musty,


    overnight each apple grows a bruise.
    I tie both shoes on Lebanon's feet.


    All day the sky in Texas that has seen no rain since June
    is raining Lebanese mountains, Lebanese trees.


    What if the air grew damp with the names of mothers?
    The clear-belled voices of first graders


    pinned to the map of Lebanon like a shield?
    When I visited the camp of the opposition


    near the lonely Golan, looking northward toward
    Syria and Lebanon, a vine was springing pinkly from a tin can


    and a woman with generous hips like my mother's
    said, "Follow me."


    2.


    Someone was there. Someone not there now
    was standing. In the wrong place
    with a small moon-shaped scar on his cheek
    and a boy by the hand.
    Who had just drunk water, sharing the glass.
    Not thinking about it deeply
    though they might have, had they known.
    Someone grown, and someone not grown.
    Who imagined they had different amounts of time left.
    This guessing-game ends with our hands in the air,
    becoming air.
    One who was there is not there, for no reason.
    Two who were there.


    It was almost too big to see.


    3.


    Our friend from Turkey says language is so delicate
    he likens it to a darling.


    We will take this word in our arms.
    It will be small and breathing.
    We will not wish to scare it.
    Pressing lips to the edge of each syllable.
    Nothing else will save us now.
    The word "together" wants to live in every house.




    - Naomi Shihab-Nye
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  12. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  13. TopTop #1239
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    They've Lost It


    They've lost it, lost it,
    and their children
    will never even wish for it --
    and I am afraid
    that the whole tribe's in trouble,
    the whole tribe is lost --
    because the sun keeps rising
    and these days
    nobody sings.


    - Aaron Kramer
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  14. TopTop #1240
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    AFTER FIVE DAYS OF RAIN


    The sky is clearing today, and you can feel
    a myth’s been re-enacted,
    the Deluge, all of us here
    plunged into grey for near a week,
    all of us on a voyage on a great
    ship with misty walls,
    grey sea and sky and no
    horizon line to tell the difference.
    ...
    Bound together on this passage, all of us,
    the old reassuring the young
    (who began singing “Rain, rain, go away!”
    as soon as the first drops hit our needy earth),
    the young asking their elders,
    “Will our school float away?”


    The sky was clearing
    its throat for the past day,
    unable to make up its mind.


    Small pinpoint in my locale,
    I knew each wet, life-giving moment
    discretely at first, came later to visualize
    the massive weather pattern thaoccupied
    much of the Pacific, moving
    over us bit by bit.


    Enjoying the ride,
    I got used to the palette of grey,
    which illumined so gloriously
    the new greens of the coming season,
    got used to this watering
    of all our roots
    for further growth,
    felt my own consummation in
    this union of Heaven and Earth
    no matter how long it went on,
    Could have stayed in the fertile
    womb of days whether
    or not any new birth emerged.


    But this morning, you could tell.
    The sky had made up its mind.
    Everything was silent and expecting
    the Sun’s return. Even the quiet trees
    offered their grateful prayers.
    The new green all around
    was like the sprig
    brought by Noah’s dove
    from Mount Ararat.


    Now, the new world is here,
    birthed from its womb,
    ours to find
    our way in.


    - Max Reif
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  15. TopTop #1241
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Not All Is Lost


    We've not all lost it-not all
    some children sing,
    an older child- I am
    in song often.


    This morning
    in early light
    song burst from me-


    and my heart
    which is really
    the heart
    of the world
    sang forward
    from a tribe
    I am
    one with
    ancestry
    one with
    mystery
    one with
    Divine
    companions
    whom
    All
    sing
    every
    single
    day


    - Shelly Monte
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  16. TopTop #1242
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What Do Women Want?


    I want a red dress.
    I want it flimsy and cheap,
    I want it too tight, I want to wear it
    until someone tears it off me.
    I want it sleeveless and backless,
    this dress, so no one has to guess
    what’s underneath. I want to walk down
    the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
    with all those keys glittering in the window,
    past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
    donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
    slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
    hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
    I want to walk like I’m the only
    woman on earth and I can have my pick.
    I want that red dress bad.
    I want it to confirm
    your worst fears about me,
    to show you how little I care about you
    or anything except what
    I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
    from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
    to carry me into this world, through
    the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
    and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
    it’ll be the goddamned
    dress they bury me in.


    - Kim Addonizio
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  17. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  18. TopTop #1243
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    My Health Care Plan for America


    Have the poets become doctors.


    Those Bards will know what to do
    with a diaeresis or epanalepsis.
    They’ll alliterate the appendix
    with the rondelet, prescribe tropes
    and tropes of chthonic for a nasty
    limerick. They’ll scan meter
    and brain matter, listening for
    iambic pentameter through a
    stethoscope. O apostrophe,
    they’ll say, you’ve had your
    odes, now is the time for surgery
    on your sonnets. They’ll ban
    the cruel practice of vivisecting
    villanelles and no one will suffer
    of enjambment
    again!
    They’re cheap - anapaests
    can be removed for a couplet
    of bucks. The vaccine for Haiku
    flu has no side effects and save for
    an epic case, a poem is much
    less paperwork. Irony can
    finally be eradicated, though lord
    save us if there’s an outbreak
    of anacrusis.


    Call them quacks,
    call them ryhmesters,
    but the public loves the option
    of a heart crushing ballad
    or bone setting verse.


    - Bradley Saul
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  19. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  20. TopTop #1244
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Evening says to night:


    “Are you always this beautiful under your clothes?”
    Night says to the moon:
    “All day I dreamed of you but I couldn’t bring myself to call.”
    The moon says to sleep:
    “There are doorways in the dark.”
    Sleep says to dawn:
    “As if forward were the only direction!”

    Dawn says to early morning sun:
    “Sing sung sun”
    Morning says to noon:
    “Trees also do research.”
    Noon says to early afternoon:
    “Builders and dreamers need to listen to each other.”
    Early afternoon says to late afternoon:
    “I am becoming possible.”
    Late afternoon says to the setting sun:
    “Tell me about the texture of fire.”
    The sunset says to the twilight:
    “In a circle there is no beginning or end.”

    Twilight to the first star says:
    “Thank you for your light.”
    First star to evening:
    “Thank you for your dark.”


    - J. Ruth Gendler
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  21. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  22. TopTop #1245
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Heavy at Times


    It's been a dry winter and the fear of drought is starting to set in. After
    weeks of teases and "slight chances," the forecast for the week predicted
    rain, heavy at times. I waited.


    sitting quietly
    is that the rain on the roof
    now I can just be here


    That first of several storms was as heavy as predicted. As each weather
    front came ashore, the creek came up and then receded just as quickly after
    the front passed.


    the creek in spate
    even in the rain they wait
    hungry towhees, juncos


    At night, I opened the window, the better to hear the torrent.


    when calm returns
    the insurgent creek
    is louder still


    And this morning, after the sun finally came out above the redwoods,


    as if to welcome spring
    tulipa and trillium
    put on their makeup


    - andrew zarrillo
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  24. TopTop #1246
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Common


    Imagine being common, crow-common,
    Lupine-common, an oak surrounded by dry
    Wild grasses common.


    One day, I cross a high school parking lot,
    Common asphalt, meeting my common soles.
    Before me, an explosion of gulls,
    White as a bride's dress, shoot as one
    Up, then spill over, a fountain pouring perfectly
    Each bird, a bead of liquid life. Again,
    They explode, shoot skyward and spill over
    Again and again, threaded through by trails
    Of blue-black crows, woven into the flying
    Fabric by necessity, desire and instinct.


    I comment to a man pushing a compost can,
    Remark at the remarkable. He says, "Oh,
    They do that every day. At lunch the students,
    Leave behind bits of bread," treasures
    From barely-noticed food, common fare eaten daily.


    I want to be that common,
    Common as the gulls, rising and descending,
    And the crows, weaving their way
    To the feast, that bread,
    That common manna.


    - Rebecca del Rio
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  26. TopTop #1247
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Sky


    I like you with nothing. Are you
    what I was? What I will be?
    I look out there by the hour,
    so clear, so sure. I could
    smile, or frown – still nothing.


    Be my father, be my mother,
    great sleep of blue; reach
    far within me; open doors,
    find whatever is hiding; invite it
    for many clear days in the sun.


    When I turn away I know
    you are there. We won’t forget
    each other: every look is a promise.
    Others can’t tell what you say
    when it’s the blue voice, when
    you come to the window and look for me.


    Your word arches over
    the roof all day. I know it
    within my bowed head, where
    the other sky listens.
    You will bring me
    everything when the time comes.


    - William Stafford
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  27. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  28. TopTop #1248
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What Kind of Times Are These


    There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
    and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
    near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
    who disappeared into those shadows.


    I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
    this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
    our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
    its own ways of making people disappear.


    I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
    meeting the unmarked strip of light—
    ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
    I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.


    And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
    anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
    to have you listen at all, it's necessary
    to talk about trees.




    - Adrienne Rich
    (16 May 1929 – 27 March 2012)
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  29. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  30. TopTop #1249
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    talking about trees


    for Adrienne Rich: what kind of times are these


    yes, let’s talk about trees

    sturdy old oak that once gave us shade
    modeled stability with its long years
    has turned to stone
    mammoth obstacle impossible to
    move or remove
    though dying at its heart

    gentle willow that once danced with the breeze
    graceful ballerina of the verdant lakeside
    now stripped of green
    hanging leafless lifeless
    helpless in the smoky tempest

    apple pear and walnut
    yielded to the grape
    sacrificed to the tablemakers
    nourish not the child
    fed only corn and sugar

    kudzu has no shade for our august days
    but chokes the swimming holes of our youth

    and saltcedar can protect
    only the littered beachheads
    of our horizons

    yes, Adrienne, we will continue
    to talk about trees

    - Vilma Ginzberg
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  32. TopTop #1250
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Stump Beach
    After a long chain of personal existences, the soul returns to its spiritual
    home. The happiness of the “beyond of existence” is experienced.
    Dane Rudhyar
    I write in a notebook while sitting on a beach.
    The pen runs out of ink so I print with the sharp point.
    Like in a game I played as a child
    I’ll cover the letters with black crayon.
    When I return home, I’ll scrape the darkness away.

    I walk on the Moon Rocks, cliffs chiseled by wind and salt water
    they rise from sea’s bottom like shapes of ice in a cave.
    Etched with delicate patterns like sand
    after waves wash the shore clean.
    After the shore is imprinted with sandpipers’
    dances before waves wash their language away.
    Boulders lead to caves that swallow the sea.
    Holes crusted with salt and lime green algae
    reach the end of the dark purple sea.

    Tom Smith, my Pomo friend’s grandfather
    visited these abysses to speak with the ancestors.
    When he surfaced bull kelp ringed his heart.
    His face, smoothed by waves was a fish’s body.
    Silver scales, prophesies he read to his people.

    When I return to the beach my words are language
    on the bottom of bird’s feet, patterns in sand.


    - Pamela Yesbick
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  33. TopTop #1251
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    How Fascism Will Come
    "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
    - attributed to Sinclair Lewis
    When fascism comes, it will greet us with a smile. It will get down on its knees to pray. It will praise Main Street and Wall Street. It will cheer for the home team. It will clap from the bleachers when the uninsured are left to die on the street. It will rally on the Washington Mall. It will raise monuments to its heroes and weep for them and place bouquets at their stone feet and trace with their fingers the names engraved on the granite wall and go on sending soldiers to die in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the deserts of Iraq. It will send doves to pluck out the eyes of its enemies, having no hawks to spare.

    When fascism comes, it will sit down for tea with the governor of Texas. It will pee in the mosques from California to Tennessee, chanting, "Wake up America, the enemy is here." It will sing the anthems of corporatization, privatization, demonization, monopolization. It will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio. It'll have talking points and a Facebook page and a disdain for big words or hard consonants. It won't bother to read. It will shred all its books. It will lambast the teachers and outlaw the unions.

    When fascism comes, it will look good. It will have big hair, pressed suits, lapel pins. It will control all the channels. It will ride in on Swift Boats. It will sit on the Supreme Court. It will court us with fear. It will woo us with hope. When fascism comes, it will sell shares of itself on the stock market. It will get rich, then it will get obscenely rich, then it will stop paying taxes. It will leave us in the dust. It will kick our ass. It won't have to break a sweat to fool us twice. It will be too big to fail.

    When fascism comes to America, it will enter on the winds of our silence and indifference and complacency. And on that day, one hundred thousand poets will gather. In book stores and libraries, bars and cafes, in their houses and apartments, in schools and on street corners, they will gather. In Albania, Bangladesh, Botswana, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Macedonia, Malawi, Qatar, crying, laughing, screaming. They will wrap the sad music of humanity in bits of word cloth and hang them, like prayers, on the tree of life.


    - Terry Ehret
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  34. Gratitude expressed by 6 members:

  35. TopTop #1252
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Note to Self


    Take the picture
    from the desk
    and put it
    in the drawer.
    It was true
    to a moment
    that was before,
    but now as
    lightning unzips
    the sky and now
    as the moon
    is wholly new
    you are no longer
    the one the camera knew
    with smile aslant
    and lashes half-mast
    in dreamy fringe.
    It's okay to cry,
    to want to grasp-
    it's so human to want
    to frame the past
    and then attach it
    to the fridge or set
    it shrine-like on the shelf.
    It is not so sad,
    tell yourself,
    to put the image away.
    Notice how
    much more you
    look out the window.
    Notice how much
    more you look
    at the vase.
    And who is
    doing the looking?
    If sadness comes,
    invite it for tea
    and drink the dark
    cup together. Take
    turns sipping, take
    your time. You'll
    reach the bottom
    soon enough.


    - Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
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  37. TopTop #1253
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Straight Talk From Fox


    Listen says fox it is music to run
    over the hills to lick
    dew from the leaves to nose along
    the edges of the ponds to smell the fat
    ducks in their bright feathers but
    far out, safe in their rafts of
    sleep. It is like
    music to visit the orchard, to find
    the vole sucking the sweet of the apple, or the
    rabbit with his fast-beating heart. Death itself
    is a music. Nobody has ever come close to
    writing it down, awake or in a dream. It cannot
    be told. It is flesh and bones
    changing shape and with good cause, mercy
    is a little child beside such an invention. It is
    music to wander the black back roads
    outside of town no one awake or wondering
    if anything miraculous is ever going to
    happen, totally dumb to the fact of every
    moment's miracle. Don't think I haven't
    peeked into windows. I see you in all your seasons
    making love, arguing, talking about God
    as if he were an idea instead of the grass,
    instead of the stars, the rabbit caught
    in one good teeth-whacking hit and brought
    home to the den. What I am, and I know it, is
    responsible, joyful, thankful. I would not
    give my life for a thousand of yours.


    - Mary Oliver
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  39. TopTop #1254
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Man with a Hoe
    Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
    Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
    The emptiness of ages in his face,
    And on his back, the burden of the world.
    Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
    A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
    Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
    Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
    Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
    Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
    Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
    To have dominion over sea and land;
    To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
    To feel the passion of Eternity?
    Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
    And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
    Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
    There is no shape more terrible than this--
    More tongued with cries against the world's blind greed--
    More filled with signs and portents for the soul--
    More packed with danger to the universe.
    What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
    Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
    Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?
    What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
    The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
    Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
    Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
    Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
    Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
    Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,
    A protest that is also prophecy.
    O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
    Is this the handiwork you give to God,
    This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
    How will you ever straighten up this shape;
    Touch it again with immortality;
    Give back the upward looking and the light;
    Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
    Make right the immemorial infamies,
    Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
    O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
    How will the future reckon with this Man?
    How answer his brute question in that hour
    When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
    How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--
    With those who shaped him to the thing he is--
    When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
    After the silence of the centuries?


    - Edwin Markham
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  41. TopTop #1255
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Bowing


    Before our time, before years that said no


    when anyone passed a church and reverently


    bowed, a soul somewhere might go


    to heaven, just because of that bow.


    And they all felt sad if a rooster crowed,


    for something it reminded them of, a story


    strong as the cables that hold up the world.


    Nobody bows now if a rooster crows.





    But maybe something you do, unknowing


    or quick to react, without thought of gain’


    or loss – maybe that act goes on


    over mountains or oceans and finds the same


    salvation for you that bowing does.


    It is larger now, the church is, and the life


    we are in. In it we bow to everything.


    - William Stafford
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  43. TopTop #1256
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Easter Exultet

    Shake out your qualms.
    Shake up your dreams.
    Deepen your roots.
    Extend your branches.
    Trust deep water
    and head for the open,
    even if your vision
    shipwrecks you.
    Quit your addiction
    to sneer and complain.
    Open a lookout.
    Dance on a brink.
    Run with your wildfire.
    You are closer to glory
    leaping an abyss
    than upholstering a rut.
    Not dawdling.
    Not doubting.
    Intrepid all the way
    Walk toward clarity.
    At every crossroad
    Be prepared
    to bump into wonder.
    Only love prevails.
    En route to disaster
    insist on canticles.
    Lift your ineffable
    out of the mundane.
    Nothing perishes;
    nothing survives;
    everything transforms!
    Honeymoon with Big Joy!

    - James Broughton
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  45. TopTop #1257
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    What Must Be Said


    Why do I stay silent, conceal for too long
    What clearly is and has been
    Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors
    Are at best footnotes.


    It is the alleged right to first strike
    That could annihilate the Iranian people--
    Enslaved by a loud-mouth
    And guided to organized jubilation--
    Because in their territory,
    It is suspected, a bomb is being built.


    Yet why do I forbid myself
    To name that other country
    In which, for years, even if secretly,
    There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
    But beyond control, because no testing is available?


    The universal concealment of these facts,
    To which my silence subordinated itself,
    I sense as incriminating lies
    And force--the punishment is promised
    As soon as it is ignored;
    The verdict of "anti-Semitism" is familiar.


    Now, though, because in my country
    Which from time to time has sought and confronted
    The very crime
    That is without compare
    In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
    With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
    A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
    Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
    Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
    But through fear of what may be conclusive,
    I say what must be said.


    Why though have I stayed silent until now?
    Because I think my origin,
    Which has never been affected by this obliterating flaw,
    Forbids this fact to be expected as pronounced truth
    Of the country of Israel, to which I am bound
    And wish to stay bound.


    Why do I say only now,
    Aged and with my last ink,
    That the nuclear power of Israel endangers
    The already fragile world peace?
    Because it must be said
    What even tomorrow may be too late to say;
    Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--
    Could be the suppliers to a crime
    That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
    Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.


    And granted: I am silent no longer
    Because I am tired of the hypocrisy
    Of the West; in addition to which it is to be hoped
    That this will free many from silence,
    Prompt the perpetrator of the recognized danger
    To renounce violence and
    Likewise insist
    That an unhindered and permanent control
    Of the Israeli nuclear potential
    And the Iranian nuclear sites
    Be authorized through an international agency
    Of the governments of both countries.


    Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
    Even more, all people, that in this
    Region occupied by mania
    Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
    In the end also to help us.


    - Guenter Grass
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  46. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  47. TopTop #1258
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    From The Western Shore

    As the full moon
    peeks,
    rises,
    and then rises full
    above the horizon,
    we,
    on the western shore
    of the bay,
    the lake,
    the ocean,
    even on the shore
    of a bucket of water,
    each of us,
    sees that the moon’s reflection
    points directly towards us.

    It even follows us
    as we stroll the beach,
    a moonbeam across the water,
    directly towards us.

    This wonder
    is a lesson
    from love,
    which,
    like the full moon’s reflection,
    flows directly towards us,
    towards each of us.
    No matter where we are,
    or who we are,
    love flows
    unceasingly
    towards us.

    Love’s moonlight
    bathes us,
    always.


    - Trout Black
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  49. TopTop #1259
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Jewish Cemetery In Germany


    On a little hill amid fertile fields lies a small cemetery,
    a Jewish cemetery behind a rusty gate, hidden by shrubs,
    abandoned and forgotten. Neither the sound of prayer
    nor the voice of lamentation is heard there
    for the dead praise not the Lord.
    Only the voices of our children ring out, seeking graves
    and cheering
    each time they find one--like mushrooms in the forest, like
    wild strawberries.
    Here's another grave! There's the name of my mother's
    mothers, and a name from the last century. And here's a name,
    and there! And as I was about to brush the moss from the name--
    Look! an open hand engraved on the tombstone, the grave
    of a kohen,
    his fingers splayed in a spasm of holiness and blessing,
    and here's a grave concealed by a thicket of berries
    that has to be brushed aside like a shock of hair
    from the face of a beautiful beloved woman.


    - Yehuda Amichai
    (Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld)
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  50. TopTop #1260
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Work Of The Poet Is To Name What Is Holy


    The work of the poet
    is to name what is holy:


    the spring snow
    that hides unevenness
    but also records
    a dog walked at lunchtime,
    the hieroglyphs of birds,
    pawprints of a life
    tiny but resolute;


    how, like Russian dolls,
    we nest in previous selves;


    the lustrous itch
    that compels an oyster
    to forge a pearl,
    or a poet a verse;


    the drawing on of evening
    belted at the waist;


    snowfields of diamond dust;


    the cozy monotony
    of our days, in which
    love appears with a holler;


    the way a man's body
    has its own geography––
    cliffs, aqueducts, pumice fields,
    but a woman's is the jungle,
    hot, steamy, full of song;


    the brain's curiosity shop
    filled with quaint mementos
    and shadow antiques
    hidden away in drawers;


    the plain geometry
    of you, me, and art––
    our angles at rest
    among shifting forms.


    The work of the poet
    is to name what is holy,


    and not to mind so much
    the pinch of words
    to cope with memories
    weak as falling buildings,


    or render loss, love,
    and the penitentiary
    of worry where we live.


    The work of the poet
    is to name what is holy,
    a task fit for eternity,
    or the small Eden of this hour.


    - Diane Ackerman
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