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  1. TopTop #1561
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Leah's Daughter

    The workshop was just about to get started when somebody noticed
    that Leah looked glum & distracted & asked what was wrong,
    & Leah told us her daughter had called from Iraq that morning,
    hysterical, screaming & weeping. Trained as an army clerk,
    she'd been reassigned & was driving sniper patrols around
    in a Humvee. The day before, they'd spied two guys
    at the side of the road wiring an IED, & behind them, sitting
    & playing, were two little kids. Leah said her daughter
    kept screaming into the phone that her guys fired round after round
    after round till the four were nothing but torn-open bodies
    & skulls without faces in puddles of blood & her guys just kept
    laughing & shooting & laughing & shooting & "Mom, they
    were just little kids! Oh my God," she kept crying. "It's not right!
    It just isn't right!" We sat there, all of us, horrified, silent.
    Till finally Karen said, "That's awful, Leah!" & after a minute or two,
    when no one said anything more, I started taking attendance.
    Then we critiqued the first poem: an honest if somewhat
    disorganized story of failed love. But of course it was still
    on everyone's mind, & someone, I think it was Teri, asked Leah
    how old her daughter was & how long before she'd
    get to come home. "It's her second deploy," Leah said quietly.
    "She'll be twenty in August. She's got four months & six days
    to go if her tour isn't extended like last time & if . . . " She stopped
    midsentence. No one said anything further. Like everyone
    else, I kept my mouth shut, & we moved on to the next poem.


    - Steve Kowit
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  2. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  3. TopTop #1562
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Is this a poem, a prayer, or a list.
    Are these arbitrary things. Mercury,


    Venus, Earth. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
    Uranus, Neptune. Eight. Like spokes


    on the wheel of dharma. Nights
    of hanukkah, lenses in a fission


    weapon. Eight the atomic
    number of oxygen. China


    knew eight immortals, the Buddha
    once preached an eightfold path.


    Count the stars, you ask.
    No. No, I can't. The gyroscope


    of planets, what comes first. Count
    the atomic number of hydrogen. How


    many oceans are there really.
    How many voids comprise the hub


    of the dharmachakra, how many plutonium
    cores inside the bomb. The one


    whose initial impact my grandfather
    miscalculated. What is not a planet. Why


    do stars contain lithium, die
    white dwarfs, in need of lithium.


    - Zach Horvitz
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  5. TopTop #1563
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Honda Pavarotti




    I'm driving on the dark highway
    when the opera singer on the radio
    opens his great mouth
    and the whole car plunges down the canyon of his throat.


    So the night becomes an aria of stars and exit signs
    as I steer through the galleries
    of one dilated Italian syllable
    after another. I love the passages in which


    the rich flood of the baritone
    strains out against the walls of the esophagus,
    and I love the pauses
    in which I hear the tenor's flesh labor to inhale


    enough oxygen to take the next plummet
    up into the chasm of the violins.
    In part of the song, it sounds as if the singer
    is being squeezed by an enormous pair of tongs


    while his head and legs keep kicking.
    In part of the song, it sounds as if he is
    standing in the middle of a coliseum,
    swinging a 300-pound lion by the tail,


    the empire of gravity
    conquered by the empire of aerodynamics,
    the citadel of pride in flames
    and the citizens of weakness
    celebrating their defeat in chorus,


    joy and suffering made one at last,
    joined in everything a marriage is alleged to be,
    though I know the woman he is singing for
    is dead in a foreign language on the stage beside him,
    though I know his chain mail is made of silver-painted plastic
    and his mismanagement of money is legendary,
    as I know I have squandered
    most of my own life


    in a haze of trivial distractions,
    and that I will continue to waste it.
    But wherever I was going, I don't care anymore,
    because no place I could arrive at


    is good enough for this, this thing made out of experience
    but to which experience will never measure up.
    And that dark and soaring fact
    is enough to make me renounce the whole world
    or fall in love with it forever.


    - Tony Hoagland
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  7. TopTop #1564
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Spring

    Again, the violet bows to the lily

    Again the rose is tearing off her gown!

    Again, near the top of the mountain
    The anemone’s sweet features appear.

    The hyacinth speaks formally to the jasmine,
    “Peace be with you.” “And peace to you lad!
    Come walk with me in this meadow.”

    The narcissus winks at the wisteria,
    “Whenever you say.”

    And the clove to the willow, “You are the one
    I hope for.” The willow replies, “Consider
    these chambers of mine yours. Welcome!”

    The ringdove comes asking, “Where,
    where is the Friend?”

    With one note the nightingale
    Indicates the rose.

    Again, the season of Spring has come
    And a spring-source rises under everything,
    a moon sliding from the shadows.

    - Jelaluddin Rumi
    ( translated by Coleman Barks)
    Last edited by Barry; 03-28-2013 at 12:03 PM.
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  9. TopTop #1565
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    To These Eyes


    You only ones
    I ever knew
    you that have shown me
    what I came to see
    from the beginning
    just as it was leaving
    you that showed me the faces
    in the realms of summer
    the rivers the moments of gardens
    all the roads that led here
    the smiles of recognition
    the silent rooms at nightfall
    and have looked through the glasses
    my mother was wearing when she died
    you that I have never seen
    except nowhere in a mirror
    please go on showing me
    faces you led me to
    daylight the bird moment
    the leaves of morning
    as long as I look
    hoping to catch sight
    of what has not yet been seen


    - W. S. Merwin
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  11. TopTop #1566
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Poem About a Farm


    Fruit trees
    A hill
    White golden grasses
    Dogs children roaming
    A tractor filled with people
    Circling around in circles
    Under blue heaven skies
    Friends gathered sipping wine
    A brick oven baking
    Round circles of dough
    Butterflies, flowers, music
    A sense of peace
    Community, spoken words
    My friends have a farm
    Where souls meet
    In nature and love.


    - Nancy Long
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  13. TopTop #1567
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Easter Morning In Wales


    A garden inside me, unknown, secret,
    Neglected for years,
    The layers of its soil deep and thick.
    Trees in the corners with branching arms
    And the tangled briars like broken nets.


    Sunrise through the misted orchard,
    Morning sun turns silver on the pointed twigs.
    I have woken from the sleep of ages and I am not sure
    If I am really seeing, or dreaming,
    Or simply astonished
    Walking toward sunrise
    To have stumbled into the garden
    Where the stone was rolled from the tomb of longing.


    - David Whyte
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  15. TopTop #1568
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Conflict
    I’d like to propose a toast…

    to dreams
    and to the bold
    Men and Women
    that dare to dream them
    to the wild-eyed visionaries
    that plant seeds in their
    hearts with hopes
    to one day see them
    come to pass

    for prayers
    sweeter than papayas
    that rise from the
    deepest darkest
    depths of our cellars
    where my heart
    is pumping out
    prayers like mass

    to the foresight
    that illuminates our
    foreshadows that
    whirl in the glass
    of our souls
    to those robust
    farm workers clad
    in jeans, flannels
    handkerchiefs and hats

    for all the Mamas and Papas that
    wear their skin like worn leather
    who are wrinkled and red like raisins
    and whose wrinkles hold stories like wine jugs
    and whose woes are ten miles deeper than
    any winemaker’s pocket book

    this ones for them

    for all of the grandmas
    and grandpas that look like stucco
    whose eyes look like ice wines
    with frost outlining their irises
    for the crows-feet perched
    perfectly on their eye-lids
    and their white hair flowing
    like broken clouds passing
    through windmill slices
    for century old spines like gnarly
    vines in vineyards for lilac diamonds
    to the god-like elders
    for our aging wines and
    their timeless guidance

    this ones for floral notes
    sung by the brown folks
    for the flower vendor
    the one that puts
    the rose in rosary
    for a gorgeous culture
    that rose from dirt so openly
    for arms that open like blossoms
    for womb-like palms that deliver
    the grape from bondage
    and carry it from
    conception to fruition
    and beyond the goblet
    for the seed that dreams itself
    larger than grapes and transcends
    wine, song, couplet and sonnet

    to cherry pickers like
    rebels with barreled chests
    waging war with their wages
    who hurl their dreams
    like Molotov cocktails
    into our amber waves of grain
    whose knuckles are
    gnarled and strained
    for the work of a dreamer
    is stainless and honest

    for the protagonist, the antithesis, the subplot
    and most importantly the conflict

    you see
    I know copper-skinned
    women and men
    that work for pennies

    I know Mothers that
    never feel beaten
    machine-like Mothers
    that clean hotels by day
    sell Avon at night
    and work the fields
    on the weekends
    so this ones for freedom

    for children with eyes like plums
    whose hair looks like dark chocolate
    waterfalls pouring out and catching the sun

    for precious sun-flowers
    with green thumbs that
    have never been embarrassed
    of their hardworking parents
    that pick pears and pluck asparagus
    this ones for the families that get scattered
    for work all across the Americas

    its ugly
    I know a girl that was
    held for ransom at birth
    just beneath the border
    by bad men known
    as Coyotes who you
    gotta pay to smuggle dreams
    into this country

    its beyond ugly
    its heart crushing

    so this ones for the underbelly
    for the juggling of children over rivers
    for dodging dogs & militias
    for sliding dreams passed
    the law writers passing
    laws higher than the
    barb wire their casting
    the people they’re pruning
    and the hopes they’re smashing

    to the Mighty Migrant Worker
    may your hands and spine
    always nurture the vine
    may the cups of all your tomorrows
    be filled with the fruits of your labor
    and may the dreams you dream of find freedom
    in the land of your neighbor

    To you
    - Jordan Chaney
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  16. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  17. TopTop #1569
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Tweet Prayer for Poets


    Choose rock or sand;
    prepare a face to suit
    the places where you stand.


    Crisis, stasis, oasis or dust?
    Calliope, Erato, look over us.


    - David Beckman
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  19. TopTop #1570
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Passover


    Then you shall take some of the blood, and put it on the door posts and the lintels of the houses . . .
    and when I see the blood, I shall pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.
    - Exodus 12: 7 & 13


    They thought they were safe
    that spring night; when they daubed
    the doorways with sacrificial blood.
    To be sure, the angel of death
    passed them over, but for what?
    Forty years in the desert
    without a home, without a bed,
    following new laws to an unknown land.
    Easier to have died in Egypt
    or stayed there a slave, pretending
    there was safety in the old familiar.


    But the promise, from those first
    naked days outside the garden,
    is that there is no safety,
    only the terrible blessing
    of the journey. You were born
    through a doorway marked in blood.
    We are, all of us, passed over,
    brushed in the night by terrible wings.


    Ask that fierce presence,
    whose imagination you hold.
    God did not promise that we shall live,
    but that we might, at last, glimpse the stars,
    brilliant in the desert sky.


    - Lynn Ungar
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  20. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  21. TopTop #1571
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Garden of Love


    I went to the Garden of Love,
    And saw what I never had seen;
    A Chapel was built in the midst,
    Where I used to play on the green.


    And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
    And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
    So I turned to the Garden of Love
    That so many sweet flowers bore.


    And I saw it was filled with graves,
    And tombstones where flowers should be;
    And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
    And binding with briars my joys & desires.


    - William Blake
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  22. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  23. TopTop #1572
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Letter to Jerusalem

    To hold the bird and not to crush her, that is the secret.
    Sand turned too quickly to cement and who cares if the builders lose their arms?
    The musk of smoldered rats on sticks that trailed their tails through tunnels underground.
    Trickster of light, I walk your cobbled alleys all night long and drink your salt.
    City of bones, I return to you with dust on my tongue.
    Return to your ruined temple, your spirit of revolt.
    Return to you, the ache at the center of the world.


    - Elana Bell
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  24. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  25. TopTop #1573
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Quiet friend who has come so far,
    feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
    Let this darkness be a bell tower
    and you the bell. As you ring,


    what batters you becomes your strength.
    Move back and forth into the change.
    What is it like, such intensity of pain?
    If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.


    In this uncontainable night,
    be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
    the meaning discovered there.


    And if the world has ceased to hear you,
    say to the silent earth: I flow.
    To the rushing water, speak: I am.
    - Rainer Maria Rilke
    (Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XXIX)
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  26. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  27. TopTop #1574
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ascension in Silk Pajamas
    for Irene Perez



    While most decline in their final days
    Slack jawed and pallid, holding on,
    You will ascend.....
    Perhaps in the quiet of the early hours, as dawn teases
    the horizon and when least expected.


    Not with a struggle, but with the flutter of butterfly wings
    Perceptible only to those with the finest-tuned senses.
    You will slip out on that last elegant breath, your serenity swelling
    Beyond the beautiful body you have inhabited
    And the tender hearts encircling you
    Past one last glimpse of your purposeful existence
    Kissing it tenderly as you fly


    Willingly, into the unknown.






    - Fran Carbonaro
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  29. TopTop #1575
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Thousand Years of Healing


    From whence my hope, I cannot say,
    except it grows in the cells of my skin,
    in my envelope of mysteries
    it hums.
    In this sheath so akin to the surface of the earth,
    it whispers.
    Beneath the wail and dissonance in the world,
    hope’s song grows.
    Until I know that with this turning
    we put a broken age to rest.
    We who are alive at such a cusp
    now usher in
    one thousand years of healing!

    Winged ones and four-leggeds,
    grasses and mountains and each tree,
    all the swimming creatures,
    even we, wary two-leggeds
    hum, and call, and create the Changing Song.
    We remake all our relations.
    We convert our minds to the Earth.
    In this turning time
    we finally learn to chime and blend,
    attune our voices; sing the vision
    of the Great Magic we move within.
    We begin the new habit,
    getting up glad
    for a thousand years of healing.


    - Susa Silvermarie
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  30. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  31. TopTop #1576
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    April Chores


    When I take the chilly tools
    from the shed's darkness, I come
    out to a world made new
    by heat and light.


    The snake basks and dozes
    on a large flat stone.
    It reared and scolded me
    for raking too close to its hole.


    Like a mad red brain
    the involute rhubarb leaf
    thinks its way up
    through loam.


    - Jane Kenyon
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  32. TopTop #1577
    ChristmasCarla's Avatar
    ChristmasCarla
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    YES! Thank you, Larry ... this expresses so well the vision that has indeed been growing in the cells of me as well. I have been encouraging people to focus on this new reality growing around us instead of bemoaning the mess we are leaving. This says it perfectly. Blessings ....

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    A Thousand Years of Healing


    From whence my hope, I cannot say,
    except it grows in the cells of my skin,
    in my envelope of mysteries
    it hums.
    In this sheath so akin to the surface of the earth,
    it whispers.
    Beneath the wail and dissonance in the world,
    hope’s song grows.
    Until I know that with this turning
    we put a broken age to rest.
    We who are alive at such a cusp
    now usher in
    one thousand years of healing!

    Winged ones and four-leggeds,
    grasses and mountains and each tree,
    all the swimming creatures,
    even we, wary two-leggeds
    hum, and call, and create the Changing Song.
    We remake all our relations.
    We convert our minds to the Earth.
    In this turning time
    we finally learn to chime and blend,
    attune our voices; sing the vision
    of the Great Magic we move within.
    We begin the new habit,
    getting up glad
    for a thousand years of healing.


    - Susa Silvermarie
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  34. TopTop #1578
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Exercise


    First forget what time it is
    for an hour
    do it regularly every day

    then forget what day of the week it is
    do this regularly for a week
    then forget what country you are in
    and practice doing it in company
    for a week
    then do them together
    for a week
    with as few breaks as possible

    follow these by forgetting how to add
    or to subtract
    it makes no difference
    you can change them around
    after a week
    both will help you later
    to forget how to count

    forget how to count
    starting with your own age
    starting with how to count backward
    starting with even numbers
    starting with Roman numerals
    starting with fractions of Roman numerals
    starting with the old calendar
    going on to the old alphabet
    going on to the alphabet
    until everything is continuous again

    go on to forgetting elements
    starting with water
    proceeding to earth
    rising in fire

    forget fire

    - W.S. Merwin
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  35. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  36. TopTop #1579
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Spirit


    spirit calls out your name
    when lightning flashes
    spirit makes a trail


    and okay sometimes we catch a glimpse
    Yeats' wife begins dictation
    on the train outside San Bernardino


    years later we listen and
    fall inward to
    silence


    your life is gold within
    sun behind clouds
    still gives off light


    is it too easy to say
    life is blessed
    and has freedom gone hidden


    what is death
    except
    dark stone in the center of the path


    - Jack Crimmins
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  37. TopTop #1580
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Dark Stone


    for Jack Crimmins


    There in the path, it waits
    The dark stone, in the center–
    The place we hoped never to arrive.


    Life is littered with so many losses,
    Dark stones, scattered in the fields and paths,
    Betrayals by death, dishonesty, disappointment.


    What happens if we meet that stone with wonder,
    Walk to its cruel center, sit in its
    Sorrowful presence?


    Here, yes here, in the heart of
    Fear, disillusion, chaos and
    Confusion, peace arrives, a soft surprise.


    - Rebecca del Rio
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  38. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  39. TopTop #1581
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Scream


    It exploded out of
    the short, squat woman,
    curdling every molecule
    in the library parking lot until
    the whole little bay became
    an emblem of her terror.


    She stood silent, and the air
    began to clear. Then she
    erupted again, shrill syllables
    --Aleut? Inuit? Tibetan?—
    rolling off her tongue.


    She stood on the curb beside
    three travel-cases
    the taxi driver had set there
    before driving away.


    Now her curse opened
    to pure ululation:
    visions of Algerian women,
    revolution, apocalypse;
    witchcraft.


    Though I could not visit
    the places where
    her sounds had originated,
    I knew the translations:
    rage, horror. And this


    much more: in
    those bags
    lay all she owned.
    And no one
    was coming
    to take her
    home.


    - Max Reif
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  40. TopTop #1582
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    God Says Yes To Me


    I asked God if it was OK to be melodramatic
    and she said yes
    I asked her if it was OK to be short
    and she said it sure is
    I asked her if I could wear nail polish
    or not wear nail polish
    and she said honey
    she calls me that sometimes
    she said you can do just exactly
    what you want to
    Thanks God I said
    And is it even okay if I don¹t paragraph
    my letters
    Sweetcakes God said
    who knows where she picked that up
    what I¹m telling you is
    Yes Yes Yes


    - Kaylin Haught
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  41. Gratitude expressed by 5 members:

  42. TopTop #1583
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Lutheran Sea

    One wave follows another
    beneath the heel of the wind;
    the spray blows landward,
    but lacking salt or iodine
    it smells oddly Protestant,
    carrying the faintest tang
    of wet iron,
    well water
    sluiced in a bucket
    from a cabin you visited once
    when you were a boy,
    water that numbed the tongue
    as if it had dripped
    from a seam of ice,
    blue and glistening,
    in a cave
    where nymphs of winter
    with red fingers
    preened before mirrors of frost,
    dead cold sober.

    - James Armstrong
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  44. TopTop #1584
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Han-shan Is The Cure For Warts


    My job was eating me night and day,
    my wife threatening to leave, taking
    even the stroller and the quilt.
    A family of warts blossomed on my thumb
    so big I introduced them to tellers and clerks.
    Then I bumped into Han-shan in the bookstore,
    one hundred poems so small I read them all.
    We moved to a new place. My wife
    smiles out on sidewalks where children ride.
    I work in a room so quiet I can hear my heartbeat.
    My warts are gone, no marks, no scars.


    - James P. Lenfestey
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  45. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  46. TopTop #1585
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Diameter of the Bomb
    The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
    and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
    with four dead and eleven wounded.
    And around these, in a larger circle
    of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
    and one graveyard. But the young woman
    who was buried in the city she came from,
    at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
    enlarges the circle considerably,
    and the solitary man mourning her death
    at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
    includes the entire world in the circle.
    And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
    that reaches up to the throne of God and
    beyond, making
    a circle with no end and no God.


    - Yehuda Amichai
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  48. TopTop #1586
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Han Shan


    Down in the city
    they speed in the streets
    Up on the mountain
    we walk on the path


    Down in the city
    they see how fast
    something can be done


    Up on the mountain
    we watch the dogwood blossom


    First the christmas balls
    then the little birds' mouths
    followed by eggs in the nest
    how I love that stage,
    and that is followed
    by campion holding hands
    over head
    when two petals still hold
    and the other two have let go


    Just yesterday...
    Was it a new speed record?
    for the street runners
    …. or was it a bomb
    that made news.


    Selling fear in the city
    is so easy.


    Up on the mountain
    with the dogwood blooming.
    we just say:


    Is that so?


    Why were they running on paved streets?
    Where were they going?


    Didn't they hear?
    It is spring.


    - David Bean
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  50. TopTop #1587
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    For What Binds Us


    There are names for what binds us:
    strong forces, weak forces.
    Look around, you can see them:
    the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
    nails rusting into the places they join,
    joints dovetailed on their own weight.
    The way things stay so solidly
    wherever they've been set down --
    and gravity, scientists say, is weak.


    And see how the flesh grows back
    across a wound, with a great vehemence,
    more strong
    than the simple, untested surface before.
    There's a name for it on horses,
    when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,


    as all flesh
    is proud of its wounds, wears them
    as honors given out after battle,
    small triumphs pinned to the chest --


    And when two people have loved each other
    see how it is like a
    scar between their bodies,
    stronger, darker, and proud;
    how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
    that nothing can tear or mend.


    - Jane Hirshfield
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  52. TopTop #1588
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number 3


    It's easy to love
    through a cold spring
    when the poles
    of the willows
    turn green
    pollen falls like
    a yellow curtain
    and the scent of
    Paper Whites
    clots
    the air
    but to love for a lifetime
    takes talent
    you have to mix yourself
    with the strange
    beauty of someone
    else
    wake each morning
    for 72,000
    mornings in
    a row so
    breathed and
    bound and
    tangled
    that you can hardly
    sort out
    your arms
    and
    legs
    you have to
    find forgiveness
    in everything
    even ink stains
    and broken
    cups
    you have to be willing to move through
    life
    together
    the way the long
    grasses move
    in a field
    when you careen
    blindly toward
    the other
    side
    there's never going to be anything
    straight or predictable
    about your path
    except the
    flattening
    and the springing
    back
    you just go on walking for years
    hand in hand
    waist deep in the weeds
    bent slightly forward
    like two question
    marks
    and all the while it
    burns
    my dear
    it burns beautifully above
    you
    and goes on
    burning
    like a relentless
    sun


    - Mary Mackey
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  54. TopTop #1589
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    We Have A Beautiful Mother


    We have a beautiful
    Mother
    Her hills
    Are buffaloes
    Her buffaloes
    Hills.
    We have a beautiful
    Mother
    Her oceans
    Are wombs
    Her wombs
    Oceans.
    We have a beautiful
    Mother
    Her teeth
    The white stones
    At the edge
    Of the water
    The summer
    Grasses
    Her plentiful
    Hair.
    We have a beautiful
    Mother
    Her green lap
    Immense
    Her brown embrace
    Eternal
    Her blue body
    Everything we know.


    - Alice Walker
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  56. TopTop #1590
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Love This Miraculous World


    Our understandable wish
    to preserve the planet
    must somehow be
    reduced
    to the scale of our
    competence.
    Love is never abstract.
    It does not adhere
    to the universe
    or the planet
    or the nation
    or the institution
    or the profession,
    but to the singular
    sparrows of the street,
    the lilies of the field,
    “the least of these
    my brethren.”
    Love this
    miraculous world
    that we did not make,
    that is a gift to us.


    - Wendell Berry
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