Poem of the Day – 04102026

2026/04/102026/04/10Posted in PoetryTagged National Poetry Month, Poem of the Day, Reginald ShepardLeave a comment

You Also, Nightingale

By Reginald Shepherd

Petrarch dreams of pebbles

on the tongue, he loves me

at a distance, black polished stone

skipping the lake that swallows

worn-down words, a kind of drown

and drench and quench and very kind

to what I would’ve said. Light marries

water and what else (unfit

for drinking purposes), light lavishes

my skin on intermittent sun. (I am weather

and unreasonable, out of all

season. Petrarch loves my lies

of laurel leaves, ripped sprigs of

deciduous evergreen.) A creek is lying

in my cement-walled bed, slurring

through the center of small

town; the current’s brown and

turbid (muddy, turbulent

with recent torrents), silt rushing

toward the reservoir. A Sonata

passes by too close (I have to jump)

and yes I do hear music here. It’s blue, or

turquoise, aquamarine, some synonym

on wheels, note down that note. It’s Petrarch

singing with his back to me (delivering

himself to voice), his fingers

filled with jonquil, daffodils, mistaken

narcissus. (I surprised him

between the pages of a book,

looked up the flowers I misnamed.)

Forsythia and magnolia bring me

spring, when he walks into the house

he has wings. Song is a temporary thing

(attempt), he wants to own his music.

Poem of the Day – 04082026

2026/04/082026/04/06Posted in PoetryTagged National Poetry Month, Poem of the Day, poetry analysis, Langston HughesLeave a comment

Let America Be America Again

By Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That’s made America the land it has become.

O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home—

For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,

And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came

To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we’ve dreamed

And all the songs we’ve sung

And all the hopes we’ve held

And all the flags we’ve hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay—

Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

Poem of the Day – 04072026

2026/04/072026/04/06Posted in PoetryTagged National Poetry Month, Poem of the Day, poetry, poetry analysis, T.S. Eliot2 Comments

The Hollow Men

T. S. Eliot

1888 – 1965

^{A penny for the Old Guy}

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour.
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Reflection

This is what it looks like when something inside a person… goes quiet.

Not peaceful quiet.
Not rest.

But absence.

The Hollow Men doesn’t scream. It doesn’t rage. It doesn’t even try to convince you of anything. It just exists in a kind of spiritual low tide, where everything that once had weight—belief, purpose, conviction—has been drained out, leaving something that still moves, still speaks… but doesn’t fully live.

That’s what makes it unsettling.

Because it doesn’t describe monsters.

It describes people.

People who’ve learned how to function without feeling too deeply.
People who speak in fragments, act without conviction, drift instead of decide.
People who’ve made peace with emptiness because filling it would require something they no longer trust themselves to carry.

And if you sit with it long enough, the discomfort shifts.

It stops being about them.

It starts being about how easy it is to become one of them.

Not all at once.

But gradually.

A compromise here.
A silence there.
A moment where you choose not to speak because it’s easier. Safer. Less complicated.

And over time, those small choices add up.

Until you look up one day and realize you’re moving through your life without friction. Without resistance.

Without presence.

That’s the real weight of this poem.

Not emptiness as tragedy—
but emptiness as something that can quietly become normal.

And once it does, it’s hard to recognize what’s missing.

Reflection Prompts

Where in your life have you chosen silence over truth?
What parts of yourself have you dulled just to make things easier?
When did survival start to look like disconnection instead of strength?

Poem of the Day – 04062026

2026/04/062026/04/05Posted in PoetryTagged Poem of the Day, poetry, Ross Gay1 Comment

A Small Needful Fact

Ross Gay

Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.

Personal Reflection

It doesn’t look like much at first.

Just a few lines. A quiet observation.
Something almost too simple to carry weight.

And then it lands.

Not with force—but with clarity.

That’s what makes this poem dangerous.

Because it doesn’t argue.
It doesn’t raise its voice.
It doesn’t try to convince you of anything.

It just gives you a fact—small, human, undeniable—and lets you sit with what that fact means in a world that too often forgets how to see people as people.

That’s the tension at the center of this piece.

Not loud injustice.
Not spectacle.

But absence.

The absence of recognition.
The absence of care.
The absence of something as basic as being seen.

And here’s where it cuts deeper than it should:

We move through the world every day surrounded by people we don’t notice.

Not because we’re cruel.
But because we’ve learned not to look too closely.

It’s easier that way.

Easier to reduce people to roles, labels, headlines.
Easier to move past them without asking what they loved, what they carried, what made them human beyond the surface we’re given.

This poem refuses that distance.

It offers one small detail—something intimate, ordinary—and suddenly the abstraction collapses.

You can’t unsee it.

You can’t push it back into the category of “someone else’s story.”

Because now it’s not distant anymore.
Now it’s specific.

And specificity is what makes empathy unavoidable.

That’s the quiet power here.

Not in what the poem says—but in what it forces you to realize:

That humanity doesn’t disappear in systems that ignore it.
It just goes unacknowledged.

Until someone names it.

Reflection Prompts

What small, human details do you overlook in the people around you?
How often do you reduce someone to a role instead of recognizing their full story?
What changes when you allow yourself to see someone—not as a category—but as a person?

Poem of the Day – 04052026

2026/04/052026/04/04Posted in PoetryTagged creative writing, daily exercise, Poem of the Day, poetry, writingLeave a comment

The Weighing

Jane Hirshfield

1953 –

The heart’s reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.

As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.

Reflection

There’s a quiet violence in the idea of being weighed.

Not judged loudly. Not condemned.
Just… measured.

As if everything you’ve carried—every grief, every memory, every version of yourself—is placed on a scale and asked a single, unforgiving question:

What is this worth?

And for most of us, the instinct is immediate.

We hold on tighter.

To the pain.
To the history.
To the stories we’ve told ourselves about who we are and why we are this way.

Because letting go feels like loss.
Like betrayal.
Like erasing something that mattered.

But Hirshfield doesn’t frame it that way.

She suggests something quieter. More unsettling.

What if the weight you carry isn’t proof of your depth—
but the thing keeping you from moving freely?

What if not everything you’ve held onto deserves to stay?

That’s where the poem shifts.

Because the scale isn’t just measuring what you’ve endured.
It’s asking what you’re willing to release.

And that’s a different kind of reckoning.

We like to think growth is about adding—more knowledge, more strength, more understanding.
But sometimes it’s subtraction.

Letting go of old versions of yourself that no longer fit.
Releasing anger that’s outlived its purpose.
Setting down grief—not because it didn’t matter, but because carrying it forever will break you.

That doesn’t mean forgetting.

It means choosing what continues with you.

There’s a kind of freedom in that—but it’s not easy.
Because identity gets tangled up in what we carry.

We tell ourselves: If I let this go, who am I without it?

And maybe that’s the real weight.

Not the memory.
Not the pain.

But the fear of what remains when it’s gone.

Reflection Prompts

What are you still carrying that no longer serves who you’re becoming?
Do you equate weight with meaning—believing that what hurts more must matter more?
What would it look like to set something down without diminishing its importance?

Poem of the Day – 04042026

2026/04/042026/04/03Posted in PoetryTagged Poem of the Day, Warsan Shire1 Comment

Home

by Warson Shire

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

Personal Reflection

There are poems that sit quietly on the page.
Home doesn’t.

It presses in. It crowds the air. It makes you aware of things you’d rather keep at a distance—because once you understand what it’s saying, you don’t get to return to comfort without a little guilt tagging along.

At its core, this poem dismantles a lie we’ve grown comfortable believing: that leaving is a choice.

We dress it up as ambition. Reinvention. Opportunity.
Something clean. Something admirable.

But Shire cuts through that narrative with surgical precision.

No one leaves home unless staying becomes unbearable.

Not inconvenient. Not disappointing.
Unbearable.

That word carries weight. It implies a breaking point—a moment when the body, the mind, or the soul recognizes something the rest of us don’t want to see. A line crossed. A threshold passed. A quiet understanding that what once held you now threatens to erase you.

And suddenly, leaving isn’t brave.
It’s necessary.

That shift matters.

Because it forces us to confront how easily we judge movement without understanding its cause. We see departure and assume desire. We assume agency. We assume people are chasing something.

This poem reminds us that sometimes they’re running.

And not toward anything.

Just away.

Away from violence. From silence. From systems that make it clear—without ever saying it outright—that you do not belong here anymore.

But here’s where the poem deepens.

Home isn’t just about geography. It’s about identity—what happens when the place that shaped you can no longer contain you. When your history becomes something you have to carry instead of something you can return to.

That kind of leaving doesn’t end when the journey does.

It follows.

In the way you speak.
In what you remember.
In what you choose not to talk about.

It lives in the space between who you were and who you’re forced to become.

And maybe that’s the quiet truth this poem leaves behind:

Not everyone gets to leave cleanly.

Some people leave in pieces.
Some carry entire worlds inside them—fractured, incomplete, but still alive.

Reflection Prompts

When does leaving stop being a choice and start becoming survival?
What does home mean when it no longer feels like a place you can return to?
What parts of your story would you fight to carry with you, no matter where you go?

Poem of the Day – 04032026

2026/04/032026/04/01Posted in PoetryTagged Joy Harjo, Poem of the Day1 Comment

Remember

Joy Harjo

1951 –

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

Poem of the Day – 04022026

2026/04/022026/03/31Posted in PoetryTagged Lucille Clifton, Poem of the Day1 Comment

won’t you celebrate with me

By Lucille Clifton

won’t you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

Poem of the Day – 04012026

2026/04/012026/03/31Posted in PoetryTagged Poem of the Day, Richard Hugo1 Comment

Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg

By Richard Hugo

You might come here Sunday on a whim.

Say your life broke down. The last good kiss

you had was years ago. You walk these streets

laid out by the insane, past hotels

that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try

of local drivers to accelerate their lives.

Only churches are kept up. The jail

turned 70 this year. The only prisoner

is always in, not knowing what he’s done.

The principal supporting business now

is rage. Hatred of the various grays

the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,

The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls

who leave each year for Butte. One good

restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out.

The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,

a dance floor built on springs—

all memory resolves itself in gaze,

in panoramic green you know the cattle eat

or two stacks high above the town,

two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse

for fifty years that won’t fall finally down.

Isn’t this your life? That ancient kiss

still burning out your eyes? Isn’t this defeat

so accurate, the church bell simply seems

a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?

Don’t empty houses ring? Are magnesium

and scorn sufficient to support a town,

not just Philipsburg, but towns

of towering blondes, good jazz and booze

the world will never let you have

until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty

when the jail was built, still laughs

although his lips collapse. Someday soon,

he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up.

You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.

The car that brought you here still runs.

The money you buy lunch with,

no matter where it’s mined, is silver

and the girl who serves your food

is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

Poem of the Day – 04182025

2025/04/182025/04/18Posted in ProseTagged Good Bones, Maggie Smith, National Poetry Month, Poem of the Day, poetry2 Comments

Poem of the Day – 04302024

2024/04/30Posted in ProseTagged Art, books, National Poetry Month, Poem of the Day, poetry, William Wordsworth, writing2 Comments

She Was a Phantom of Delight
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

Poem of the Day – 04292024

2024/04/29Posted in ProseTagged haiku, Matsuo Basho, National Poetry Month, Poem of the DayLeave a comment

A cicada shell by Matsuo Basho

a cicada shell
it sang itself
utterly away

Poem of the Day – 04282024

2024/04/28Posted in ProseTagged Art, books, National Poetry Month, poem, Poem of the Day, poetry, Thomas Gray, writing2 Comments

Ode on the Spring BY THOMAS GRAY

Lo! where the rosy-bosom’d Hours,
Fair Venus’ train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo’s note,
The untaught harmony of spring:
While whisp’ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gather’d fragrance fling.

Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water’s rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclin’d in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

Still is the toiling hand of Care:
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how thro’ the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation’s sober eye
Such is the race of man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter thro’ life’s little day,
In fortune’s varying colours drest:
Brush’d by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill’d by age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear in accents low
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glitt’ring female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic, while ’tis May.

Poem of the Day – 04272024

2024/04/272024/04/27Posted in ProseTagged Lucille Clifton, National Poetry Month, Poem of the Day, poetryLeave a comment

homage to my hips BY LUCILLE CLIFTON

these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don’t fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don’t like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

Personal Reflection:

When I first heard this poem, it was on audio. It was so different from What I thought poetry was supposed to be. While in school, we had Frost, Whitman, and others shoved down our throats. Though I had grown to appreciate the classics, I definitely had a bad taste in my mouth when it came to poetry. I discovered the beauty and complexity of poetry. Thank you, Lucille Clifton and the many other poets in my library.

Poem of the Day – 04252024

2024/04/25Posted in ProseTagged Khalil Gibran, National Poetry Month, nature, poem, Poem of the Day, poetry, writing1 Comment

A Tear And A Smile by Khalil Gibran

I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart
For the joys of the multitude.
And I would not have the tears that sadness makes
To flow from my every part turn into laughter.

I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.

A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding
Of life’s secrets and hidden things.
A smile to draw me nigh to the sons of my kind and
To be a symbol of my glorification of the gods.

A tear to unite me with those of broken heart;
A smile to be a sign of my joy in existence.

I would rather that I died in yearning and longing than that I live weary and despairing.

I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the
Depths of my spirit,for I have seen those who are
Satisfied the most wretched of people.
I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and longing, and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody.

With evening’s coming the flower folds her petals
And sleeps, embracing her longing.
At morning’s approach she opens her lips to meet
The sun’s kiss.

The life of a flower is longing and fulfilment.
A tear and a smile.

The waters of the sea become vapor and rise and come
Together and are a cloud.

And the cloud floats above the hills and valleys
Until it meets the gentle breeze, then falls weeping
To the fields and joins with brooks and rivers to return to the sea, its home.

The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting.
A tear and a smile.

And so does the spirit become separated from
The greater spirit to move in the world of matter
And pass as a cloud over the mountain of sorrow
And the plains of joy to meet the breeze of death
And return whence it came.

To the ocean of Love and Beauty—-to God.

Poem of the Day – 04232024

2024/04/232024/04/23Posted in ProseTagged Langston Hughes, National Poetry Month, Poem of the Day, poetryLeave a comment

Mother to Son by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Poem of the Day – 04142024

2024/04/14Posted in ProseTagged Billy Collins, National Poetry Month, Poem of the Day, poetry4 Comments

Introduction to Poetry BY BILLY COLLINS

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Poem of the Day – 03092024

2024/03/09Posted in ProseTagged Alice Walker, Poem of the Day, Women's History MonthLeave a comment

Expect Nothing by Alice Walker

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

Alice Walker

Poem of the Day – 03012024

2024/03/01Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the DayLeave a comment

CLASSIC POETRY

Blues

In the night
in my half hour
negro dreams
i hear voices knocking at the door
i see walls dripping screams up
and down the halls
won’t someone open
the door for me? won’t some
one schedule my sleep
and don’t ask no questions?
noise.
like when he took me to his
home away from home place
and i died the long sought after
death he’d planned for me.
Yeah, bessie he put in the bacon
and it overflowed the pot.
and two days later
when i was talking
i started to grin.
as everyone knows
i am still grinning.

Sonia Sanchez

Poem of the Day – 01272024

2024/01/27Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the Day2 Comments

The Song of the Idiot by Rainer Marie Rilke

Poem of the Day – 01192024

2024/01/19Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the Day, poetry6 Comments

Imitation

Poet: Edgar Allan Poe

A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride –
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.

Poem of the Day – 01182024

2024/01/182024/01/17Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the DayLeave a comment

Heroes Weep Before Leaving by CS Crockett

We love stories that speak of adventure,
Ones that tell us “You too could be a hero!
You must set out from your home
And see all the wonder that lies before.”
We hear the call, but many may weep
Upon the news of our leaving.

This makes it hard for us to be leaving.
Even if we know that the adventure
Is our glorious fate, those who weep
Remind us that a lasting hero
Is not made when he leaves but before.
This is why we hold on hard to home.

For surely it will be a different home
After there has been this leaving.
No one can deny that what came before
Is greater than any gold-rumor adventure.
He who would leave this for gold is no hero,
But will gnash his teeth and weep.

But also among those who will gnash and weep
Are those who hold on too hard to home.
We feel disgust for that which clings to a hero
And would not have him be leaving.
There is certainly a time for adventure.
Home just will not be what it was before.

So let us not idolize what came before,
But let us keep for what we weep
To the end of this old adventure
That took place in our changing home.
It may be hard for us to be leaving,
But when has hard stopped a hero?

It is not easy being a hero.
We remember what we learned before
This moment, but now we are really leaving.
And with this realization we too may weep.
We too must set out from our home
In search of a hard adventure.

I understand why heroes weep.
Before, it was right to be home,
But we have to leave for adventure.

Poem of the Day – 01052024

2024/01/052024/01/02Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the Day, poetry2 Comments

Hope Is The Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Poem of the Day – 01042024

2024/01/042024/01/02Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the Day, poetryLeave a comment

Changing The Past by Donna

The past is the past for a reason.
That is where it is supposed to stay,
But some cannot let it go.
In their heads it eats away

Until all their focus becomes
The person they used to be,
The mistakes they made in their life.
Oh, if only they could see

That you cannot change what happened,
No matter how hard you try,
No matter how much you think about it,
No matter how much you cry.

What happens in your lifetime
Happens for reasons unknown,
So you have to let the cards unfold.
Let your story be shown.

Don’t get wrapped up in the negative.
Be happy with what you have been given.
Live for today not tomorrow.
Get up, get out, and start living,

Because the past is the past for a reason.
It’s been, and now it is gone,
So stop trying to think of ways to fix it.
It’s done, it’s unchangeable; move on.

Donna. “Changing The Past.” Family Friend Poems, July 6, 2011. https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/changing-the-past

Poem of the Day – 01032024

2024/01/032024/01/02Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the Day, poetry4 Comments

Renewed By The Morning Light by Patricia A Fleming

I sit upon my front porch stoop
Beneath the morning sun.
Grateful for the moment spent
Away from everyone.

The air is fresh and slightly chilled,
The sky is blue and clear.
The silence that surrounds me now
Is music to my ears.

I love the morning best of all,
It’s my most tranquil time,
When the promise of a brand new day
Can ease my troubled mind.

When second chances seem more possible
And the world less cold and dark,
And hope can somehow pierce the walls
Of my sad and aching heart.

When left alone with nature
All the world seems far away
And the woes of life so trivial
When wrapped in her embrace.

But alas the birds awaken
And begin to sing their songs,
And people slowly wander by
And nod as they go on.

The sun has now grown brighter
As it rises in the sky
And in the distance there’s a whistle
As a train goes lumbering by.

The world is calling out to me
To jump back in the fray.
To have faith things can get better
And let go of yesterday.

So today I get to start again
By the morning light renewed.
Feeling brave and energized,
There is nothing I can’t do.

Poem of the Day – 01022024

2024/01/022024/01/02Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the Day, poetryLeave a comment

Faith And Courage In Life by Angie M Flores

In life there are people that will hurt us and cause us pain,
but we must learn to forgive and forget and not hold grudges.

In life there are mistakes we will make,
but we must learn from our wrongs and grow from them.

In life there are regrets we will have to live with,
but we must learn to leave the past behind and realize it is something we can’t change.

In life there are people we will lose forever and can’t have back,
but we must learn to let go and move on.

In life there are going to be obstacles that will cause interference,
but we must learn to overcome these challenges and grow stronger.

In life there are fears that will hold us back from what we want,
but we must learn to fight them with the courage from within.

God holds our lives in his hands. He holds the key to our future.
Only he knows our fate.

He sees everything and knows everything.
Everything in life really does happen for a reason: “God’s Reason”

Poem of the Day – 01012024

2024/01/01Posted in ProseTagged Poem of the Day, poetry2 Comments

This Is A Daily Reminder by Nicolette

This is a daily reminder
To relax,
To not get angry over small things,
To stay calm.

This is a daily reminder
To be yourself,
To not care what people think,
To know you can be anything.

This is a daily reminder
To love yourself,
To not hurt yourself,
To not work yourself up.

This is a daily reminder
That you are beautiful,
That you are amazing,
That you will succeed.

This is a daily reminder
To always have hope,
To have faith,
To know everything will be okay.

This is a daily reminder
That you have made it so far already,
That you haven’t given up,
That whatever you’re doing is right,
And that you are going to be amazing.

Don’t give up.
Keep holding on and believing.

Nicolette. “This Is A Daily Reminder.” Family Friend Poems, March 7, 2015. https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/this-is-a-daily-reminder

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The Weighing

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Home

Personal Reflection

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Remember

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won’t you celebrate with me

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Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg

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She Was a Phantom of DelightBY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

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A cicada shell by Matsuo Basho

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Ode on the Spring BY THOMAS GRAY

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homage to my hips BY LUCILLE CLIFTON

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A Tear And A Smile by Khalil Gibran

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Mother to Son by Langston Hughes

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Introduction to Poetry BY BILLY COLLINS

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Expect Nothing by Alice Walker

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CLASSIC POETRY

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The Song of the Idiot by Rainer Marie Rilke

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Imitation

Poet: Edgar Allan Poe

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Heroes Weep Before Leaving by CS Crockett

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Hope Is The Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson

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Changing The Past by Donna

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Renewed By The Morning Light by Patricia A Fleming

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Faith And Courage In Life by Angie M Flores

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This Is A Daily Reminder by Nicolette

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She Was a Phantom of Delight
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH