Poets tell us what life is
A Note Life is the only wayto get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur; to tell painfrom everything it’s not; to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all …
Poets are our night lights
Night Light The moon is not green cheese.It is china and stands in this room.It has a ten-watt bulb and a motto:Made in Japan. Whey-faced, doll-faced,it’s closed as a toothand cold as the dead are coldtill I touch the switch. Then the moon performs its one trick:it turns into a …
Poets explain history, fear, love, and moats to us
History It’s like this, the king marries a commoner, and the populace cheers. She doesn’t even know how to curtsy, but he loves her manners in bed. Why doesn’t the king do what his father did, the king’s mother wonders— those peasant girls brought in through that secret entrance, that’s …
Poets help us fly
Do Not Be Ashamed You will be walking some nightin the comfortable dark of your yardand suddenly a great light will shineround about you, and behind youwill be a wall you never saw before.It will be clear to you suddenlythat you were about to escape,and that you are guilty: you …
Poets tell us what we knew about ourselves but didn’t know we knew or rejected as too true. They also, graciously, allow for renewal.
A Purification At the start of spring I open a trenchin the ground. I put into itthe winter’s accumulation of paper,pages I do not want to readagain, useless words, fragments,errors. And I put into itthe contents of the outhouse:light of the sun, growth of the ground,finished with one of their …
Women walk through the snow barefoot – k d lang
Sorry. I just couldn’t resist. This is simply gorgeous. I wonder. Who would I walk through the snow barefoot for? You? Do they know?
Poets help us love the bump on our nose
Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own. -Salvatore Quasimodo Someone who reads 37days wrote last week to ask about my perfect life. How did it become so perfect? Mr Brilliant rushed into the room …
Poets seek inspiration, just like us
I so love this. We know poets write from some sad, dark places. But sometimes, as a tiny poet named Caspar shows us, poets write from happiness. With Liv Ullmann’s beautiful voice telling me a simple tale, all the way from Denmark. A tale of a Danish poet. Oh, go …
Poets help us inch forward
A Measuring Worm This yellow striped greenCaterpillar, climbing upThe steep window screen, Constantly (for a lackOf a full set of legs) keepsHumping up his back. It’s as if he sentBy a sort of a semaphoreDark omegas meant To warn of Last Things.Although he doesn’t know it,He will soon have wings, …
Poets teach us that darkness is a gift
It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things. -Stephen Mallarme This one is for Trudy. Before you read today’s poem, I want you to do something for me. I want you to find a small box in your house or office, …
