Mary Oliver: What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon

What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon

Loving the earth, seeing what has been close to it,

I grow sharp, I grow cold.

Where will the trilliums go to continue living

their simple penniless lives, lifting

their faces of gold?

Impossible to believe we need so much

as the world wants to buy.

I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips

than I could possibly use before I die.

Oh, I would like to live in an empty house,

with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass.

No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.

And I suppose sometime I will.

Old and cold I will lie apart

from all this buying and selling, with only

the beautiful earth in my heart.

Oliver, Mary. “What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon.” Why I Wake Early. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2004. p.36.

Jane Kenyon: Insomnia

Insomnia

The almost disturbing scent

of peonies presses through the screens,

and I know without looking how

those heavy white heads lean down

under the moon’s light. A cricket chafes

and pauses, chafes and pauses,

as if distracted or preoccupied.

When I open my eyes to document

my sleeplessness by the clock, a point

of greenish light pulses near the ceiling.

A firefly… In childhood I ran out

at dusk, a jar in one hand, lid

pierced with airholes in the other,

getting soaked to the knees

in the long wet grass.

The light moves unsteadily, like someone

whose balance is uncertain after traveling

many hours, coming a long way.

Get up. Get up and let it out.

But I leave it hovering overhead, in case

it’s my father, come back from the dead

to ask, “Why are you still awake? You can

put grass in their jar in the morning,”

                                          Jane Kenyon

Kenyon, Jane. “Insomnia.” Otherwise: New and Selected Poems. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Greywolf Press, 1996. p.138.

Gary Snyder: Surrounded By Wild Turkeys

Surrounded By Wild Turkeys

Little calls as they pass

through dry forbs and grasses

Under blue oak and gray digger pine

In the warm afternoon of the forest/fire haze;

Twenty or more, long/legged birds

all alike.

So are we, in our soft calling,

passing on through.

Our young, which trail after,

Look just like us.

                                   Gary Snyder

Hass, Robert., ed., “Surrounded By Wild Turkeys”. Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life. Hopewell, New Jersey, Ecco Press: 1998. p.39.

Haiku: Basho and Issa

A bee

staggers out

of the peony.

               Basho

Mosquito at my ear---

does it think

I’m deaf?
                       Issa

Even with insects

Some can sing,

some can’t.

                 Issa

Hass, Robert., ed. Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life. Hopewell, New Jersey, Ecco Press: 1998. p.59.

Wendell Berry - Woods

                 Woods

I part the out thrusting branches

and come in beneath

the blessed and the blessing trees.

Though I am silent

there is singing around me.

Though I am dark

there is vision around me.

Though I am heavy

there is flight around me.

         

                          Wendell Berry

Berry, Wendell. "Woods.". Collected Poems 1957 - 1982. New York: North Point Press, 1964. p. 205.

Wendell Berry - The Lilies

                                                             Jane Meyler

                   The Lilies

Hunting them, a man must sweat, bear

the whine of a mosquito in his ear,

grow thirsty, tired, despair perhaps

of ever finding them, walk a long way.

He must give himself over to chance,

for they live beyond prediction.

He must give himself over to patience,

for they live beyond will. He must be led

along the hill as by a prayer.

If he finds them anywhere, he will find

a few, paired on their stalks,

at ease in the air as souls in bliss.

I found them here at first without hunting,

by grace, as all beauties are first found.

I have hunted and not found them here.

Found, unfound, they breathe their light

into the mind, year after year.

                                             Wendell Berry

Berry, Wendell. "The Lilies.". Collected Poems 1957 - 1982. New York: North Point Press, 1964. p. 205.

William Dickey - On the White Road

On The White Road

On the white road

in dust of summer

someone’s arriving

apricots bend

from the wall-garden

welcoming summer

someone’s arriving

clothed only in light

his hands empty

his eyes full of islands

stroked by blue ocean

in the summer air

violent and singing

on the empty road

someone’s arriving

the white light

cherishing his step

and his naked stare.

             
               William Dickey

Hass, Robert., ed., “On The White Road”. Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life. Hopewell, New Jersey, Ecco Press: 1998. pp.144-145.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company;

I gazed -  and gazed – but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

                  
                             William Wordsworth

Finamore, Frank J., ed. Half Hours with the Best Poets. New York: Grammercy Books, 1999. p. 68.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) - Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again.

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

           
                            Alfred Edward Housman

Finamore, Frank J., ed. Half Hours with the Best Poets. New York: Grammercy Books, 1999. p.245.

Two Children's Poems About Spring

A Walk in Spring

What could be nicer than the spring,

When little birds begin to sing?

When for my daily walk I go

Through fields that once were white with snow?

When in the green and open spaces

Lie baby lambs with sweet black faces?

What could be finer than to shout

That all the buds are bursting out-

And oh, at last beneath the hill,

To pick a yellow daffodil? 

                               
                                         K. C. Lart

Night of Spring

Slow, horses, slow,

As through the wood we go-

We would count the stars in heaven,

Hear the grasses grow:

Watch the cloudlets few

Dappling the deep blue.

In our open palms outspread

Catch the blessed dew.

Slow, horses, slow,

As through the wood we go-

All the beauty of the night

We would learn and know!

             
                     Thomas Westwood

The Book Of a Thousand Poems. New York: Peter Bedrick Books. 1983. pp. 184-185.

Haiku - Yosa Buson 1716 - 1783

      Sparrow singing-

its tiny mouth

      open.

                             ***

      The spring sea rising

and falling, rising

      and falling all day.

                               ***

      

      The cherry blossoms fallen-

through the branches

      a temple.

                                     ***

      

      That snail-

one long horn, one short

      what’s on his mind?

                                        ***

Hass, Robert., ed. The Essential Haiku. Hopewell, New Jersey: Ecco Press: 1994. p.85-87.

      

W.S. Merwin - Summer Canyon

Summer Canyon

 Some of the mayflies

drift on into June

without their names

                         *

Spring reappears in the evening

oyster cloud sky catches in pines

water light wells out of needles after sundown

                         *

On small summit pine hollow

field chickweed under trees

split white petals drifting over shadows

                         *

Two crows call to each other

flying over

same places

                          *

Three broad blue petals

I do not know

what kind of flower

                         *

Leaves never seen before

look how they have grown

since we came here

                         *

Day’s end green summer stillness

pine shadows drift far out

on long boards

                         *

Mourning dove sound

cricket sound

no third

                         *

All day the wind blows

and the rock

keeps its place

                         *

Sunlight after rain

reflections of ruffled water

cross the ceiling

                         *

High in the east full moon

and far below on the plain

low clouds and lightning

                         *

Jay clatters through dark pine

it remembers

something it wants among them

                                W. S. Merwin

Hass, Robert., ed. “Summer Canyon”. Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life. Hopewell, New Jersey: Ecco Press. 1998. pp.155-156.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti - The Changing Light

The Changing Light

The changing light at San Francisco

                            is none of your East Coast light

                                                none of your

                                                              pearly light of Paris

The light of San Francisco

                                                is a sea light

                                                                       an island light

And the light of fog

                                       blanketing the hills

                       drifting in at night

                                      through the Golden Gate

                                                   to lie on the city at dawn

And then the halcyon late mornings

               after the fog burns off

                         and the son paints white houses

                                       with the sea of light of Greece

                               with sharp clean shadows

                                       making the town look like

                                                      it had just been painted

But the wind comes up at four o’clock

                                                               sweeping the hills

And then the veil of light of early evening

And then another scrim

                                     when the new night fog

                                                                                 floats in

And in that vale of light

                                          
                      the city drifts

                                           anchorless upon the ocean

                                                      Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. “The Changing Light”. San Francisco Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Foundation. 2001, pp. 76-77.