Poem for 1/12/22 - Corinthians 13:11 - by Jennifer Martelli

 

Corinthians 13:11 Jennifer Martelli I follow Marcia Brady on Twitter: Mo McCormick, Actor/Author. She posts a video with her older brother and they dance, a fast waltz, under an oak tree with dozens of hanging pastel paper parasols. She holds his hands, looks up into his face: he watches her feet. I wish we were friends. I’d call her, Mo, too, one syllable, low: prayerful, bovine. Mo asks her brother, do you have a girlfriend yet? She leads, spins him around: I love her in a way I couldn’t back then. As a child, I loved the middle girl, Jan, the jealous one, Eve Plumb, Bible spondee fruit, with a TV J-name, and that blue crochet vest. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child. When I was a child, I’d see Mo’s face on my tin lunchbox, but now I see her freckles mirrored a small star cluster visible on clear nights— Constellation of Bejewelled Silver Studs on Soft Velvet Bell Bottoms. Constellation of Kindness. Constellation of Purple Devotion. Copyright © 2022 by Jennifer Martelli. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 12, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poems for 1/11/22 - "The Tyger" by William Blake and "Startled Into Life Like Fire" by Charles Bukowski

 The Tyger 

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

startled into life like fire

by Charles Bukowski

in grievous deity my cat
walks around
he walks around and around
with
electric tail and
push-button
eyes

he is
alive and
plush and
final as a plum tree

neither of us understands
cathedrals or
the man outside
watering his
lawn

if I were all the man
that he is
cat--
if there were men
like this
the world could
begin

he leaps up on the couch
and walks through
porticoes of my
admiration.

Poem for 1/10/22 - Walnuts in Nangarhar - by Zohra Saed

 

Walnuts in Nangarhar

Zohra Saed

That time in Aagam when father, a child then, picked fresh walnuts with the mountain girls; they showed him the fleshy green skin over shell & nut he rubbed on his lips & cheeks, giggling. The girls circled around him, clapped in unison & teased. In a hand mirror, he saw himself stained pink, a delicious trick that kept its color a full week— That time so long ago, in the season of walnuts.

Copyright © 2022 by Zohra Saed. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 10, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets. About This Poem “My father, at the age of five, went to Aagam on vacation. He grew up in Jalalabad. Walnuts and pine nuts grow in abundance in Afghanistan. He told me this memory to share how young girls learned to take the flesh of the walnut fruit to make a lipstick stain. I think of those trees on the mountains. I think of those young girls who were my father’s age then, grandmothers now.” —Zohra Saed

Poem for 1/6/22 - To Be Alive - by Dr. Margaret Siber

 To Be Alive

by Dr. Margaret Siber

Early evening peace descends

Encompassing my being, my soul

Alive, to be alive

I watch the sun descending

Illuminating the rusted surface of the ocean

Soon, very soon the earth’s turn 

Will hide the source of all life

Until morning.

A lazy yellow finch

Invisible in the gnarled black cherry tree

Sings an occasional short melody

Escorting the sun’s passage

Three elder ducks disrupt

The calm surface of the ocean

Splashing, playing, fading

Alive, to be alive.

Poem for 1/5/21 - Farewell by Federico García Lorca

 

Farewell

Federico García Lorca

translated by Jenny Minniti-Shippey If I die, Leave the balcony open. The boy is eating oranges. (From my balcony I hear him.) The reaper scythes the wheat. (From my balcony I feel it.) If I die, Leave the balcony open!   Despedida  Si muero, dejad el balcón abierto. El niño come naranjas. (Desde mi balcón lo veo). El segador siega el trigo. (Desde mi balcón lo siento). ¡Si muero, dejad el balcón abierto!

Copyright © 2021 by Federico García Lorca and Jenny Minniti-Shippey. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 31, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 1/4/21 - Darkest Before Dawn - by James Crews

Darkest Before Dawn

by James Crews

Three days into the new year,

and despite the lack of adequate light,

our white phalaenopsis orchid

has eased open a third delicate bloom.

Perhaps coaxed by the warmth

of the woodstove a few feet away,

the orchid thrives in its tiny pot

shaped like the shell of a nautilus,

sending out new stems and glossy leaves,

its aerial roots--green at the tips--

reaching upward like tentacles

to sip the morning air. These blooms

stir something too long asleep in me,

proving with stillness and slow growth

what I haven't been able to trust

these past few months--that hope

and grace still reign in certain sectors

of the living world, that there are laws

which can never be overturned

by hateful words or the wishes

of power-hungry men. Be patient,

this orchid seems to say, and reveal

your deepest self even in the middle

of winter, even in the darkness

before the coming dawn.

 

Poem for 1/3/21 - The New Year by Carrie Williams Clifford

 

The New Year

Carrie Williams Clifford

The New Year comes—fling wide, fling wide the door Of Opportunity! the spirit free To scale the utmost heights of hopes to be, To rest on peaks ne’er reached by man before! The boundless infinite let us explore, To search out undiscovered mystery, Undreamed of in our poor philosophy! The bounty of the gods upon us pour! Nay, in the New Year we shall be as gods: No longer apish puppets or dull clods Of clay; but poised, empowered to command, Upon the Etna of New Worlds we’ll stand— This scant earth-raiment to the winds will cast— Full richly robed as supermen at last!

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 1, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.