Poem for 2/10/22 - Surprised by Joy - by William Wordsworth

 Surprised by Joy

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind

I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom

But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb,

That spot which no vicissitude can find?

Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—

But how could I forget thee?—Through what power,

Even for the least division of an hour,

Have I been so beguiled as to be blind

To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return

Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,

Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,

Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;

That neither present time, nor years unborn

Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Source: Poems (1815)

Poem for 2/9/22 - As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes

 

As I Grew Older

Langston Hughes

It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun,— My dream. And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream. Rose slowly, slowly, Dimming, Hiding, The light of my dream. Rose until it touched the sky,— The wall. Shadow. I am black. I lie down in the shadow. No longer the light of my dream before me, Above me. Only the thick wall. Only the shadow. My hands! My dark hands! Break through the wall! Find my dream! Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams Of sun!

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 5, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 2/8/22 - Last Mattress by Marilyn Nelson

Last Mattress Marilyn Nelson This $1,600 slice of foam, if it stays firm, will be the last mattress I’ll ever buy. It’s comfortable enough for years of sleeps, for the long, thwarted hours of scribbling sentences, or to step from into the surrey with the fringe on top. Given the choice between flat-lining here, and 1,000,000 other possibilities for the time when my pronouns and now end— I’d pick my bed, and passing on with good dreams. One jot, on this little blue and green globe where life evolved, and consciousness, and hope. Copyright © 2022 by Marilyn Nelson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 8, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poems for 2/7/22 - Snapdragons in the Market by Lee Upton and Joy by Clarissa Scott Delaney

Snapdragons at the Market

By Lee Upton

January 31, 2022

I wish I’d taken you
out of the bucket
and brought you home.
Which way would the sun
flow into the room
for your clocks?
You drank a bee
and it stung your lips.
Or are those jawbones
or paws
on your stems,
or curdled grudges?
As if anyone could own you.
For the second night
I am still thinking of you
even as sleep comes with its
soft little sack.
You own me, I suppose.

Published in the print edition of the February 7, 2022, issue of The New Yorker. Joy

Clarissa Scott Delaney

Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail, Like the roistering wind That laughs through stalwart pines. It floods me like the sun On rain-drenched trees That flash with silver and green. I abandon myself to joy— I laugh—I sing. Too long have I walked a desolate way, Too long stumbled down a maze Bewildered.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 6, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 2/3/22 - The Robin - by George Daniel

 THE ROBIN

GEORGE DANIEL (1616-1657)

Poor bird! I do not envy thee;

Pleased in the gentle melody

Of thy own song.

Let crabbèd winter silence all

The wingèd choir; he never shall

Chain up thy tongue:

Poor innocent:

When I would please myself, I look on thee:

And guess some sparks of that felicity.

That self-content.

When the bleak face of winter spreads

The carth, and violates the meads

Of all their pride;

When sapless trees and flowers are fed,

Back to their causes, and lie dead

To all beside:

I see thee set

Bidding defiance to the bitter air,

Upon a withered spray; by cold made bare,

And drooping yet.

There, full in notes, to ravish all

My earth, I wonder what to call

My dullness; when

I hear thee, pretty creature, bring

Thy better odes of praise, and sing,

To puzzle men:

Poor pious elf!

I am instructed by thy harmony,

To sing the time's uncertainty,

Safe in myself.

Poor redbreast, carol out thy lay,

And teach us mortals what to say.

Here cease the choir

Of airy choristers: no more

Mingle your notes; but catch a store

From her sweet lyre;

You are but weak,

Mere summer chanters: you have neither wing

Nor voice, in winter. Pretty redbreast, sing,

What I would speak.

Poem for 2/2/22 - Not Once, by Sharon Olds

 

Not Once

Sharon Olds

Not once—not when I toppled, rigid, a 5'7" pine felled, stiff as a board, a five and a half foot plank, 16 x 32, and not while I wallowed on the rug among his oxygen tubes and my cane and his 8 wheelchair wheels, and not when I sat by his hospice bed, chirping I’m fine!, and not the next day, when the brilliant violet and black slash-slathered in my easy-life skin, or days later when the purple turned yellow and the blue green—never once when I said No pain, Nothing broken, did I feel lucky, did I measure the force of the blow, the floor speeding up like a heavy-weight’s smash to my cheek and eyebrow, not until today, did I begin to feel grateful for my good fortune—no concussion, no fracture—as if I expected to be able to be struck by the earth, a wrecking ball, and not feel it— as when someone on the other side of the world, or the city, is struck in my name, I do not feel it.

Copyright © 2022 by Sharon Olds. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 2, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poem for 2/1/22 - Sunset, by Ranier Maria Rilke

Sunset 

by Ranier Maria Rilke

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs--

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.