For birthdays, from Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins.
from 49th Birthday Trip (What Are You On?) / by Samuel Menashe
If I arrive at six-fifteen
Will I be seen?
Month: September 2015
DPF / Pavese
For rain, rain, rain which hides its face from us, from poetryfoundation.org.
from The Cats Will Know / by Cesare Pavese, translated by Geoffrey Brock
Rain will fall again
on your smooth pavement,
a light rain like
a breath or a step.
The breeze and the dawn
will flourish again
when you return,
as if beneath your step.
Between flowers and sills
the cats will know.
DPF / Bowers
Another for trees from Georgia, and from poetryfoundation.org.
from Autumn Shade / by Edgar Bowers (1924-2000)
The autumn shade is thin. Grey leaves lie faint
Where they will lie, and, where the thick green was,
Light stands up, like a presence, to the sky.
The trees seem merely shadows of its age.
Where they will lie, and, where the thick green was,
Light stands up, like a presence, to the sky.
The trees seem merely shadows of its age.
DPF / Ali
For rain, which we really, really need here, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Rain / by Kazim Ali, b. 1971
Over the echo of the water, I hear a voice saying my name.
No one in the city moves under the quick sightless rain.
No one in the city moves under the quick sightless rain.
The pages of my notebook soak, then curl. I’ve written:
“Yogis opened their mouths for hours to drink the rain.”
DPF / Mew
For the trees, from poetryfoundation.org.
from The Trees are Down / by Charlotte Mew
In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great seas.
There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;
They must have heard the sparrows flying,
DPF / Weigl
For deer, from poetryfoundation.org.
from My Autumn Leaves / by Bruce Weigl, b. 1949
They know the boy
who lives inside me still won’t go away.
The deer are ghosts who slip between the light
DPF / Bergin
For writers, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Appointment with Jane Austen / Tara Bergin
I looked out at the wet; I looked out at the southwest rain,
and the redbrick houses. I watched the famous silhouette,
gently swinging back and forth above the gate.
DPF / Kunitz
While this should be a “first-day-of-autumn” poem, as it turns out, it’s a last-day-of-summer poem for centenarians from a centenarian, from poetryfoundation.org.
from End of Summer / by Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)
I stood in the disenchanted field
Amid the stubble and the stones,
Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.
Amid the stubble and the stones,
Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.
DPF / Keplinger
For lions and prose poems, from The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry.
from I stood too close… / by David Keplinger
I stood too close to the lion’s cage and was eaten right up.
DPF / Osherow
For Kandinsky, from poetryfoundation.org. The rest of the poem may be found here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178480.
from Autumn Psalm / by Jacqueline Osherow, b.1956
For this, I would have to be Chinese,
Wang Wei, to be precise, on a mountain,
autumn rain converging on the trees,
a cassia flower nearby, a cloud, a pine,
washerwomen heading home for the day,
my senses and the mountain so entirely in tune
that when my stroke of blue arrives, I’m ready.
Though there is no rain here: the air’s shot through
with gold on golden leaves.
