For a favorite book of prose by a poet about the power of apology on the last day of National Poetry Month, from Bartholmew and the Oobleck.
from Bartholomew and the Ooblek / by Dr. Seuss
‘Oh, Bartholomew, I’m awfully, awfully sorry!’
And, the moment the King spoke those words, something happened…
For there are many different ways to celebrate prom night, and one way is by taking athletes to run races dear to their hearts, and one way is by actually having a prom night; our school is doing both tonight, from Poetry.
from Another Moon / by Zack Strait
Mama said
it only existed in storybooks
with its soft surface
of bluebells
but there it was
spinning so close to the earth
that it bent
every weather vane in Omaha
it was prom night
For whales and mariners, from Poetry, May 2017.
from The Cliff-Top Monastery / by A.B. Jackson
The crew half-slept that night, in golden cells
their dreams hatchlings, their nerves eggshells.
For those who serve and protect, with sorrow for the need, from The Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson.
from Charge of the Light Brigade / by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d
For the end of a long, many-win, cloud-cover, track-&-field day, from The Waste Land.
from The Waste Land: A Game of Chess / by T.S. Eliot
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
For no longer needing to follow one’s horoscope, if one does, when the days have passed for doing so, from horoscopes for the dead.
from Horoscopes for the Dead / by Billy Collins
But you will be relieved to learn
that you no longer need to reflect carefully before acting,
nor do you have to think more of others,
and never again will creative work take a back seat
to the business responsibilities that you never really had.
For marriage, from Poems of Akhmatova.
from ‘Three Things Enchanted Him’ / by Anna Akhmatova, translated by Stanley Kunitz with Max Hayward
Three things enchanted him:
white peacocks, evensong,
and faded maps of America.
For mothers, from North.
from Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication: for Mary Heaney / by Seamus Heaney
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove
sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.
For time and its non-linearity, from The Widening Spell of the Leaves.
from The Spell of the Leaves / by Larry Levis
Each morning she would watch her son, a boy of seven,
Yawn before mounting the steps, glinting like a sea,
When the doors of the school bus opened.
For creation, whatever the result, from Metamorphosis.
from Metamorphosis: Daedalus and Icarus / by Ovid, Publius Ovidius Naso, translated by Charles Martin
these were bound
together in the middle with flaxen thread
and then joined at the quills with molded wax;
and, finally, he bent them just a bit,
so they resembled bird’s wings.
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