For a scary book, almost worse than nightmares and some real days, from Crow.
from Lineage / by Ted Hughes
Who begat Nothing
Who begat Never
Never Never Never
Who begat Crow
Month: May 2017
DPF / Roethke
For trees and birds, two of my favorite things, from one of Plath’s kind angels of influence, and from The Far Field.
from The Tree, the Bird / by Theodore Roethke
Uprose, uprose, the stony field uprose,
And every snail dipped toward me its pure horn.
The sweet light met me as I walked toward
A small voice calling from a drifting cloud.
DPF / Collins
For a beloved book with a great title that always feels especially relevant in May, especially if one is a teacher, from The Art of Drowning.
from The Biography of a Cloud / by Billy Collins
We do know this much:
that it billowed white at the mountainous top
and its flat underside was the gray of headstones;
that it slid onto the land and felt its way
over the contours of several western states,
always moving eastward, from left to right,
the way the eye moves over print
as if it were reading the earth with its blind shadow.
DPF / Bishop
For a most-famous simile, from The Complete Poems, 1927-1979.
from The Bight / by Elizabeth Bishop
Some of the little white boats are still piled up
against each other, or lie on their sides, stove in,
and not yet salvaged, if they ever will be, from the last bad storm,
like torn-open, unanswered letters.
DPF / Walcott
For his own elegy, in memory of our loss, from Poetry, May 2017.
from The day / by Derek Walcott (1930-2017)
the rusted meadows, the wind-whitened grass,
the coos of the stone-colored ground doves on the road,
the echo of benediction on a house –
DPF / Berryman
For if it’s your birthday today, happy birthday to you, from The Dream Songs.
from Dream Song #112 / by John Berryman
I say again, It is my Lady’s birthday
which must be honoured, for her high black hair
but not for that alone:
for every word she utters everywhere
shows her good soul, as true as a healed bone,–
being part of what I meant to say.
DPF / Borges
For I’ve heard of the theory of directing one’s dreams, but I haven’t met anyone who does, from Dreamtigers.
from Dreamtigers / by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Mildred Boyer and Harold Morland
The tiger indeed appears, but stuffed or flimsy, or with impure variations of shape, or of an implausible size, or all too fleeting, or with a touch of the dog or the bird.
DPF / Milosz
For things happening all around us which we can sometimes see, and sometimes cannot, but still they happen, from The Collected Poems.
from The Parable of the Poppy / by Czeslaw Milosz
On a poppy seed is a tiny house,
Dogs bark at the poppy-seed moon,
And never, never do those poppy-seed dogs
Imagine that somewhere there is a world much larger.
DPF / Hawley
For may your muse be kinder and gentler than Ms. Hawley’s, from The Collected Poems.
from The Muse / by Beatrice Hawley
or she stands with her face
pressed against my window
trying to shatter glass
by turns with ice, with fire.
DPF / Strand
For if we can save them, we may only be able to save them one at a time, from Reasons for Moving.
from The Babies / by Mark Strand
Let us hurry.
Let us save the babies.
Let us try to save the babies.
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 