For language and poor maidens and the last day of June, since I know how to count these things after all, from Sound the Deep Waters: Women’s Romantic Poetry in the Victorian Age.
from The Mountain Maid / by Dora Sigerson Shorter
Half seated on a mossy crag,
Half crouching in the heather;
I found a little Irish maid,
All in June’s golden weather.
For moments that shine, wherever you find them, from Poem A Day, Volume 2.
from Sparkles from the Wheel / by Walt Whitman
Where the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day,
Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with them.
For your waxing crescent moon today, from Metamorphoses, translated by Charles Martin.
from Metamorphoses: Medea and Aeson / by Publius Ovidius Naso/Ovid
[the moon] sets out walking barefoot from her house,
with garments loosened and with unbound hair
cascading down her back, and makes her way
without companion, straying through the deep
silence of midnight, when men and birds and beasts
are all released into profound repose,
with not a peep or murmur from the hedgerow,
and in the trees the leaves are stilly silent,
and even the dewy air is motionless;
she lifts her arms up to the brilliant stars
For creating a moment in a Tuesday passed, from The Voice That is Great Within Us (1970).
from About an Excavation / by E.E. Cummings
About an excavation
a flock of bright red lanterns
has settled.
For house sitting, a summer activity that can occur anywhere, even in 122-degree Palm Springs, which my sister, brother-in-law and niece did this week, from The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry (1990).
from Staying at Ed’s Place / by May Swenson
I like being in your apartment, and not disturbing anything.
As in the woods I wouldn’t want to move a tree,
or change the play of sun and shadow on the ground.
For our summer traveler who loved his time on the road, from The New American Poetry, edited by Donald M. Allen (1960).
from 219th Chorus / by Jack Kerouac
Saints, I give myself up to thee.
Thou hast me. What mayest thou do?
For our memories, which we keep and share for a finite time, from Poem A Day: Volume 2, edited by Laurie Sheck, a perpetual calendar of poems; this one’s for a June 24.
from The Willows by the Water Side / by Anonymous, a Tewa Song, translated by Herbert Joseph Spinden
My little breath, under the willows by the water side we used to sit
And there the yellow cottonwood bird came and sang.
For folklore and translation, from Mouth to Mouth: Poems by Twelve Contemporary Mexican Women.
from Folklore / by Elena Milan, translated by Forrest Gander
Nevertheless, we go dancing through the streets
to the rhythm of rattles and clarinets with a thousand reeds,
between the toppling waves and their multicolored thunder
For who doesn’t love to do math in the summer? From Poetry 180.
from Numbers / by Mary Cornish
I like the domesticity of addition —
add two cups of milk and stir —
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.
For origin tales, from The Penguin Book of Women Poets.
from Goat’s Leaf / by Marie de France
Well pleasing ’tis to me
The lay called Goat’s leaf,
And I wish the truth to say,
How and where it came to be.
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