For Back-to-School, Week #2, from a favorite poet, and from poets.org.
from Theme for English B / by Langston Hughes
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
For the chickens near my classroom which remind me of my grandparents’ home on top of a Kentucky mountain, from Kevin’s Much-Loved Poems.
from Nostalgia/ by Billy Collins
Remember the 1340s? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
For the silvers and golds of summer, from poets.org.
from Back Yard / by Carl Sandburg
Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.
For the month with an adjective for a name, from poets.org.
from August / by Helen Hunt Jackson
Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects’ aimless industry.
For the simple things, from Poem A Day, on the page for August 16.
from Alma in the Dark / by Linda Gregg (1942-)
He does not wake. Her heart in its nest
sings foolishly. It is awake and happy
and useless at the same time.
For our family’s last night of out-of-school summer tonight, from poets.org.
from Summer Stars / by Carl Sandburg
Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars
For looking into pools of water and seeing things and other summer pastimes, from poets.org.
from For Once, Then, Something / by Robert Frost
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out.
For all the readers out there and for those readers headed back to work after any summer vacation, I hope you got to enjoy some great summer reads, from poets.org.
from Dear Reader / by Billy Collins
Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.
For our lived-in house renovation, from poets.org; the diy part is not as easy as it looked on paper!
from Regardless of Disaster / by Jessica Greenbaum
Only through a disaster or a renovation
does the entire brick side of a house come down
and in this case the workmen threw stoves and refrigerators
out the windows, letting them bounce
off the fire escapes into the little Brooklyn yard.
For a bit more summer, from poets.org.
from A Lesson for This Sunday / by Derek Walcott
The growing idleness of summer grass
With its frail kites of furious butterflies
Requests the lemonade of simple praise
In scansion gentler than my hammock swings
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