For a little snow in the summer, from Poetry, October/November 1963.

from II Snow Line / by John Berryman

It was wet & white & swift & where I am
I don’t know. It was dark and then
it isn’t.

For a late Sunday evening in which the teenager, in the company of and watched over by kindness and grace, makes it home safely from the fair, from The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees. 

from Praise to the Mind / by Weldon Kees

Praise to the mind
That moves toward meaning,
Kindness; mixes keenness
With routine of
Grace, has space,
And finds its place.

For summer, from Gathering the Bones Together.

from The Transformation / by Gregory Orr

At night the house fills with seawater,
and you become a gigantic turtle.

For baseball, from The Old Life.

from The Thirteenth Inning / by Donald Hall

When the moon rises, light standards cast eldritch shadows
on players who cast no shadows, and we observe four
transparent pitchers superimposed on each other,
from ghostly Babe Ruth past Cy Young and Smokey Joe Wood
to Parson Lewis.

For pillars and dances, from Early Poems, 1935-1955.

from In Uxmal / by Octavio Paz

The time is transparent:
even if the bird is invisible,
let us see the color of his song.

For storks and books, from Ordinary Words.

from Reading / by Ruth Stone

The girl wraps her hands in her apron.
Small yellow flowers
have clumped among the tussocks
of coarse grass.

For full circles and the sea, from Selected Poems.

from Flowers by the Sea / by William Carlos Williams

When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s
edge, unseen, the salt ocean

lifts its form–chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone

but color and the movement

When under stress, try Tate. For the care and feeding of the imagination, from The Eternal Ones of the Dream.

from Behind the Milk Bottle / by James Tate

Once as a river of molten lava
poured through my living room
I was cut off from my emergency kit

For unexplainable happenings, from Song.

from Song / by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named
The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after
The night’s bush of stars, because the goat’s silky hair
Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit.

For one of May’s most welcome weathers, from Crown of Weeds.

from Introducing: The Clouds / by Amy Gerstler

Introducing: the clouds.
Billowing, tufted,
or ragged. Flying