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.
20th-Century American Poetry
DPF / Gregg
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.
DPF / Sandburg
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
DPF / Frost
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.
DPF / Collins
For one summer activity that I hope you were able to enjoy this year, from poets.org.
from Fishing on the Susquehanna in July / by Billy Collins
I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.
Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure—if it is a pleasure—
of fishing on the Susquehanna.
DPF / Wright
For the end of students’ and teachers’ summers is near, and from a poet whose age is the same as mine in this poem, from poets.org, 1935.
from After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard / by Charles Wright
East of me, west of me, full summer.
How deeper than elsewhere the dusk is in your own yard.
Birds fly back and forth across the lawn
looking for home
As night drifts up like a little boat.
DPF / Collins
For a favorite poem from poets.org.
from To My Favorite 17-Year-Old-High-School Girl / by Billy Collins
A few centuries later, when he was your age,
Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family,
but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies, four operas and two complete masses as a youngster.
But of course, that was in Austria at the height of Romantic lyricism
DPF / Plath
For if only we had her today, she’d be 84 until her birthday this year, from the St. Martins Press first edition of this (prose) children’s book, The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit.
from The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit / by Sylvia Plath
wonderful
woolly
whiskery
brand-new
mustard-yellow
IT-DOESN’T-MATTER SUIT
DPF / Plath
For her looking back over such a short life, and for myself, though I’ve wished it, we never could have crossed paths, as Plath died 17 days before I was born, from the Faber and Faber first edition of Winter Trees.
from Mystic / by Sylvia Plath
The children leap in their cots.
The sun blooms, it is a geranium.
The heart has not stopped.
DPF / Plath
For memories of teenage jobs and all that looking back from a different vantage, from the Faber and Faber first edition of Crossing the Water.
from The Babysitters / by Sylvia Plath
It is ten years, now, since we rowed to Children’s Island.
The sun flamed straight down that noon on the water off Marblehead.
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 