DPF / Bishop

For somehow, it’s a Bishop kind of day, the kind of day when seals carry hymns to the ocean floor, from The Collected Poems. 

from At the Fishhouses / by Elizabeth Bishop

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly
I have seen here evening after evening.
He was curious about me. He was interested in music;
like me a believer in total immersion,
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.

DPF / Tate

For gnomes and magical thinking of all kinds, from poetryfoundation.org.

from Shroud of the Gnome / by James Tate

And what amazes me is that none of our modern inventions

surprise or interest him, even a little.

DPF / Plath

For a favorite, from poets.org.

from Tulips / by Sylvia Plath

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.

DPF / Ekelöf

For the moon and the sun, from The Star By My Head.

from Sung / by Gunnar Ekelöf, translated by Malena Mörling and Jonas Ellerström

The night tonight is a starry clear one.
The air is clean and cold.
The moon is searching in all things
for its lost inheritance.

DPF / Öijer

For a belated day and what we would say to our younger selves if we could, from The Star By My Head. 

from Hold Him There / by Bruno K. Öijer, translated by Malena Mörling and Jonas Ellerström

without thinking
I had phoned my childhood
listened to the dial tone that went through
and when my mom answered
I asked to speak to myself
after a long while
a seven year old boy took the receiver
and his voice pierced my heart

DPF / Collins

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.

DPF / Sandburg

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.

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.