For another rain dance, from American Poets in the 21st Century, edited by Claudia Rankine & Lisa Sewell. We’ve had .04 inches of rain since May 1, 2016.
from John Keats / by Mark Levine
And we saw thunder
float above us in a spool of cloud.
21st-Century American Poetry
DPF / Tufariello
PIA: from an April 30.
For the last day of National Poetry Month, 2016, from a sweet friend and her book, Keeping My Name.
from Chemist’s Daughter / by Catherine Tufariello
a Milky Way
was whirling on the tip of my fingernail,
ten thousand planets dancing on its pale
half moon
DPF / Szymborska
For the moments before, when the world was one kind of world, some different from what it became during and after those moments, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Photograph from September 11 / by Wislawa Szymborska, translated by Clare Cavanagh
The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.
DPF / Petersen
For beauty from anywhere, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Autobiographical Fragment / by Katie Petersen
In those days I began to see light under every
bushel basket
DPF / Mark
For forever and never, from a favorite woman and her book-a-favorite book, Tsim Tsum.
from The Oldest Animal Writes a Letter Home / by Sabrina Orah Mark
May it is not impossibled the arms wave gloryisplea in the wynds for me? I ask the sheeps. The sheeps say everything is not impossibled. I knowed those arms is not That Mutter’s arms. I clopse my eyes and pretend.
DPF / Collins
PIA: from August 15, 2015.
For carrying infants through the house, from Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins.
from White Towels / by Richard Jones
I have been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness,
telling the story of my life
DPF / Harjo
For ocean and crows and souls, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Ah, Ah / by Joy Harjo
Ah, ah calls the sun from a fishing boat with a pale, yellow sail. We fly by
on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars.
DPF / Tate
For fairy tales and missing fathers, from return to the city of white donkeys.
from It Happens Like This / by James Tate (1943-2015)
The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped
and looked up at me. ‘Mind if I pat him?’ he asked.
‘Touching this goat will change your life,’ I said.
‘It’s your decision.’
DPF / Padgett
For one kind of lesson (from a repeat poem) on the night before all the lessons begin again for the 2016-2017 school year. Class of ’17+, your first day is tomorrow! From How to be Perfect.
from History Lesson / by Ron Padgett
I think that Geoffrey Chaucer did not move
the way a modern person moves.
He moved only an inch at a time, in what
we call stop action.
DPF / Sweeney
PIA: from August 26, 2014.
For sisters, from the 2009 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poetry, How to Live on Bread and Music.
from The Three Sisters / by Jennifer K. Sweeney b. 1973
How many times have I peered
into the sloop and slag of childhood
as if shaking up a snow globe
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 