For going home, from Worldly Hopes. Okay, apologies that I had ALMONDS on my mind.
from I Went Back / by A.R. Ammons
I went back
to my old home
and the furrow
of each year
plowed like
surf
Poetry
DPF / Kumin
For writing as salvation, from Nurture. I saw Maxine Kumin speak at the Key West Literary Seminar in January of 2010 (kwls.org). She had such a peaceful spirit and calming manner.
from On Being Asked to Write a Poem in Memory of Anne Sexton / by Maxine Kumin (1925-2014)
The elk discards his antlers every spring.
They rebud, they grow, they are growing
an inch a day to form a rococo rack
DPF / Howe
For waiting of all kinds, from The End.
from Lines Out to Silence / by Fanny Howe
How long I’ve waited, I can’t count
Long days in green — eternal advent —
DPF / Shakespeare
For a favorite poem of late autumn, from late summer, and from The Norton Introduction to Literature, Ninth Edition, edited by Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays.
from [That time of year thou mayst in me behold] / by William Shakespeare, 1609
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
DPF / Koeneke
For a Monday at home, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Labor Day / by Rodney Koeneke
While time for them is a melody
played at long intervals across condominiums
we who are the power
know our systems so much better
now come to this hour outside it
now give it new form on guitar
DPF / Millar
For the long weekend, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Labor Day / by Joseph Millar
No one lays a flat bead of flux over a metal seam
or lowers the steel forks from a tailgate.
Shadows gather inside the sleeve
of the empty thermos beside the sink,
the bells go still by the channel buoy,
the wind lies down in the west
DPF / Walcott
For home, from The Arkansas Testament, a signed copy. This one isn’t signed to me, but I think I have one that is signed that is mine from Florida, from some time between 1987 and 1988 when, after the reading, our UF creative writing class got to sit down to dinner with Mr. Walcott.
from The Light of the World / by Derek Walcott
I was afraid I might suddenly start sobbing
on the public transport with the Marley going,
and a small boy peering over the shoulders
of the driver and me at the lights coming,
at the rush of the road in the country darkness,
with lamps in the houses on the small hills,
and thickets of stars
DPF / Hugo
For small towns, fragments, and returns, from What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American.
from Reading at the Old Federal Courts Building, St. Paul / by Richard Hugo
That girl who laughed,
first trial, is teaching high school and she
didn’t know me when she said she loved my poems,
was using them in class to demonstrate how
worlds are put together, one fragment at a time.
DPF / Akhmatova
For fairytales, from The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova.
from Lullaby / by Anna Akhmatova
Far off in the enormous forest,
Near the dark blue river,
There lived in a dark hut with his children
A poor woodcutter.
DPF / Berryman
For work, from The Dream Songs.
from Dream Song #30 / by John Berryman
As a little boy I always thought
“I’m an archaeologist”; who
could be more respected peaceful serious than that?
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 