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.
Poetry
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 all the readers out there and for those readers headed back to work after any summer vacation, I hope you got to enjoy some great summer reads, from poets.org.
from Dear Reader / by Billy Collins
Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.
DPF / Greenbaum
For our lived-in house renovation, from poets.org; the diy part is not as easy as it looked on paper!
from Regardless of Disaster / by Jessica Greenbaum
Only through a disaster or a renovation
does the entire brick side of a house come down
and in this case the workmen threw stoves and refrigerators
out the windows, letting them bounce
off the fire escapes into the little Brooklyn yard.
DPF / Walcott
For a bit more summer, from poets.org.
from A Lesson for This Sunday / by Derek Walcott
The growing idleness of summer grass
With its frail kites of furious butterflies
Requests the lemonade of simple praise
In scansion gentler than my hammock swings
DPF / Emerson
For poetry, which sits on the shelves with feet dangling down, calling to us all year long, from poets.org.
from The Poet / by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The etymologist finds the deadest word to
have been once a brilliant picture. Language is
fossil poetry.
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 / Zucker
For travel days, from the pedestrians.
from the other city / by Rachel Zucker
‘Yes,’ she thought, through a haze of jet lag, ‘there should be no limits placed on the value of a very fine cheese.’
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 