For poetry garage friends, from Villanelles, edited by Annie Finch, and Marie-Elizabeth Mali.
from The Crossing, After Theodore Roethke / by Robert Schechter
This running makes me nervous. I should know.
What roasts my skin is always. And is near.
DPF / Siken
For brothers and oak trees, from The Fairy Tale Review: The Mauve Issue.
from The Story of the Moon / by Richard Siken
Then, celebration: dancing in red
coats on the meadow.
DPF / Aragon
For cradles and birds, from The Poetry of Surrealism, An Anthology, edited by Michael Benedikt.
from Once and For All / by Louis Aragon (1897-1982)
What then is love?
–A gold ring around the clouds.
DPF / Toomer
For birth and its magic, from The Oxford Book of American Poetry, edited by David Lehman. Happy birthday, Baby Ezra!
from November Cotton Flower / by Jean Toomer (1894-1967)
Such was the season when the flower bloomed.
Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed
Significance.
DPF / Reeves
For rivers, from The Best American Poetry, 2014, guest edited by Terrance Hayes. Series editor: David Lehman.
from The Field Museum / by Roger Reeves (originally published in The Cincinnati Review)
Quetzal, starthroat, nightjar, grebe, and artic loon:
This ash for my daughter’s tongue, I give without
Sackcloth or sugar
DPF / Öijer
For stars and stardust, from The Star By My Head, Poets from Sweden, edited and translated by Malena Mörling and Jonas Ellerström.
from Eleven Hundred Eighty One / by Bruno K. Öijer, b. 1951
for your sake we should say
that you are standing on a cold, drafty castle courtyard
DPF / Zurita
For light again, from The FSG Book of Latin American Poetry, edited by Ilan Stavans.
from Zurita / by Raúl Zurita, Chile, b. 1951, translated by Jack Schmidt
because in the depths of night
he had seen a star
DPF / Skolfield
For divining rods and rain, from Thrush Poetry Journal, an anthology of the first two years, edited by Helen Vitoria and designed by Walter Bjorkman.
from How to Locate Water on a Deserted Island / by Karen Skolfield
Darling, these are the palm trees
we’ve endlessly discussed
DPF / Chaucer
For four of my very favorite lines in all of poetry, from The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Fourth Edition, 1.
from The Canterbury Tales / by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)
Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veine in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr
DPF / Herrick
A classic for spring’s second day, from poetryfoundation.org.
from To Daffodils / by Robert Herrick
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 