DPF / Bishop

For one of the wonderful poetry aunts, from The Complete Poems.

from At the Fishhouses / by Elizabeth Bishop

If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.

DPF / Steidlmayer

For getting a toe x-ray today, from poetryfoundation.org.

from The X-Ray / by Heidy Steidlmayer

I could imagine a lanthorn
as it swallows its strange light and gleams
from within as if reborn

DPF / Mark

For the musicians and wonder teachers, from The Babies.

from Box Three, Spool Five / by Sabrina Orah Mark

Behind me I can hear me shuffling closer and closer: Be again. Be. Again. I try very hard to pray with all these hands against my back. I miss the keeper of this accordion.

DPF / Williams

For spring, from Americanpoems.com.

from Spring and All / by William Carlos Williams

One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted they
grip down and begin to awaken

DPF / Woodson

For parents, from poetryfoundation.org.

from Parents Poem / by Jacqueline Woodson

I can still feel their voices and hugs and laughing.
Sometimes.
Sometimes I can hear my daddy
calling my name.
Lonnie sometimes.
And sometimes Locomotion
come on over here a minute.
I want to show you something.

 

DPF / Yeats

For St. Patrick’s Day and passing moments, from poetryfoundation.org.

from The Wild Swans at Coole / by William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

DPF / Jewett

For our mother’s first day in Heaven today, from poetryfoundation.org.

from To a Child / by Sophie Jewett (1861-1909)

To-night the self-same songs are sung
   The first green forest heard;
My heart and the gray world grow young—
   To shelter you, my bird.

DPF / O’Rourke

For parents, from poetryfoundation.org.

from The Night Where You No Longer Live / by Meghan O’Rourke

Do you intend to come back

 

Do you hear the world’s keening

 

Will you stay the night

DPF / Clifton

For mothers and yesterdays, from poetryfoundation.org.

from oh antic God / by Lucille Clifton

oh antic God
return to me
my mother in her thirties
leaned across the front porch

DPF / Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour

For a happy birthday to my sister today, from poetryfoundation.org.

from Journal, Day 46 / by Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour

Truth is, I’m in LA today, at a 2-day conference for experimental poetry called Impunities.