DPF / Plath

For a favorite, from poets.org.

from Tulips / by Sylvia Plath

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.

DPF / Ekelöf

For the moon and the sun, from The Star By My Head.

from Sung / by Gunnar Ekelöf, translated by Malena Mörling and Jonas Ellerström

The night tonight is a starry clear one.
The air is clean and cold.
The moon is searching in all things
for its lost inheritance.

DPF / Öijer

For a belated day and what we would say to our younger selves if we could, from The Star By My Head. 

from Hold Him There / by Bruno K. Öijer, translated by Malena Mörling and Jonas Ellerström

without thinking
I had phoned my childhood
listened to the dial tone that went through
and when my mom answered
I asked to speak to myself
after a long while
a seven year old boy took the receiver
and his voice pierced my heart

DPF / Hughes

For Back-to-School, Week #2, from a favorite poet, and from poets.org.

from Theme for English B / by Langston Hughes

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.

DPF / Collins

For the chickens near my classroom which remind me of my grandparents’ home on top of a Kentucky mountain, from Kevin’s Much-Loved Poems.

from Nostalgia/ by Billy Collins

Remember the 1340s? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.

You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,

and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,

the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.

DPF / Sandburg

For the silvers and golds of summer, from poets.org.

from Back Yard / by Carl Sandburg

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

DPF / Jackson

For the month with an adjective for a name, from poets.org.

from August / by Helen Hunt Jackson

Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects’ aimless industry.

DPF / Gregg

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.

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.