Day Ninety Two

Allergies...

Sneezles

by A. A. Milne

Christopher Robin

Had wheezles

And sneezles,

They bundled him

Into

His bed.

They gave him what goes

With a cold in the nose,

And some more for a cold

In the head.

They wondered

If wheezles

Could turn

Into measles,

If sneezles

Would turn

Into mumps;

They examined his chest

For a rash,

and the rest

Of his body for swellings and lumps.

They sent for some doctors

In sneezles

And wheezles

To tell them what ought

To be done.

All sorts of conditions

Of famous physicians

Came hurrying round

At a run.

They all made a note

Of the state of his throat,

They asked if he suffered from thirst;

They asked if the sneezles

Came after the wheezles,

Or if the first sneezle

Came first.

They said, “If you teazle

A sneezle

Or wheezle,

A measle

May easily grow.

But humour or pleazle

The wheezle

Or sneezle,

The measle

Will certainly go.”

They expounded the reazles

For sneezles

And wheezles,

The manner of measles

When new.

They said, “If he freezles

In draughts and in breezles,

Then PHTHEEZLES

May even ensue.”

Christopher Robin

Got up in the morning,

The sneezles had vanished away.

And the look in his eye

Seemed to say to the sky,

“Now, how to amuse them today?”

Day Ninety One

Happy Memorial Day! Thanks to all the armed forces. We are free because of the brave.

I Hear America Singing

by Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Day Ninety

i am a little church

by e.e. cummings

i am a little church (no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection;
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church (far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever;
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

Day Eighty Nine

aaahhh, I didn't post yesterday, and it's because I had no time.

No Time

by Billy Collins

In a rush this weekday morning,

I tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery

where my parents are buried

side by side under a smooth slab of granite.

Then, all day long, I think of him rising up

to give me that look

of knowing disapproval

while my mother calmly tells him to lie back down.

Day Eighty Eight

Pity the Beautiful

by Dana Gioia

Pity the beautiful,

the dolls, and the dishes,

the babes with big daddies

granting their wishes.

Pity the pretty boys,

the hunks, and Apollos,

the golden lads whom

success always follows.

The hotties, the knock-outs,

the tens out of ten,

the drop-dead gorgeous,

the great leading men.

Pity the faded,

the bloated, the blowsy,

the paunchy Adonis

whose luck’s gone lousy.

Pity the gods,

no longer divine.

Pity the night

the stars lose their shine.

Day Eighty Seven

Understudy

by Daniel Lusk

Old men who eat alone in small cafes

arrange the silver carefully

beside the plate.

It crawls inside their cuffs

and edges out again along their templates

and the gothic arches of their brows.

Arranging is the life

now

isn't it.

Old men check their watches

frequently,

lest the sand run out unnoticed

onto the table by the water glass.

Their hands flutter

over the fork and spoon again, the knife,

as if the knife were a lost opportunity

or a love that might be set to rights.

Attentive as they are to these

small handles,

I suspect if they let go

they'll belly up with loneliness

and float off toward the ceiling fans

in all these small cafes

where I sit watching, hours on end,

to learn their little order,

eating alone.

Day Eighty Six

I love this poem. Call me a sucker for tragedy.

Ever After

by Joyce Sutphen

What am I to you now that you are no

longer what you used to be to me?

Who are we to each other now that

there is no us, now that what we once

were is divided into me and you

who are not one but two separate and

unrelated persons except for that ex-

that goes in front of the words

that used to mean me, used to mean

you, words we rarely used (husband, wife)

as when we once posed (so young and helpless)

with our hands (yours, mine) clasped on the knife

that was sinking into the tall white cake.

All that sweetness, the layers of one thing

and then another, and then one thing again.

Day Eighty Five

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

by John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Day Eighty Four

Mmm, summer.

Toasting Marshmallows

by Kristine O'Connell George

I am a careful marshmallow toaster,

a patient marshmallow roaster,

turning my stick oh-so-slowly,

taking my time, checking often.

This is art---

a time of serious reflection

as my pillowed confection

slowly reaches golden perfection.

My brother

grabs ‘em with grubby hands

shoves ‘em on the stick

burns ‘em to a crisp

cools ‘em off

flicks soot

eats quick.

I’m still turning my stick.

He’s already eaten six.

Day Eighty Three

Happy Sabbath.

Death, Be Not Proud

by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Day Eighty Two

This poem is a tad creepy, but I love it. It is a beautiful day and the world is mudlucious and puddle-wonderful.

in Just

by e. e. cummings

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

Day Eighty One

Self-Dependence

by Matthew Arnold

Weary of myself, and sick of asking

What I am, and what I ought to be,

At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me

Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send:

"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me,

Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters,

On my heart your mighty charm renew;

Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,

Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,

Over the lit sea's unquiet way,

In the rustling night-air came the answer:

"Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.

"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,

Undistracted by the sights they see,

These demand not that the things without them

Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

"And with joy the stars perform their shining,

And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll;

For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting

All the fever of some differing soul.

"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful

In what state God's other works may be,

In their own tasks all their powers pouring,

These attain the mighty life you see."

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,

A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:

"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he,

Who finds himself, loses his misery!"

Day Eighty

It's Katie's birthday, and since she's more than half the reason I started reading poetry in the first place, I dedicate these poems to her. The following two poems are from "180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day," the first book of poetry Katie introduced me to. I'm posting two because I can't bring myself to just post "Nothing In That Drawer" (I think it's stupid but Katie loves it, so it's for her).

Nothing in That Drawer

by Ron Padgett

Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in that drawer.

"Even Ornaments of Speech are Forms of Deceit"

by Ron Koertge

It’s 1667. Reason is everywhere, saving
for the future, ordering a small glass of wine.
Cause, arm in arm with Effect, strolls by
in sturdy shoes.

Of course, there are those who venture
out under cover of darkness to buy a bag
of metaphors or even some personification
from Italy, primo and uncut.

But for the most part, poets like Roderigo
stroll the boulevards in their normal hats.
When he thinks of his beloved, he opens
his notebook with a flourish.

“Your lips,” he writes, “are like
lips.”

Day Seventy Nine

Apparently I like war poetry...

Arms and the Boy

by Wilfred Owen

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade

How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;

Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;

And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads

Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads.

Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,

Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.

There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;

And God will grow no talons at his heels,

Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

Day Seventy Eight

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection

Day Seventy Seven

I am slowly discovering the awesome beauty that is the poetry of Dylan Thomas. The sounds in this poem are magnificent.

Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed

by Dylan Thomas

Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound

In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat

On the silent sea we have heard the sound

That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet.

Under the mile off moon we trembled listening

To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound

And when the salt sheet broke in a storm of singing

The voices of all the drowned swam on the wind.

Open a pathway through the slow sad sail,

Throw wide to the wind the gates of the wandering boat

For my voyage to begin to the end of my wound,

We heard the sea sound sing, we saw the salt sheet tell.

Lie still, sleep becalmed, hide the mouth in the throat,

Or we shall obey, and ride with you through the drowned.

Day Seventy Six

The Windows

by George Herbert

Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?

He is a brittle crazy glass;

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford

This glorious and transcendent place,

To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,

Making thy life to shine within

The holy preachers, then the light and glory

More reverend grows, and more doth win;

Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.

Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one

When they combine and mingle, bring

A strong regard and awe; but speech alone

Doth vanish like a flaring thing,

And in the ear, not conscience, ring.

Day Seventy Five

Expectations

by Kay Ryan

We expect rain
to animate this
creek: these rocks
to harbor gurgles,
these pebbles to
creep downstream
a little, those leaves
to circle in the
eddy, the stains
and gloss of wet.
The bed is ready

but no rain yet.

Day Seventy Four

We Wear the Mask

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Day Seventy Three

Hate Poem

by Julie Sheehan

I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging
from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant “good morning”: hate.
You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head
under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.

Day Seventy Two

Forever – is composed of Nows –

by Emily Dickinson

Forever – is composed of Nows –

‘Tis not a different time –

Except for Infiniteness –

And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –

Remove the Dates – to These –

Let Months dissolve in further Months –

And Years – exhale in Years –

Without Debate – or Pause –

Or Celebrated Days –

No different Our Years would be

From Anno Dominies –

Day Seventy One

A belated birthday shout-out to Carolyn, who recommended this poem to me. <3

Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Day Seventy

The Battle of Blenheim

by Robert Southey

It was a summer evening,

Old Kaspar's work was done,

And he before his cottage door

Was sitting in the sun,

And by him sported on the green

His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round

Which he beside the rivulet

In playing there had found;

He came to ask what he had found,

That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,

Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,

And with a natural sigh,

"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,

"Who fell in the great victory.

"I find them in the garden,

For there's many here about;

And often when I go to plough,

The ploughshare turns them out!

For many thousand men," said he,

"Were slain in that great victory."

"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"

Young Peterkin, he cries;

And little Wilhelmine looks up

With wonder-waiting eyes;

"Now tell us all about the war,

And what they fought each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,

"Who put the French to rout;

But what they fought each other for

I could not well make out;

But everybody said," quoth he,

"That 'twas a famous victory.

"My father lived at Blenheim then,

Yon little stream hard by;

They burnt his dwelling to the ground,

And he was forced to fly;

So with his wife and child he fled,

Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round

Was wasted far and wide,

And many a childing mother then,

And new-born baby died;

But things like that, you know, must be

At every famous victory.

"They said it was a shocking sight

After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun;

But things like that, you know, must be

After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won,

And our good Prince Eugene."

"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"

Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay ... nay ... my little girl," quoth he,

"It was a famous victory."

"And everybody praised the Duke

Who this great fight did win."

"But what good came of it at last?"

Quoth little Peterkin.

"Why, that I cannot tell," said he,

"But 'twas a famous victory."

Day Sixty Nine

Happy Mother's Day! This poem is for all the mothers who love their children fiercely and truly. And it's kind of for Katie, who, I know for a fact, loves this poem.

Bedecked

by Victoria Redel

Tell me it's wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy

store rings he clusters four jewels to each finger.

He's bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star

choker, the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.

Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says

sticker earrings look too fake.

Tell me I should teach him it's wrong to love the glitter that a

boy's only a boy who'd love a truck with a remote that revs,

battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping

off tracks into the tub.

Then tell me it's fine—really—maybe even a good thing—a boy

who's got some girl to him,

and I'm right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in

the park.

Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son

who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means—

this way or that—but for the way facets set off prisms and

prisms spin up everywhere

and from his own jeweled body he's cast rainbows—made every

shining true color.

Now try to tell me—man or woman—your heart was ever once

that brave.

Day Sixty Eight

Report of Health

by John Updike

I

I am alone tonight.
The wrong I have done you
sits like a sore beneath my thumb,
burns like a boil on my heart's left side.
I am unwell.

My viscera, long clenched in love of you,
have undergone a detested relaxation.

There is, within, a ghostly maze
of phantom tubes and nodules where
those citizens, our passions, flit; and here,
like sunlight passing from a pattern of streets,
I feel your bright love leaving.

II

Another night. Today I am told,
dear friend, by another,
you seem happy and well.
Nothing could hurt me more.

How dare you be happy, you,
shaped so precisely for me,
my cup and my mirror -
how dare you disdain to betray,
by some disarray of your hair,
my being torn from you?

I would rather believe
that you knew your friend would come to me,
and so seemed well -
"not a hair out of place" -
like an actress blindly hurling a pose
into the fascinated darkness.

As for me, you are still the eyes of the air.
I travel from point to point in your presence.
Each unattended gesture hopes to catch your eye.


III

I may not write again. My voice
goes nowhere. Dear friend,
don't let me heal. Don't
worry, I am well.
I am happy
to dwell in a world whose Hell I will:

the doorway hints at your ghost
and a tiger pounces on my heart;
the lilac bush is a devil
inviting me into your hair.

Day Sixty Seven

The Secret

by Denise Levertov

Two girls discover

the secret of life

in a sudden line of

poetry.

I who don’t know the

secret wrote

the line. They

told me

(through a third person)

they had found it

but not what it was

not even

what line it was. No doubt

by now, more than a week

later, they have forgotten

the secret,

the line, the name of

the poem. I love them

for finding what

I can’t find,

and for loving me

for the line I wrote,

and for forgetting it

so that

a thousand times, till death

finds them, they may

discover it again, in other

lines

in other

happenings. And for

wanting to know it,

for

assuming there is

such a secret, yes,

for that

most of all.

Day Sixty Six

Innominatus

by Sir Walter Scott

BREATHES there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

Day Sixty Five

Musée des Beaux Arts

by W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Day Sixty Four

Love Songs In Age

by Philip Larkin

She kept her songs, they kept so little space,
The covers pleased her:
One bleached from lying in a sunny place,
One marked in circles by a vase of water,
One mended, when a tidy fit had seized her,
And coloured, by her daughter -
So they had waited, till, in widowhood
She found them, looking for something else, and stood

Relearning how each frank submissive chord
Had ushered in
Word after sprawling hyphenated word,
And the unfailing sense of being young
Spread out like a spring-woken tree, wherein
That hidden freshness sung,
That certainty of time laid up in store
As when she played them first. But, even more,

The glare of that much-mentionned brilliance, love,
Broke out, to show
Its bright incipience sailing above,
Still promising to solve, and satisfy,
And set unchangeably in order. So
To pile them back, to cry,
Was hard, without lamely admitting how
It had not done so then, and could not now. 

Day Sixty Three

Be Prepared

by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

When the black plague hit the Saxon army in 1340s,
they didn’t let this stop them. Instead they catapulted
the diseased corpses of their fellow soldiers directly
into the enemy camp. It worked. Within a year, half
of Scotland was dead. Half the Saxons were dead too,
but at least, they knew how to put their dead to work.

In the 1930s, in the middle of legendary circus tent fire
which would swallow almost 200 people, a little boy
with a club foot remembered his boy scout pen knife
and sliced a hole through the tent large enough for him
and 300 other strangers to fit through. He thought this
would make people see past his disability. The next day,
the headline read: Boy with Club Foot Saves Hundreds.

In 2008, the U.S. National Parks Service reported
a significant uptick in suicides with their parks.
I guess they want to die someplace beautiful, said
the parks spokesman, but this is not the answer.
The Grand Canyon claims the most suicides by far
and park rangers are now instructed to look out
for signs: notes taped to steering wheels; weeping;
the lone person staring too long into the abyss.

In 2009, I stare into the abyss of another poem
struggling hard not to include you. Obviously,
it fails when, in the last stanza, you appear,
out of nowhere, mute, nodding your woolly head.
Look, I have no dead Saxon to throw at you,
no knife to slice through your lingering everything.
I only have this poem, the one I am taping
to the steering wheel of page, swearing to you
I’m not lonely, that I don’t miss you at all, that
I was grateful when silence enveloped us both,
happy that if the “us” we became had to die,
at least it would be someplace beautiful.

Day Sixty Two

Goodbye National Poetry Month, hello May!

i thank You God for most this amazing
by e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)