“A Small Needful Fact” Is that Eric Garner worked for some time for the Parks and Rec. Horticultural Department, which means, perhaps, that with his very large hands, perhaps, in all likelihood, he put gently into the earth some plants which, most likely, some of them, in all likelihood, continue to grow, continue to do what such plants do, like house and feed small and necessary creatures, like being pleasant to touch and smell, like converting sunlight into food, like making it easier for us to breathe.
———
blessing the boats
By Lucille Clifton
Thelma Lucille Clifton (1936-2010)
(at St. Mary’s)
may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that
———
A Dream Within a Dream
By Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
———
April is a Dog’s Dream
By Marilyn Singer
Marilyn Singer (B. 1948)
april is a dog’s dream the soft grass is growing the sweet breeze is blowing the air all full of singing feels just right so no excuses now we’re going to the park to chase and charge and chew and I will make you see what spring is all about
———
Ultimately
By Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961)
He tried to spit out the truth; Dry mouthed at first, He drooled and slobbed in the end; Truth dribbling his chin.
“It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was an object of worship — why I haven’t been able to find out. From Egypt the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe.” — Better Living Cookbook
When I think how far the onion has traveled just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise all small forgotten miracles, crackly paper peeling on the drainboard, pearly layers in smooth agreement, the way the knife enters onion and onion falls apart on the chopping block, a history revealed. And I would never scold the onion for causing tears. It is right that tears fall for something small and forgotten. How at meal, we sit to eat, commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma but never on the translucence of onion, now limp, now divided, or its traditionally honorable career: For the sake of others, disappear.
———
Dust of Snow
By Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963).
The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.
———
on paper
By Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Amanda Woodson (B. 1963)
The first time I write my full name
Jacqueline Amanda Woodson
without anybody’s help on a clean white page in my composition notebook, I know
if I wanted to
I could write anything.
Letters becoming words, words gathering meaning, becoming thoughts outside my head
becoming sentences
written by
Jacqueline Amanda Woodson
———
My Life Has Been the Poem
By Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
My life has been the poem I would have writ But I could not both live and utter it.
———
Miscegenation
By Natasha Trethewey
Natasha Trethewey (B. 1966)
In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi.
They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose name begins with a sound like sin, the sound of wrong — mis in Mississippi.
A year later they moved to Canada, followed a route the same as slaves, the train slicing the white glaze of winter, leaving Mississippi.
Faulkner’s Joe Christmas was born in winter, like Jesus, given his name for the day he was left at the orphanage, his race unknown in Mississippi.
My father was reading War and Peace when he gave me my name. I was born near Easter, 1966, in Mississippi.
When I turned 33 my father said, It’s your Jesus year — you’re the same age he was when he died. It was spring, the hills green in Mississippi.
I know more than Joe Christmas did. Natasha is a Russian name — though I’m not; it means Christmas child, even in Mississippi.
When Amanda Gorman stepped to the podium to read “The Hill We Climb” at Biden’s inauguration, I had no idea who she was. I was impressed enough to find out.
She is 22, born in Los Angeles, has a twin sister. She was raised by a single mother, a sixth grade English teacher. Amanda attended private school K-12. She went to Harvard College on scholarship and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the academic honor society. She graduated cum laude in 2020 with a degree in sociology.
In kindergarten, Gorman was diagnosed with an auditory disorder in which the brain doesn’t properly interpret what is heard. She also has a condition that affects her pronunciation of certain words. With therapy and hard work, she was able to overcome both conditions.
Gorman began writing poetry in high school. In 2014, she was named the Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles. In 2015, she published her first book of poetry. In 2016, she founded a nonprofit to promote writing and leadership for young people.
In 2017, she was named the first National Youth Poet Laureate. In 2018, she was named one of Glamour Magazine’s College Women of the Year. In 2019, The Root Magazine named her one of the 25 best and brightest young African-Americans.
When the Bidens asked her to read a poem at the inauguration, “The Hill We Climb” was already written. Gorman amended it after the riots at the Capitol on January 6.
Last month, she signed with IMG Models, an international modeling agency. She plans to run for President in 2036.
“The Hill We Climb” has a few rough spots, but it is powerful, positive, uplifting stuff nonetheless.
This lady is smart, talented, focused, and aimed in the right direction. President Gorman sounds good to me.
The text of her poem is below.
Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans, and the world…
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always “justice.”
And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished. Far from pristine. But that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: that even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promised glade, the hill we climb if only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith, we trust. For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption we feared at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter. To offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be. A country that is bruised, but whole. Benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain: if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west. We will rise from the wind-swept northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked south. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover.
In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country, our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Into the gravity of my life, the serious ceremonies of polish and paper and pen, has come
this manic animal whose innocent disruptions make nonsense of my old simplicities —
as if I needed him to prove again that after all the careful planning, anything can happen.
———
Daybreak
By John Donne
John Donne (1572-1631)
STAY, O sweet and do not rise! The light that shines comes from thine eyes; The day breaks not: it is my heart Because that you and I must part. Stay! or else my joys will die And perish in their infancy.
———
Dust If You Must
By Rose Milligan
Attributed to Mrs. Rose Milligan, Lancaster, England
Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better To paint a picture, or write a letter, Bake a cake, or plant a seed; Ponder the difference between want and need?
Dust if you must, but there’s not much time, With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb; Music to hear, and books to read; Friends to cherish, and life to lead.
Dust if you must, but the world’s out there With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair; A flutter of snow, a shower of rain, This day will not come around again.
Dust if you must, but bear in mind, Old age will come and it’s not kind. And when you go (and go you must) You, yourself, will make more dust.
———
Down By the Salley Gardens
By William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Down by the salley* gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.
More poetry that isn’t pretentious and a waste of time…
———
Housekeeping
By Natasha Trethewey
Natasha Trethewey (B. 1966)
We mourn the broken things, chair legs
wrenched from their seats, chipped plates,
the threadbare clothes. We work the magic
of glue, drive the nails, mend the holes.
We save what we can, melt small pieces
of soap, gather fallen pecans, keep neck bones
for soup. Beating rugs against the house,
we watch dust, lit like stars, spreading
across the yard. Late afternoon, we draw
the blinds to cool the rooms, drive the bugs
out. My mother irons, singing, lost in reverie.
I mark the pages of a mail-order catalog,
listen for passing cars. All day we watch
for the mail, some news from a distant place.
———
I Wanna Be Yours
By John Cooper Clarke
John Cooper Clarke (B. 1949)
I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours
I wanna be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
when you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yours
I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
you’ll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
that’s how deep is my devotion
———
“Nature” Is What We See
By Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886)
“Nature” is what we see –
The Hill – the Afternoon –
Squirrel – Eclipse – the Bumble bee –
Nay – Nature is Heaven –
Nature is what we hear –
The Bobolink – the Sea –
Thunder – the Cricket –
Nay – Nature is Harmony –
Nature is what we know –
Yet have no art to say –
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.
———
A Love Song for Lucinda
By Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Love
Is a ripe plum
Growing on a purple tree.
Taste it once
And the spell of its enchantment
Will never let you be.
Love
Is a bright star
Glowing in far Southern skies.
Look too hard
And its burning flame
Will always hurt your eyes.
Love Is a high mountain Stark in a windy sky. If you Would never lose your breath Do not climb too high.
———
Church
By Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Amanda Woodson (B. 1963)
On Sundays, the preacher gives everyone a chance
to repent their sins. Miss Edna makes me go
to church. She wears a bright hat
I wear my suit. Babies dress in lace.
Girls my age, some pretty, some not so
pretty. Old ladies and men nodding.
Miss Edna every now and then throwing her hand
in the air. Saying Yes, Lord and Preach!
I sneak a pen from my back pocket,
bend down low like I dropped something.
The chorus marches up behind the preacher
clapping and humming and getting ready to sing.
More poetry that isn’t pretentious and a waste of time…
———
Mother o’ Mine
By Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose love would follow me still, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were drowned in the deepest sea, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
———
Angels
By Mary Oliver
Mary Jane Oliver (1935-2019)
You might see an angel anytime
and anywhere. Of course you have
to open your eyes to a kind of
second level, but it’s not really
hard. The whole business of
what’s reality and what isn’t has
never been solved and probably
never will be. So I don’t care to
be too definite about anything.
I have a lot of edges called Perhaps
and almost nothing you can call
Certainty. For myself, but not
for other people. That’s a place
you just can’t get into, not
entirely anyway, other people’s
heads.
I’ll just leave you with this.
I don’t care how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin. It’s
enough to know that for some people
they exist, and that they dance.
———
Mother to Son
By Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor – Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So, boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps. ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now – For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
———
Perhaps
By Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittain (1893-1970)
Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
And I shall see that still the skies are blue,
And feel once more I do not live in vain,
Although bereft of You.
Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet
Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,
And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,
Though You have passed away.
Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
And crimson roses once again be fair,
And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
Although You are not there.
Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain
To see the passing of the dying year,
And listen to Christmas songs again,
Although You cannot hear.
But though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.
– Dedicated to her fiancé Roland Aubrey Leighton, who was killed during WWI.
———
A Poison Tree
By William Blake
William Blake (1757-1827)
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
More poetry that isn’t pretentious and a waste of time…
———
The Song of Wandering Aengus*
By William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
* In Irish mythology, Aengus is the Love God. This poem tells the story of Aengus and the beautiful Caer, who appeared in his dreams, and for whom he searched for years thereafter. https://bardmythologies.com/aengus-og/
———
I Am
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
I Know not whence I came,
I know not whither I go;
But the fact stands clear that I am here
In this world of pleasure and woe.
And out of the mist and murk
Another truth shines plain —
It is my power each day and hour
To add to its joy or its pain.
I know that the earth exists,
It is none of my business why;
I cannot find out what it’s all about,
I would but waste time to try.
My life is a brief, brief thing,
I am here for a little space,
And while I stay I would like, if I may,
To brighten and better the place.
The trouble, I think, with us all
Is the lack of a high conceit.
If each man thought he was sent to this spot
To make it a bit more sweet,
How soon we could gladden the world,
How easily right all wrong,
If nobody shirked, and each one worked
To help his fellows along!
Cease wondering why you came —
Stop looking for faults and flaws;
Rise up to-day in your pride and say,
‘I am part of the First Great Cause!
However full the world,
There is room for an earnest man.
It had need of me, or I would not be —
I am here to strengthen the plan.’
———
The Peace Of Wild Things
By Wendell Berry
Wendell Erdman Berry (B. 1934)
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
———
I’m Nobody! Who Are You?
By Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886)
I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! They’d advertise — you know!
How dreary — to be — Somebody! How public — like a Frog — To tell one’s name — the livelong June — To an admiring Bog!
———
Ode 1.11
By Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC – 8 BC)
Leucon, no one is allowed to know his fate. Not you, not me. Don’t ask, don’t hunt for answers
In tea leaves or palms.
Be patient with whatever comes.
This could be the last winter,
Or the Tuscan Sea could be
Pounding these rocks for many more.
Be wise, tend your vines,
And forget about long-term hopes.
Time flies, even as we talk. Seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as possible.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
———
There Will Come Soft Rain
By Sara Teasdale
Sara Trevor Teasdale Filsinger (1884-1933)
There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone.
———
Dreams
By Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
———
Warning
By Jenny Joseph
Jenny Joseph (1932-2018)
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick flowers in other people’s gardens And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat And eat three pounds of sausages at a go Or only bread and pickle for a week And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry And pay our rent and not swear in the street And set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
———
A Smile to Remember
By Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bokowski (1920-1994)
we had goldfish and they circled around and around in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes covering the picture window and my mother, always smiling, wanting us all to be happy, told me, ‘be happy Henry!’ and she was right: it’s better to be happy if you can but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn’t understand what was attacking him from within.
my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a week, telling me to be happy: ‘Henry, smile! why don’t you ever smile?’
and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw
one day the goldfish died, all five of them, they floated on the water, on their sides, their eyes still open, and when my father got home he threw them to the cat there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother smiled
More poetry that isn’t pretentious and a waste of time…
———
November
By Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood (1799-1845)
No sun -- no moon! No morn -- no noon -- No dawn -- no dusk -- no proper time of day.No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member -- No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -- November!
———
Who Has Seen the Wind?
By Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.
———
Justice
By Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
That Justice is a blind goddessIs a thing to which we black are wise:Her bandage hides two festering soresThat once perhaps were eyes.
--------
Hope is the Thing With Feathers
By Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886)
“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —
And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —
I’ve heard it in the chillest land —
And on the strangest Sea —
Yet — never — in extremity,
It asked a crumb — of me.
———
The Ploughman’s Life
By Robert Burns
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
As I was a-wand’ring ae morning in spring,
I heard a young ploughman sae sweetly to sing;
And as he was singin’, thir words he did say, –
There’s nae life like the ploughman’s in the month o’ sweet May.
The lav’rock* in the morning she’ll rise frae her nest,
And mount i’ the air wi’ the dew on her breast,
And wi’ the merry ploughman she’ll whistle and sing,
And at night she’ll return to her nest back again.
The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.
Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.
———
Fog
By Carl Sandburg
Carl August Sandburg (1878-1967)
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
———
Winter Morning Poem
By Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Winter is the king of showmen,
Turning tree stumps into snow men
And houses into birthday cakes
And spreading sugar over lakes.
Smooth and clean and frosty white,
The world looks good enough to bite.
That’s the season to be young,
Catching snowflakes on your tongue!
Snow is snowy when it’s snowing.
I’m sorry it’s slushy when it’s going.
———
Legacies
By Nikki Giovanni
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. (B. 1943)
her grandmother called her from the playground “yes, ma’am” “i want chu to learn how to make rolls” said the old
woman proudly but the little girl didn’t want to learn how because she knew even if she couldn’t say it that that would mean when the old one died she would be less dependent on her spirit so she said “i don’t want to know how to make no rolls” with her lips poked out and the old woman wiped her hands on her apron saying “lord these children” and neither of them ever said what they meant and i guess nobody ever does
———
Autumn
By T. E. Hulme
Thomas Ernest Hulme (1883-1917)
A touch of cold in the Autumn night —
I walked abroad,
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded,
And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.
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