All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hand to left or right And emptiness above —
Know that you aren’t alone The whole world shares your tears, Some for two nights or one, And some for all their years.
———
A Very Short Song
By Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
Once, when I was young and true, Someone left me sad — Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk, Love is but a curse. Once there was a heart I broke; And that, I think, is worse.
———
Underface
By Shel Silverstein
Sheldon Allan Silverstein (1930-1999)
Underneath my outside face There’s a face that none can see. A little less smiley, A little less sure, But a whole lot more like me.
———
A Glimpse
By Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman, Jr. (1819-1892)
A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest, There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.
———
A Love Song for Lucinda
By Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (1901-1967)
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.
If Black History Month is not viable then wind does not carry the seeds and drop them on fertile ground rain does not dampen the land and encourage the seeds to root sun does not warm the earth and kiss the seedlings and tell them plain: You’re As Good As Anybody Else You’ve Got A Place Here, Too
Yolande Cornelia Giavanni, Jr. (B. 1943)
———
Time Is
By Henry van Dyke
Henry Jackson van Dyke (1852-1933)
Time is Too Slow for those who Wait, Too Swift for those who Fear, Too Long for those who Grieve, Too Short for those who Rejoice; But for those who Love, Time is not.
———
Oh Could I Raise the Darken’d Veil
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Oh could I raise the darken’d veil, Which hides my future life from me, Could unborn ages slowly sail, Before my view—and could I see My every action painted there, To cast one look I would not dare. There poverty and grief might stand, And dark Despair’s corroding hand, Would make me seek the lonely tomb To slumber in its endless gloom. Then let me never cast a look, Within Fate’s fix’d mysterious book.
———
Lines on Ale
By Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
Filled with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber Through the chamber of my brain. Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies Come to life and fade away. What care I how time advances; I am drinking ale today.
———
Pastoral
By William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
The little sparrows hop ingenuously about the pavement quarreling with sharp voices over those things that interest them. But we who are wiser shut ourselves in on either hand and no one knows whether we think good or evil. Meanwhile, the old man who goes about gathering dog-lime walks in the gutter without looking up and his tread is more majestic than that of the Episcopal minister approaching the pulpit of a Sunday. These things astonish me beyond words.
Draw a crazy picture, Write a nutty poem, Sing a mumble-grumble song, Whistle through your comb. Do a loony-goony dance ‘Cross the kitchen floor, Put something silly in the world That ain’t been there before.
———
Harriet Tubman
By Eloise Greenfield
Eloise Little Greenfield (1929-2021)
Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff Wasn’t scared of nothing neither Didn’t come in this world to be no slave And wasn’t going to stay one either
“Farewell!” she sang to her friends one night She was mighty sad to leave ’em But she ran away that dark, hot night Ran looking for her freedom She ran to the woods and she ran through the woods With the slave catchers right behind her And she kept on going till she got to the North Where those mean men couldn’t find her
Nineteen times she went back South To get three hundred others She ran for her freedom nineteen times To save Black sisters and brothers Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff Wasn’t scared of nothing neither Didn’t come in this world to be no slave And didn’t stay one either
And didn’t stay one either
———
When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted
By Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
When Earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it — lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen Shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair; They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet’s hair. They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one will work for the money, and no one will work for the fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!
———
Remember
By Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann’d: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.
———
Try Again
By W. E. Hickson
William Edward Hickson (1803-1870)
‘T is a lesson you should heed, Try, try again; If at first you don’t succeed, Try, try again; Then your courage should appear, For, if you will persevere, You will conquer, never fear; Try, try again.
Once or twice though you should fail, Try, try again; If you would at last prevail, Try, try again; If we strive, ’tis no disgrace Though we do not win the race; What should you do in the case? Try, try again.
If you find your task is hard, Try, try again; Time will bring you your reward, Try, try again. All that other folks can do, Why, with patience, should not you? Only keep this rule in view: Try, try again.
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear To go, — so with his memory they brim. And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, “There is no memory of him here!” And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
———
Always Marry An April Girl
By Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Praise the spells and bless the charms, I found April in my arms. April golden, April cloudy, Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy; April soft in flowered languor, April cold with sudden anger, Ever changing, ever true — I love April, I love you.
———
The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver
Mary Jane Oliver (1935-2019)
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean — the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down — who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
———
A Question
By Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963)
A voice said, Look me in the stars And tell me truly, men of earth, If all the soul-and-body scars Were not too much to pay for birth.
———
If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
By Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886)
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
“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.
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