The Moon by Robert Bly

Hazy moon, tangled in trees by Marion.

The Moon
Robert Bly

After writing poems all day,
I go off to see the moon in the pines.
Far in the woods I sit down against a pine.
The moon has her porches turned to face the light,
But the deep part of her house is in the darkness.

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Dear August:

Goodbye, au revoir, farewell.

Piss off,
Marion

Dearest September:

I eagerly await your imminent cool arrival.

Truly yours,
Marion

To Make a Prairie by Emily Dickinson

My Wisteria in Spring---breakfast for a fat, hungry bumble bee.

To Make a Prairie
By Emily Dickinson

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
one clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
if bees are few.

Interiors by Stephen Dunn

Cards are from my Rider-Waite Tarot deck.

Interiors
By Stephen Dunn

In New Orleans, a Bed and Breakfast in a seamy part of
town.  Dentist’s chair the seat of honor in the living room.
Dark, the drapes closed, a lamp’s three-way bulb clicked just
once. I’m inside someone’s version of inside. All the guests
looking like they belong. Muffled hilarity coming from one
of the other rooms. Paintings everywhere, on the walls, the
floor.  Painted by the proprietress who, on the side, reads the
Tarot. In her long black gown she doesn’t mind telling me
things look rather dismal. Something about the Queen of
Swords and the Hanged Man. I wake early the next morning
for a flight. 5 A.M. She’s sitting in the dentist’s chair, reading a
book about the end of the century. Says a man like me needs
a proper breakfast. Wants to know everything I dreamed.
This, I tell her, I think I dreamed this.

From: “Good Poems, American Places” selected by Garrison Keillor, page 125

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I have Garrison Keillor's previous two collections of selected poetry and they're amazing---overflowing with awesome poems ("Good Poems" & "Good Poems for Hard Times").  I scooped up this newest collection, "Good Poems, American Places" from the new book shelf at the library today and it's as good as the other two.  I've already marked about five poems to share.  I'll be adding it to my collection when it comes out in paperback. 

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Sunset at Hodges Gardens State Park

The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver

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?




My house spider, suspended on her delicate web.



One Need Not Be A Chamber to be Haunted by Emily Dickinson

Brumidi Corridors are the vaulted, ornately-decorated corridors on the first floor of the Senate wing in the U. S. Capitol.

One Need Not Be a Chamber to be Haunted
By Emily Dickinson

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror’s least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O’erlooking a superior spectre
More near.

"The Leaf and the Cloud" by Mary Oliver

My favorite shy, blushing rose.

6.

And how shall we speak of love
except in the splurge of roses, and the long body
of the river
shining in its silk froth;

and what could be more wonderful
than the agility and the reaching of the fingers of Hannah,
who is only seven days old;

and what could be more comforting than to fold grief
like a blanket---
to fold anger like a blanket;
with neat corners---
to put them into a box of words?

From:  "Work", section 6, page 13.  "The Leaf and the Cloud" by Mary Oliver

____________________________

One of my roses after a shower.

7.

The high-piled plum-colored storm-heavy clouds
are approaching.
The fly mumbles against the glass.

This is the world.

The hot little bluebirds in the box are getting ready to fly.
This is the world.

The sweet in the parsnip
waits for our praise.

The dragonfly lives its life
without a single error, it also
waits for our praise.

The pale-green moths are pressings
against the screen, fluttering, they are
dying to get in to press their papery bodies
into the light.

This is the world.

From:  "Gravel", section 7, page 43, "The Leaf and the Cloud" by Mary Oliver

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"The Leaf and the Cloud" by Mary Oliver is an amazing, breathtaking book-length poem/meditation on mortality as seen through the mirror of nature.  I wish I could post the entire 53 pages of the book, it's so moving, enlightening and astonishing.  I've had this book on my shelf for years and just recently got around to reading it when I discovered it tucked away behind some novels.  I'm so glad I found it. 

Gift by Czeslaw Milosz

One of my ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

Gift
By Czeslaw Milosz

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

From:  "Teaching With Fire:  Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach", page 159

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From Preface to "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem. . ."

All Things Pass by Timothy Leary

All Things Pass
By Timothy Leary, homage to Lao Tzu

All things pass

A sunrise does not last all morning

All things pass

 A cloudburst does not last all day
All things pass
Nor a sunset all night

But Earth... sky... thunder...
wind... fire... lake...
mountain... water...
These always change

And if these do not last
Do man’s visions last?
Do man’s illusions ?

Take things as they come
All things pass

Rome Itself by Rod McKuen

Photo of the Coliseum from poster.com

In the early 70's I was a teenager and my boyfriend used to give me poems he said he'd written for me.  They were pretty good, too.  After we married, I discovered his small collection of Rod McKuen books and the poems he'd 'borrowed' from them to win my heart.   We used to use the poem below as our secret code for having sex.  If either of us mentioned Rome, we'd skitter home to have some fun.  And trust me, it's not that easy to work Rome into a conversation at your mother's house.  LOL!  Ah, the joys of youth! I own every single one of Rod McKuen's books, a few battered copies from the early days of our marriage.  I still enjoy reading Mr. McKuen's poetry.  It never fails to move me and bring up great memories.  xo


ROME ITSELF
By Rod McKuen

I carry down between my legs
Rome itself, for you love Rome
and I would drive Rome into you
or drive you into Rome.
This room your coliseum till you board
your plane. These arms your forum
cats included.

Self-propelled am I between
the morning and the midnight
I glide along your groin and earn my wings
by testing out your thighs
like some new willful Wiley Post.
My flight is not away, not to or from.
Above you, below you - I soar
and perch upon your second pillow.

I have no need for such mechanical devices
as winged shoes or wings. I am made uncommon
by the need to know you and thereby
come to know myself.

Rome, though in the distance, is no farther
than the dresser and not so far away
that I can't take you there.

For me the Spanish Steps
are centered on your tongue
and Caesar could content himself with
California wine had he your eyes to follow
and your breath to capture with his own breath.

We'll go to Rome
as slowly as you like
and be there by tonight.

- from "Fields of Wonder", 1971

The Broken Field by Sara Teasdale

The Broken Field
By Sara Teasdale

My soul is a dark ploughed field
In the cold rain;
My soul is a broken field
Ploughed by pain.

Where windy grass and flowers
Were growing,
The field lies broken now
For another sowing.

Great Sower, when you tread
My field again,
Scatter the furrows there
With better grain

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Today is Sara Teasdale's birthday.  She was born in 1884.  Ms. Teasdale is one of my favorite poets.  I began reading her poetry when I was 13 years old and became hooked for life.  I credit her for starting my early love affair with poetry. 
 
In 1931, an old suitor of Ms. Teasdale, the poet Vachel Lindsay, killed himself. Sara was devastated. Sadly, in 1933, she committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills.
 
You can get many of her early works free at Amazon.com if you have a Kindle or other wireless device.  I love her book, "Rivers to the Sea".