Rita Dove: Parsley
It is fall, when thoughts turn
to love and death; the general thinks
of his mother, how she died in the fall
and he planted her walking cane at the grave
and it flowered
James Crews: It’s Good to Be Here,
I say out loud, to give the words
the physical presence they deserve
in the warm bakery with us, this place
we’ve been coming for years now.
Sean Sexton: No cause to count on mercies of the Earth
Yet a heifer finds a hollow,
penumbra of shade where the cold
couldn’t reach. She forages there
a little while, prospers.
William Butler Yeats: Easter, 1916
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
Rose Mary Boehm: The Matthew Passion
How I once cried with the crucified Christ,
how I suffered the agonized night of Gethsemane,
how I waved that palm leaf,
how I felt the betrayal of Judas
and the foreboding of the last supper.
Jose Padua: What I Keep Coming Back To
watching her lean forward,
tilted like a bell about to ring,
to shake hands with the man
who always panhandled there
Elizabeth Bishop: A Cold Spring
Beneath the light, against your white front door,
the smallest moths, like Chinese fans,
flatten themselves, silver and silver-gilt
over pale yellow, orange, or gray.
Patricia A. Nugent: Missing Who I Was
This sign hit me hard today. I, too, miss who I was before…when I could watch the news, sleep at night, find time for creative expression. Feel unabashed joy.
David Kirby: Penelope’s Suitors
Honestly. Not the brightest guys in the world, are they?
Her husband sails off to Troy, and beautiful Penelope’s there
just ripe for the picking, only she keeps putting them off
Philip Levine: Blue
the men wakening one
at a time and reaching for
both the sky and the earth
Dorianne Laux: The Optimism of French Toast
I think of my Acadian ancestors
landing on the shores of Nova Scotia, divining
logs from the deep woods, fashioning windows,
hanging laundry from two oars dug into sand—
the flags of domesticity flayed by the wind.
Michael Simms: Trump’s Nightmare
Who is James Talarico, and why does the Trump administration fear him?
H.C. Palmer: An Old Kansas Farm Boy’s Take on Gary Snyder’s “Hay for the Horses” or Why I Became a Poet
In the early 1950s I worked summers as a part of a team of 4 high school football players bucking bales of alfalfa hay for a local rancher in Southeast Kansas. We moved over 1,000 bales from his hay meadow to the loft in his barn each cutting.
Barbara Crooker: For My Grandchildren
We sat on the porch swing in the fragrant dark
scented by roses and lilies, knowing we were
about to lose everything, but powerless to stop it.
