Fight
- Laurel Blossom -
That is the difference between me and you. You pack an umbrella, #30 sun goo
And a red flannel shirt. That's not what I do.
I put the top down as soon as we arrive.
The temperature's trying to pass fifty-five.
I'm freezing but at least I'm alive.
Nothing on earth can diminish my glee.
This is Florida, Florida, land of euphoria,
Florida in the highest degree.
You dig in the garden. I swim in the pool.
I like to wear cotton. You like to wear wool.
You're always hot. I'm usually cool.
You want to get married. I want to be free.
You don't seem to mind that we disagree.
And that is the difference between you and me.
Numbers
- Mary Cornish -
I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.
I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.
And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.
Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.
There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.
And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.
Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.
At the Un-National Monument
Along the Canadian Border
- William Stafford -
This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.
Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed — or were killed — on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.
The Farewell
- Edward Field -
They say the ice will hold
so there I go,
forced to believe them by my act of trusting people,
stepping out on it,
and naturally it gaps open
and I, forced to carry on coolly
by my act of being imperturbable,
slide erectly into the water wearing my captain's helmet,
waving to the shore with a sad smile,
"Goodbye my darlings, goodbye dear one,"
as the ice meets again over my head with a click.
Advice from the Experts- Bill Knott -I lay down in the empty street and parked
My feet against the gutter's curb while from
The building above a bunch of gawkers perched
Along its ledges urged me don't, don't jump. Love Poem with Toast- Miller Williams -Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.
The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.
With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,
as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.
Lift Your Right Arm
- Peter Cherches -
Lift your right arm, she said.
I lifted my right arm.
Lift your left arm, she said.
I lifted my left arm. Both of
my arms were up.
Put down your right arm, she
said.
I put it down.
Put down your left arm, she
said.
I did.
Lift your right arm, she said.
I obeyed.
Put down your right arm.
I did.
Lift your left arm.
I lifted it.
Put down your left arm.
I did.
Silence. I stood there, both
arms down, waiting for her next command.
After a while I got impatient and said, what next.
Now it's your turn to give the
orders, she said.
All right, I said. Tell me to
lift my right arm. (My Favorite poem!)
Mentor
- Timothy Murphy -
For Robert Francis
Had I known, only known
when I lived so near,
I'd have gone, gladly gone
foregoing my fear
of the wholly grown
and the nearly great.
But I learned alone,
so I learned too late.
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