Tuesday Poem: "Today" by Mary Oliver

Today I’m flying low and I’m

not saying a word

I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

 

The world goes on as it must,

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.

And so forth.

 

But I’m taking the day off.

Quiet as a feather.

I hardly move though really I’m traveling

a terrific distance.

 

Stillness. One of the doors

into the temple.

by Mary Oliver

Photograph Credit: Rachel Giese Brown

For more information about the poet, Mary Oliver, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver

Tuesday Poem: " Excerpt from Summers and Springs" by Jaan Kaplinski

 

God has left us - I felt it clearly
digging the earth around a rhubarb plant.
It was black and moist. I don't know where he is,
only a shelf full of sacred books remains of him,
a couple of wax candles, a prayer wheel and a little bell.
Coming back to the house I thought
there might still be something - the smell of lilac and honeysuckle.
Then suddenly I imagined a child's face
there, on the other side, in eternity
looking here into time, regarding wide-eyed
our comings, goings and doings in this time-aquarium
under the light of the sun going down
and falling asleep under a water-lily leaf
somewhere far away in the west.

Jaan Kaplinski (translated from the Estonian by Jaan Kaplinski with Fiona Sampson)

For more information about the poet, Jan Kaplinski, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_Kaplinski

Tuesday Poem: "W 177th & Broadway" by Taylor Johnson

 

All night you eyed the man I wanted to be;
my jaw flexed tight. Anger slipped into
desire. Easily he would rise. Easily you would
disperse, pleasure made into light:
what you want under him,
I put on to amuse—I, your worked
supplicant. Yes, love is looking away.
My desire greened in your dismissal. Was
technicolor and twilight-made and never
turning off. The city air hung humid
above our charade. What need I could fill:
to transubstantiate, to unravel?

by Taylor Johnson

For more information about poet, Taylor Johnson, see:

https://poets.org/poet/taylor-johnson

Tuesday Poem: "English Sonnet" by Chelsea Rathburn

London returns in damp, fragmented flurries
when I should be doing something else. A scrap
of song, a pink scarf, and I’m back to curries
and pub food, long, wet walks without a map,
bouts of bronchitis, a case of the flu,
my halfhearted studies, and brooding thoughts
and scanning faces in every bar for you.
Those months come down to moments or small plots,
like the bum on the Tube, enraged that no one spoke,
who raved and spat, the whole car thick with dread,
only to ask, won’t someone tell a joke?
and this mouse of a woman offered, What’s big and red
and sits in the corner?  
                            A naughty bus.
Not funny, I know. But neither’s the story of us.

by Chelsea Rathburn

For more information on poet, Chelsea Rathburn, see: 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/chelsea-rathburn

Tuesday Poem: "Rain" by Jack Gilbert

Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
and yellow
a terrible amber.
In the cold streets
your warm body.
In whatever room
your warm body.
Among all the people
your absence.
The people who are always
not you.

I have been easy with trees
too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
Now
suddenly
this rain.

 

by Jack Gilbert

For more information about the poet, Jack Gilbert, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jack-gilbert