Life poems
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Memento
© Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Like a reminder of this life
of trams, sun, sparrows,
and the flighty uncontrolledness
of streams leaping like thermometers,
Autumn
© Stevie Smith
He told his life story to Mrs. Courtly
Who was a widow. 'Let us get married shortly',
He said. 'I am no longer passionate,
But we can have some conversation before it is too late.'
Exeat
© Stevie Smith
How can a poet commit suicide
When he is still not listening properly to his Muse,
Or a lover of Virtue when
He is always putting her off until tomorrow?
Catbird
© Mary Oliver
He picks his pond, and the soft thicket of his world.
He bids his lady come, and she does,
flirting with her tail.
He begins early, and makes up his song as he goes.
Skunk Cabbage
© Mary Oliver
And now as the iron rinds over
the ponds start dissolving,
you come, dreaming of ferns and flowers
and new leaves unfolding,
Starlings in Winter
© Mary Oliver
Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches
© Mary Oliver
Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches
of other lives -
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey,
hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning,
feel like?
A Letter from Home
© Mary Oliver
I touch the crosses by her name;
I fold the pages as I rise,
And tip the envelope, from which
Drift scraps of borage, woodbine, rue.
Two Kinds of Deliverance
© Mary Oliver
Last night the geese came back,
slanting fast
from the blossom of the rising moon down
to the black pond. A muskrat
swimming in the twilight saw them and hurried
A Dream of Trees
© Mary Oliver
There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
Gannets
© Mary Oliver
I am watching the white gannets
blaze down into the water
with the power of blunt spears
and a stunning accuracy--
Toward The Space Age
© Mary Oliver
We must begin to catch hold of everything
around us, for nobody knows what we
may need. We have to carry along
the air, even; and the weight we once
The Kingfisher
© Mary Oliver
The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is
the prettiest world--so long as you don't mind
Dogfish
© Mary Oliver
Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman's boot,
with a white belly.
The Humpbacks
© Mary Oliver
Listen, whatever it is you try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like the dreams of your body,
Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond
© Mary Oliver
So heavy
is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings
August
© Mary Oliver
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
Peonies
© Mary Oliver
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
