Mom poems
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Christmas party at the South Danbury Church
© Donald Hall
December twenty-first
we gather at the white Church festooned
red and green, the tree flashing
green-red lights beside the altar.
The Copper Beech by Marie Howe: American Life in Poetry #66 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Some of the most telling poetry being written in our country today has to do with the smallest and briefest of pleasures. Here Marie Howe of New York captures a magical moment: sitting in the shelter of a leafy tree with the rain falling all around.
The Copper Beech
Hudibras: Part 2 - Canto III
© Samuel Butler
Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat;
As lookers-on feel most delight,
That least perceive a jugler's slight;
And still the less they understand,
The more th' admire his slight of hand.
The Waggoner - Canto Fourth
© William Wordsworth
THUS they, with freaks of proud delight,
Beguile the remnant of the night;
And many a snatch of jovial song
Regales them as they wind along;
Visions for the Entertainment and Instruction of Younger Minds: Happiness
© Nathaniel Cotton
Ye ductile youths, whose rising sun
Hath many circles still to run;
"Cease smilng, Dear! a little while be sad "
© Ernest Christopher Dowson
Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad,
Here in the silence, under the wan moon;
Sweet are thine eyes, but how can I be glad,
Knowing they change so soon?
Gentleness Stirred
© Nimah Nawwab
Hey, you there! thunders across the parking lot
You with the black boots the tone is raised
Oh, oh, reluctantly she turns,
Fear stirs,
Flinching,
Watches wrath unleashed.
On The Death Of President Garfield
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I SEE the Nation, as in antique ages,
Crouched with rent robes, and ashes on her head:
Her mournful eyes are deep with dark presages,
Her soul is haunted by a formless dread!
Atavism
© William Stafford
1
Sometimes in the open you look up
where birds go by, or just nothing,
and wait. A dim feeling comes
Just Thinking
© William Stafford
Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.
From The Woolworth Tower
© Sara Teasdale
Vivid with love, eager for greater beauty
Out of the night we come
Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.
A metal door slides open,
Reconciliation
© Madison Julius Cawein
LISTEN, dearest! you must love me more,
More than you did before!
Hark, what a beating here of wings!
Never at rest,
Book Sixth [Cambridge and the Alps]
© William Wordsworth
A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
On wanderings of my own, that now embraced
With livelier hope a region wider far.
To Mrs. Norton
© Frances Anne Kemble
I never shall forget thee'tis a word
Thou oft nust hear, for surely there be none
Eleventh Hour
© David Lehman
The bloom was off the economic recovery.
"I just want to know one thing," she said.
What was that one thing? He'll never know,
Because at just that moment he heard the sound
January 1
© David Lehman
Some people confuse inspiration with lightning
not me I know it comes from the lungs and air
you breathe it in you breathe it out it circulates
it's the breath of my being the wind across the face
Sexism
© David Lehman
The happiest moment in a woman's life
Is when she hears the turn of her lover's key
In the lock, and pretends to be asleep
When he enters the room, trying to be
Hermann And Dorothea - IV. Euterpe
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Mother," he said in confusion:--"You greatly surprise me!" and quickly
Wiped he away his tears, the noble and sensitive youngster.
"What! You are weeping, my son?" the startled mother continued
"That is indeed unlike you! I never before saw you crying!
Say, what has sadden'd your heart? What drives you to sit here all lonely
Under the shade of the pear-tree? What is it that makes you unhappy?"
My Pole Star --- English Translation
© Rabindranath Tagore
Standard translation
I have made You the polar star of my
existence; never again can I lose my way in the
voyage of life.
