Morning poems
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Molecular Evolution
© James Clerk Maxwell
At quite uncertain times and places,
The atoms left their heavenly path,
Morningis the place for Dew
© Emily Dickinson
Morningis the place for Dew
Cornis made at Noon
After dinner lightfor flowers
Dukesfor Setting Sun!
Torment
© Daisy Fried
“I fucked up bad”: Justin cracks his neck,
talking to nobody. Fifteen responsible children,
from The Prelude: Book 2: School-time (Continued)
© André Breton
Fare Thee well!
Health, and the quiet of a healthful mind
Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men,
And yet more often living with Thyself,
And for Thyself, so haply shall thy days
Be many, and a blessing to mankind.
Words from Confinement
© Cesare Pavese
We would go down to the fish market early
to cleanse our vision: the fish were silver,
and scarlet, and green, and the color of sea.
The fish were lovlier than even the sea
with its silvery scales. We thought of return.
Lycidas
© Patrick Kavanagh
Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
Tristram And Iseult
© Matthew Arnold
Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure
Prop me upon the pillows once again
Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.
Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!
What lights will those out to the northward be?
Breakage
© Michael Ondaatje
I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The Idols
© Robert Laurence Binyon
I.2
The Forests of the Night awaken blind in heat
Of black stupor; and stirring in its deep retreat,
I hear the heart of Darkness slowly beat and beat.
To Katharine: At Fourteen Months by Joelle Biele: American Life in Poetry #174 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet
© Ted Kooser
I'd guess you've all seen a toddler hold something over the edge of a high-chair and then let it drop, just for the fun of it. Here's a lovely picture of a small child learning the laws of physics. The poet, Joelle Biele, lives in Maryland.
The One Certainty
© Christina Georgina Rossetti
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith,
All things are vanity. The eye and ear
Lohengrin
© Emma Lazarus
THE holy bell, untouched by human hands,
Clanged suddenly, and tolled with solemn knell.
Between the massive, blazoned temple-doors,
Thrown wide, to let the summer morning in,
The Truly Great
© Stephen Spender
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
In Memoriam A. H. H.: 72
© Alfred Tennyson
Who might'st have heaved a windless flame
Up the deep East, or, whispering, play'd
A chequer-work of beam and shade
Along the hills, yet look'd the same.
The Seventh Inning
© Donald Hall
1. Baseball, I warrant, is not the whole
occupation of the aging boy.
The Chimney Sweeper: When my mother died I was very young
© William Blake
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
Ancapagari
© Carolyn Forche
In the morning of the tribe this name Ancapagari was given to these mountains. The name, then alive, spread into the world and never returned. Ancapagari: no foot-step ever spoken, no mule deer killed from its foothold, left for dead. Ancapagari opened the stones. Pine roots gripped peak rock with their claws. Water dug into the earth and vanished, boiling up again in another place. The water was bitten by aspen, generations of aspen shot their light colored trunks into space. Ancapagari. At that time, if the whisper was in your mouth, you were lighted.
Now these people are buried. The root-taking, finished. Buried in everything, thousands taken root. The roots swell, nesting. Openings widen for the roots to surface.
They sway within you in steady wind of your breath. You are forever swinging between this being and another, one being and another. There is a word for it crawling in your mouth each night. Speak it.
Ancapagari has circled, returned to these highlands. The yellow pines deathless, the sparrow hawks scull, the waters are going numb. Ancapagari longs to be spoken in each tongue. It is the name of the god who has come from among us.
As Adam, Early In The Morning
© Walt Whitman
AS Adam, early in the morning,
Walking forth from the bower, refresh'd with sleep;
Behold me where I pass-hear my voice-approach,
Touch me-touch the palm of your hand to my Body as I pass;
Be not afraid of my Body.
