Time 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,
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?
I Do Not Speak
© Stevie Smith
I do not ask for mercy for understanding for peace
And in these heavy days I do not ask for release
I do not ask that suffering shall cease.
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?
Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine
© Mary Oliver
Who doesnt love
roses, and who
doesnt love the lilies
of the black ponds
Snow Geese
© Mary Oliver
Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!
What a task
to ask
of anything, or anyone,
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--
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.
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
Fall Song
© Mary Oliver
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering backfrom the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhereexcept underfoot, moldering
After Arguing Against The Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent
© Mary Oliver
Whispering to each handhold, "I'll be back,"
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush
Some Things The World Gave
© Mary Oliver
1
Times in the morning early
when it rained and the long gray
buildings came forward from darkness
offering their windows for light.
Sleeping In The Forest
© Mary Oliver
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
At Blackwater Pond
© Mary Oliver
At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
