by Jane Kenyon
How much better it is
to carry wood to the fire
than to moan about your life.
How much better
to throw garbage
onto the compost, or to pin the clean
sheet on the line
with a gray-brown wooden clothes pins!
You can find this poem in the collection Otherwise by Jane Kenyon.
Here is a poem from a classic children’s poetry collection. If you have young children at home, please read poetry to them! Let their young ears become accustomed to the rhythm, cadence, and pure joy that can be found in poetry. One simple way to introduce them to poetry is during dinner: often while my kids were eating, I would read them a poem or two. Nursery rhymes count, as do Dr. Seuss and Jack Prelutsky! I am certain there is poetry out there for every person, old or young.
by Louise Driscoll
Hold fast your dreams!
Within your heart
Keep one still, secret spot
Where dreams may go,
And sheltered so,
May thrive and grow–
Where doubt and fear are not.
Oh, keep a place apart
Within your heart,
For little dreams to go.
You can find this poem in the collection Favorite Poems Old and New selected by Helen Ferris.
by David Whyte
I want you
to see
yourself
the way
I sometimes
see you.
I want you
to see
yourself
with the
self-same
eyes
that have me
shy
of telling you
what I see.
I want you
to come across
your self
and see
yourself,
the way I did
that first
morning,
as a beautiful
incredibly
kind
and inviting
stranger.
I want you
to knock
gently on
your
own door
and stand
there
astonished
as I do
unable
to speak
to the one
who has come
out to meet you.
Like Rilke’s
visiting
angel
of the
Annunciation
who forgot
his message
to Mary,
and could only
fall back
to singing
her praises,
stuttering and
everwhelmed
as he was,
by the untroubled
beauty
of her soul.
You can find this poem in the collection The Bell and The Blackbird by David Whyte.
My mother is soft.
My mother is strong.
My mother watches me long and long.
My mother sings high.
My mother sings sweet.
My mother can dance
on both of her feet.
My mother feeds me.
She holds me tight.
She never forgets
to kiss me goodnight.
My mother is tall and tall and tall.
But she doesn’t mind
that I am small.
My mother is pretty.
My mother is brave.
My mother still loves me
when I misbehave.
My mother is special.
My mother is fine.
My mother,
My mother,
My mother is mine.
My Mother is Mine was a favorite book of my daughter’s when she was small. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers, step-mothers, mother figures, and nurturing, mothering people in our world!
This poem can be found in the March 2019 edition of Poetry Magazine.
my mother
asking how
to open a tab
on her laptop,
to email a photo,
calling to ask–
can you change
the lightbulb
at the top of the stairs?
my mother
spending hours
helping me find
a doctor’s form,
a hearing aid battery,
anything
misplaced, my mother
who keeps leaving
her keys in the doors
or on the walls,
who keeps saying
I might have to change
the locks, mother
of self-sufficiency,
of beads and trolleys,
of handlebars,
short-tempered
spiteful mother,
mother of resistance,
licorice and seaweed
on the table,
lonely mother,
mother needs-no-man,
mother deserves my cooking,
deserves a long sleep,
a cuppa tea, a garden
of lavender mothers,
all her heads up,
mother’s tooth
falls out, mother
dyes her hair,
don’t say graying
say sea salt
and cream, remedy,
immortal mother.
You can find the poetry of Raymond Antrobus in the collection To Sweeten Bitter.
Homage (for Mary Oliver)
by David Whyte
So simple
so clear,
so here.
Like a cat
pawing
the air
or the whip
crack
sound
of a dog
snapping
at a fly.
Always
toward
the end,
the way
we are never
quite
prepared
to find
the beautiful
sense
of hidden
pleasurable
and complete
surprise
in the poem
until
reading
the
very
last line,
but which
is
the one
you
remember
and
that stays
with you
day after day
when you do.
You can find this poem and more in David Whyte’s collection The Bell and the Blackbird.
by Wendell Berry
For God’s sake, be done
with this jabber of “a better world”.
What blasphemy! No “futuristic”
twit or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise.
You can find this book in the collection Given.
Life of Kim 