Evening Poetry, October 22

To A Young Artist

by Freya Manfred

My poems are written by a spirit on a stone,

and there are many tellers, many stories, and many stones,

in honor of our braided paths and solitary ways.

Now, at sunset, I’m called to where water merges with land and sky,

where an eagle drops from a tall pine, dips her beak into darkening waves,

rises with a flapping silver fish, and flies away.

I wish you work that weaves a spell, and love,

and breath–uncounted, irretrievable, sacred breath,

flying from its cage of bones–eagle falling, fish-rising, free.

You can find this poem in Swimming With a Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle.

Evening Poetry, October 18

The Empty House

by Walter de la Mare

See this house, how dark it is 
Beneath its vast-boughed trees! 
Not one trembling leaflet cries 
To that Watcher in the skies— 
‘Remove, remove thy searching gaze, 
Innocent of heaven’s ways, 
Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright, 
On secrets hidden from sight.’ 

‘Secrets,’ sighs the night-wind, 
‘Vacancy is all I find; 
Every keyhole I have made 
Wails a summons, faint and sad, 
No voice ever answers me, 
Only vacancy.’ 
‘Once, once … ’ the cricket shrills, 
And far and near the quiet fills 
With its tiny voice, and then 
Hush falls again. 

Mute shadows creeping slow 
Mark how the hours go. 
Every stone is mouldering slow. 
And the least winds that blow 
Some minutest atom shake, 
Some fretting ruin make 
In roof and walls. How black it is 
Beneath these thick boughed trees! 

You can find this poem in The Collected Poems of Walter de la Mare.

Evening Poetry, October 17

To Autumn

by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease, 
      For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, 
   Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
   Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, 
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? 
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

You can find this poem in The Complete Poems of John Keats.

Evening Poetry, October 14

Loaves and Fishes

by David Whyte

This is not

the age of information.

This is not

the age of information.

Forget the news,

and the radio,

and the blurred screen.

This is the time

of loaves

and fishes.

People are hungry,

and one good word is bread

for a thousand.

You can find this poem in The House of Belonging.

Evening Poetry, October 12

Goldenrod, Late Fall

by Mary Oliver

This morning the goldenrod are all wearing

their golden shirts

fresh from heaven’s soft wash in the chill night.

So it must be a celebration.

And here comes the wind, so many swinging wings!

Has he been invited, or is he the intruder?

Invited, whisper the golden pebbles of the weeds,

as they begin to fall

over the ground. Well, you would think the little murmurs

of the broken blossoms would have said

otherwise, but no. So I sit down among them to

think about it while all around me the crumbling

goes on. The weeds let down their seedy faces

cheerfully, which is the part I like best, and certainly

it is as good as a book for learning from. You would think

they were just going for a small sleep. You would think

they couldn’t wait, it was going to be

that snug and even, as all their lives were, full of

excitation. You would think

it was a voyage just beginning, and no darkness anywhere,

but tinged with all necessary instruction, and light,

and all were shriven, as all the round world is,

and so it wasn’t anything but easy to fall, to whisper

Good Night.

You can find this poem in Why I Wake Early.

Evening Poetry, October 10

Dawn

by Emily Dickinson

When night is almost done,

And sunrise grows so near

That we can touch the spaces,

It’s time to smooth the hair

And get the dimples ready,

And wonder we could care

For that old faded midnight

That frightened but an hour.

You can find this in Hope is the Thing With Feathers.

Evening Poetry, September 29

Fall, leaves, fall

By Emily Bronte

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

You can find this in The Complete Poems of Emily Bronte.

Evening Poetry, September 28

Autumn

By Amy Lowell

All day I have watched the purple vine leaves
Fall into the water.
And now in the moonlight they still fall,
But each leaf is fringed with silver.

You can find this poem in The Collected Poetical Works of Amy Lowell.

Evening Poetry, September 27

Elemental

by John O’ Donohue

Is the world the work

Of someone who tills the blue field,

Unearth its dark plenitude

For the tight seed to release its thought

Into the ferment of clay,

Searching to earth the light

And come to voice in a word of grain

That can sing free in the breeze,

Bathe in the yellow well of the sun,

Avoid the attack of the bird,

And endure the red cell of the oven

Until memory leavens in the gift of bread?

You can find this poem in Conamara Blues.

Evening Poetry, September 26

Thirst

by Mary Oliver

Another morning and I wake with thirst

for the goodness I do not have. I walk

out to the pond and all the way God has

given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,

I was never a quick scholar but sulked

and hunched over my books past the

hour and bell; grant me, in your

mercy, a little more time. Love for the

earth and love for you are having such a

long conversation in my heart. Who

knows what will finally happen or

where I will be sent, yet already I have

given a great many things away, expect-

ing to be told to pack nothing, except the

prayers which, with this thirst, I am

slowly learning.

You can find this in Thirst.