The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

- William Carlos Williams

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

- F.W. Bourdillon

oh window pane, o weather vane mark out my course described in vain beware the wind, deny the rain a dervish twirl that parts the twain the room is calm and smooth as plane shivering still, undone again

- Laurel Doremus

Illumination, a poem by Eric Paul Shaffer

On those cold, clear winter mornings, I rise in the dark, and I sit

beneath a lamp with a pen and paper in a circle of light

barely bright enough for the work. The window beside me is black

and blank, and soon I'm staring only through the window of the page

at whatever I'm drawing from ink and concentration. Hours pass,

and, always when I least expect it, there's a sudden tide of light

as the sun crests the mountain. When the first rays flood the fields,

the thin yellow curtain behind me brightens, and the room swells

with light. Everything is suddenly golden and illuminated,

and for just that one moment, I make the glorious and forgivable

mistake of thinking it has something to do with me.

published in the August 2011 issue (Issue 428) of The Sun (http://www.thesunmagazine.org/)

Four in All, by Nina Payne (2001)

eyes ears nose mouth
east west north south

oats wheat corn rye
sun moon stars sky

floor table chair bed
yellow green blue red

one two three four
roof window chimney door

bird fish bear snake
ocean river puddle lake

fork plat knife spoon
morning evening midnight noon

earth air fire water
mother father son daughter

Trees, a poem by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1913)

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams, Selected Poems (1212 - 1962)

My Father, a poem by Yehuda Amichai

The memory of my father is
wrapped up in white paper,
like sandwiches taken for
a day at work.

Just as a magician takes
towers and rabbits out of
his hat, he drew love
from his small body,

and the rivers of his hands
overflowed with good deeds.

Two Geese Poems

The Journey
by David Whyte, from The House of Belonging, Many Rivers Press, 2004

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

painting their black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.


*****************************

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.