The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

- William Carlos Williams

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/)

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)

on Poetry

It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, by William Carlos Williams


(Thanks to Barbara Boudon for this one)