The Late Passenger

The Late Passenger

by C.S. Lewis, from Poetry 180, ed. Billy Collins, 2003

The sky was low, the sounding rain was falling dense and dark,

And Noah's sons were standing at the window of the Ark.

The beast were in, but Japhet said, 'I see one creature more

Belated and unmated there come knocking at the door.'

'Well let him knock,' said Ham, 'Or let him drown or learn to swim.

We're overcrowded as it is; we've got no room for him.'

'And yet it knocks, how terribly it knocks,' said Shem, 'It's feet

Are hard as horn -- but oh the air that comes from it is sweet.'

'Now hush,' said Ham, 'You'll waken Dad, and once he comes to see

What's at the door, it's sure to mean more work for you and me.'

Noah's voice came roaring from the darkness down below,

'Some animal is knocking. Take it in before we go.'

Ham shouted back, and savagely he nudged the other two,

'That's only Japhet knocking down a brad-nail in his shoe.'

Said Noah, 'Boys, I hear a noise that's like a horse's hoof.'

Said Ham, 'Why, that's the dreadful rain that drums upon the roof.'

Noah tumbled up on deck and out he put his head;

His face went grey, his knees were loosed, he tore his beard and said,

'Look, look! It would not wait. It turns away. It takes flight.

Fine work you've made of it, my sons, between you all tonight!

'Even if I could outrun it now, it would not turn again.

--Not now. Our great discourtesy has earned its high disdain.

'Oh noble and unmated beast, my sons were all unkind;

In such a night what stable and what manger will you find?

'Oh golden hoofs, oh cataracts of mane, oh nostrils wide

With indignation! Oh the neck wave-arched, the lovely pride!

'Oh long shall be the furrows ploughed across the hearts of men

Before it comes to stable and to manger once again.

'And dark and crooked all the ways in which our race shall walk,

And shrivelled all their manhood like a flower with broken stalk,

'And all the world, oh Ham, may curse the hour when you were born,'

Because of you the Ark must sail without the Unicorn.'

the way it is now

the way it is now

by Charles Bukowski, from Good Poems, ed. Garrison Keillor, 2002

I'll tell you

I've lived with some gorgeous women

and I was so bewitched by those

beautiful creatures that

my eyebrows twitched.

but I'd rather drive to New York

backwards

than to live with any of them

again.

the next classic stupidity

will be the history

of those fellows

who inherit my female

legacies.

in their case

as in mine

they will find

that madness

is caused by not

being often enough

alone.

A Herbal

A Herbal

by Seamus Heaney, from Human Chain, 2010

After Guillevic's "Herbier de Bretagne"

Everywhere plants

Flourish among graves,

Sinking their roots

In all the dynasties

Of the dead.

*

Was graveyard grass

In our place

Any different?

Different from ordinary

Field grass?

Remember how you wanted

The sound recordist

To make a loop,

Wildtrack of your feet

Through the wet

At the foot of a field?

*

Yet for all their lush

Compliant dialect

No way have plants here

Arrived at a settlement.

Not the mare's tail,

Not the broom or whins.

It must have to do

With the wind.

*

Not that the grass itself

Ever rests in peace.

It too takes issue,

Now sets a fire.

To the wind,

Now turns its back.

*

"See me?" it says.

"The wind

Has me well rehearsed

In the ways of the world.

Unstable is good.

Permission granted!

Go, then, citizen

Of the wind.

Go with the flow."

*

The bracken

Is less boastful.

It closes and curls back

On its secrets,

The best kept

Upon earth.

*

And, to be fair,

There is sun as well.

Nowhere else

Is there sun like here,

Morning sunshine

All day long.

Which is why the plants,

Even the bracken,

Are sometimes tempted

Into trust.

*

On sunlit tarmac,

On memories of the hearse

At walking pace

Between overgrown verges,

The dead here are borne

Towards the future.

*

When the funeral bell tolls

The grass is all a-tremble.

But only then.

Not every time any old bell

Rings.

*

Broom

Is like the disregarded

And company for them,

Shows them

They have to keep going,

That the whole thing's worth

The effort.

And sometimes

Like those same characters

When the weather's very good

Broom sings.

*

Never, in later days,

Would fruit

So taste of earth.

There was slate

In the blackberries,

A slatey sap.

*

Run your hand into

The ditch back growth

And you'd grope roots,

Thick and thin.

But roots of what?

Once, one that we saw

Gave itself away,

The tail of a rat

We killed.

*

We had enemies,

Though why we never knew.

Among them,

Nettles,

Malignant things, letting on

To be asleep.

*

Enemies--

Part of a world

Nobody seemed able to explain

But that had to be

Put up with.

There would always be dock leaves

To cure the vicious stings.

*

There were leaves on the trees

And growth on the headrigs

You could confess

Everything to.

Even your fears

Of the night,

Of people

Even.

*

What was better then

Than to crush a leaf or a herb

Between your palms

Then wave it slowly, soothingly

Past your mouth and nose

And breathe?

*

If you know a bit

About the universe

It's because you've taken it in

Like that,

Looked as hard

As you look into yourself,

Into the rat hole,

Through the vetch and dock

That mantled it.

Because you've laid your cheek

Against the rush clump

And known soft stone to break

On the quarry floor.

*

Between heather and marigold,

Between spaghnum and buttercup,

Between dandelion and broom,

Between forget-me-not and honeysuckle,

As between clear blue and cloud,

Between haystack and sunset sky,

Between oak tree and slated roof,

I had my existence. I was there.

Me in place and the place in me.

*

Where can it be found again,

An elsewhere world, beyond

Maps and atlases

Where all is woven into

And of itself, like a nest

Of crosshatched grass blades?

Every Day

Every Day

by Denise Levertov, from Breathing the Water, 1984

Three men spoke to me today.

One, bereaved, told me his grief, saying

Had God abandoned him, or was there

no God to abandon him?

One, condemned, told me his epitaph,

'Groomed to die.' On Death Row he remembers

the underside of his gradeschool desk, air-raid drill.

He never expected to live

even this long.

He sticks his head back down between his knees,

'not even sad.'

One, a young father, told me

how he had needed his child, even

before she was conceived.

How he had planted a garden too big to hoe.

He told me about the small leaves near his window,

how he had seen in them their desire to be,

to be the world.

With this one I sat laughing,

eating, drinking wine. 'The same word,'

he said, 'she has the same word for me and the dog!

She loves us!'

Every day, every day I hear

enough to fill

a year of nights with wondering.

Girl on a Tractor

Girl on a Tractor

by Joyce Sutphen, from Good Poems, ed. Garrison Keillor, 2002

I knew the names of all the cows before

I knew my alphabet, but no matter the

subject; I had mastery of it, and when

it came time to help in the fields, I

learned to drive a tractor at just the right

speed, so that two men, walking

on either side of the moving wagon

could each lift a bale, walk towards

the steadily arriving platform and

simultaneously hoist the hay onto

the rack, walk to the next bale, lift,

turn, and find me there, exactly where

I should be, my hand on the throttle,

carefully measuring out the pace.

Introduction to Poetry

Introduction to Poetry

by Billy Collins, from Poetry 180, ed. Billy Collins, 2003

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with a rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

Poem About Morning

Poem About Morning

by William Meredith, from Good Poems, ed. Garrison Keillor, 1995

Whether its sunny or not, it's sure

To be enormously complex--

Trees or streets outdoors, indoors whoever you share,

And yourself, thirsty, hungry, washing,

An attitude towards sex.

No wonder half of you wants to stay

With your head dark and wishing

Rather than take it all on again:

Weren't you duped yesterday?

Things are not orderly here, no matter what they say.

But the clock goes off, if you have a dog

It wags, if you get up now you'll be less

Late. Life is some kind of loathsome hag

Who is forever threatening to turn beautiful.

Now she gives you a quick toothpaste kiss

And puts a glass of cold cranberry juice,

Like a big fake garnet, in your hand.

Cranberry juice! You're lucky, on the whole,

But there is a great deal about it you don't understand.

The Companionable Dark

The Companionable Dark

by Kathleen Norris, from Little Girls in Church, 1995

of here and now,

seed lying dormant

in the earth. The dark

to which all lost things come -- scarves

and rings and precious photographs, and

of course, our beloved

dead. The brooding dark,

our most vulnerable hours, limbs loose

in sleep, mouths agape.

The faithful dark,

where each door leads,

each one of us, alone.

The dark of God come close

as breath, our one companion

all the way through, the dark

of a needle's eye.

Not the easy dark

of dusk and candles,

but dark from which comforts flee.

The deep down dark

of one by one,

dark of wind

and dust, dark in which stars burn.

The floodwater dark

of hope, Jesus in agony

in the garden, Esther pacing

her bitter palace. A dark

by which we see, dark like truth,

like flesh on bone:

Help me, who am alone,

and have no help but thee.

where we are

where we are

by Gerald Locklin, from Good Poems, ed. Garrison Keillor, 2002

i envy those

who live in two places:

new york, say, and london;

wales and spain;

l.a. and paris;

hawaii and switzerland.

there is always the anticipation

of the change, the chance that what is wrong

is the result of where you are. i have

always loved both the freshness of

arriving and the relief of leaving. with

two homes every move would be a homecoming.

i am not even considering the weather, hot

or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope.

Welcome Morning

Welcome Morning

by Anne Sexton, from Good Poems, ed. Garrison Keillor, 2002

There is joy

in all:

in the hair I brush each morning,

in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

that I rub my body with each morning,

in the chapel of eggs I cook

each morning,

in the outcry from the kettle

that heats my coffee

each morning,

in the spoon and the chair

that cry "hello there, Anne"

each morning,

in the godhead of the table

that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

each morning.

All this is God,

right here in my pea-green house

each morning

and I mean,

though often forget,

to give thanks,

to faint down by the kitchen table

in a prayer of rejoicing

as the holy birds at the kitchen window

peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning,

lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

dies young.

What Song, Then?

What Song, Then?

by Kathleen Norris, from Little Girls in Church, 1995

When my life is alien soil

and a wind

like fear

makes restless ground

of all I have done--

what song, then,

to send out roots

that will drink the rain

that does not come--

how could I sing?

Watch light come

from dark and mist rise

from waters

as sky and shore

emerge out of night,

and a tree half-green,

half-bare.

Half-afraid of what is in me

(though God has called it good)

I sob over nothing,

desires I cannot name.

Sing us, they say,

a song you remember...

Before

Before

by Carl Adamshick, from here

I always thought death would be like traveling

in a car, through the desert,

the earth a little darker than sky at the horizon,

that your life would settle like the end of a day

and you would think of everyone you ever met,

that you would be the invisible passenger,

quiet in the car, moving through the night,

forever, with the beautiful thought of home.

The Spirits Appeased

The Spirits Appeased

by Denise Levertov, from Breathing the Water, 1984

A wanderer comes at last

to the forest hut where it was promised

someone wise would receive him.

And there's no one there; birds and small animals

flutter and vanish, then return to observe.

No human eye meets his.

But in the hut there's food,

set to keep warm beside glowing logs,

and fragrant garments to fit him, replacing

the rags of his journey,

and a bed of heather from the hills.

He stays there waiting. Each day the fire

is replenished, the pot refilled while he sleeps.

He draws up water from the well,

writes of his travels, listens for footsteps.

Little by little he finds

the absent sage is speaking to him,

is present.

This is the way

you have spoken to me, the way--startled--

I find I have heard you. When I need it,

a book or a slip of paper

appears in my hand, inscribed by yours: messages

waiting on cellar shelves, in forgotten boxes

until I would listen.

Your spirits relax;

now she is looking, you say to each other,

now she begins to see.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol (excerpt)

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

by Oscar Wilde, quoted in Bread and Wine, 2003

...And thus we rust Life's iron chain

Degraded and alone:

And some men curse, and some men weep,

And some men make no moan:

But God's eternal Laws are kind

And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,

In prison-cell or yard,

Is as that broken box that gave

Its treasure to the Lord,

And filled the unclean leper's house

With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy those whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan

And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual

How to Read a Poem: Beginner's Manual
by Pamela Spiro Wagner, from here

First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.

Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it.

To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.

Treat a poem like dirt,
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.

Poetry demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.

Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.

When you can name five poets
without including Bob Dylan,
when you exceed your quota
and don't even notice,
close this manual.

August in Paris

August in Paris
by Billy Collins, from Ballistics, 2008

I have stopped here on the rue des Ecoles
just off the boulevard St-Germain
to look over the shoulder of a man
in a flannel shirt and a straw hat
who has set up an easel and a canvas chair
on the sidewalk in order to paint from a droll angle
a side-view of the Church of Saint Thomas Aquinas

But where are you, reader,
who have not paused in your walk
to look over my shoulder
to see what I am jotting in this notebook?

Alone in this city,
I some times wonder what you look like,
if you are wearing a flannel shirt
or a wraparound blue skirt held together by a pin.

But every time I turn around
you have fled through a crease in the air
to a quiet room where the shutters are closed
against the heat of the afternoon,
where there is only the sound of your breathing
and every so often, the turning of a page.

Roses

Roses

by Joyce Kilmer from here.

(For Katherine Bregy)

I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring,

For I would make a posy, a posy for the King.

I got an hundred roses, the loveliest there be,

From the white rose vine and the pink rose bush and from the red rose tree.

But when I took my posy and laid it at His feet

I found He had His roses a million times more sweet.

There was a scarlet blossom upon each foot and hand,

And a great pink rose bloomed from his side for the healing of the land.

Now of this fair and awful King there is this marvel told,

That He wears a crown of linked thorns instead of one of gold.

Where there are thorns are roses, and I saw a line of red,

A little wreath of roses around His radiant head.

A red rose is His Sacred Heart, a white rose His face,

And His breath has turned the barren world to a rich and flowery place.

He is the Rose of Sharon, His gardener am I,

And I shall drink His fragrance in Heaven when I die.

Rest.

Rest.

by Richard Jones, from here.

It's so late I could cut my lights

and drive the next fifty miles

of empty interstate

by starlight,

flying along in a dream,

countryside alive with shapes and shadows,

but exit ramps lined

with eighteen wheelers

and truckers sleeping in their cabs

make me consider pulling into a rest stop

and closing my eyes. I've done it before,

parking next to a family sleeping in a Chevy,

mom and dad up front, three kids in the back,

the windows slightly misted by the sleepers' breath.

But instead of resting, I'd smoke a cigarette,

play the radio low, and keep watch over

the wayfarers in the car next to me,

a strange paternal concern

and compassion for their well being

rising up inside me.

This was before

I had children of my own,

and had felt the sharp edge of love

and anxiety whenever I tiptoed

into darkened rooms of sleep

to study the small, peaceful faces

of my beloved darlings. Now,

the fatherly feelings are so strong

the snoring truckers are lucky

I'm not standing on the running board,

tapping on the window,

asking, Is everything okay?

But it is. Everything's fine.

The trucks are all together, sleeping

on the gravel shoulders of exit ramps,

and the crowded rest stop I'm driving by

is a perfect oasis in the moonlight.

The way I see it, I've got a second wind

and on the radio an all-night country station.

Nothing for me to do on this road

but drive and give thanks:

I'll be home by dawn.

A Hymn

A Hymn

by G.K. Chesterton, from here.

O god of earth and altar,

Bow down and hear our cry,

Our earthly rulers falter,

Our people drift and die;

The walls of gold entomb us,

The swords of scorn divide,

Take not thy thunder from us,

But take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,

From lies of tongue and pen,

From all the easy speeches

That comfort cruel men,

From sale and profanation

Of honour and the sword,

From sleep and from damnation,

Deliver us, good Lord.

Tie in a living tether

The prince and priest and thrall,

Bind all our lives together,

Smite us and save us all;

In ire and exultation

Aflame with faith, and free,

Lift up a living nation,

A single sword to thee.

Trees

Trees

by Joyce Kilmer, found here.

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's 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.

Red

Red

by Mary Oliver, from The Best American Poetry 2009

All the while

I was teaching

in the state of Virginia

I wanted to see

gray fox.

Finally I found him.

He was in the highway.

He was singing

his death song.

I picked him up

and carried him

into a field

while the cars kept coming.

He showed me

how he could ripple

how he could bleed.

Goodbye I said

to the light of his eye

as the cars went by.

Two mornings later

I found the other.

She was in the highway.

She was singing

her death song.

I picked her up

and carried her

into the field

where she rippled

half of her gray

half of her red

while the cars kept coming.

While the cars kept coming.

Gray fox and gray fox.

Red, red, red.

Sunday Discordancies

Sunday Discordancies

by Jim Harrison, from The Best American Poetry 2009

This morning I seem to hear the nearly inaudible

whining grind of creation similar to the harmonics

of pine trees in the wind. My outrageously lovely

hollyhocks are now collapsing of their own weight,

clearly too big for their britches. I'm making notes

for a novel called "The End of Man, and Not Incidentally,

Women and Children," a fable for our low-living time.

Quite early after walking the dogs, who are frightened

of the Sandhill Cranes in the pasture, I fried some ham

with a fresh peach, a touch of brown sugar and clove.

Pretty good but I was wondering at how the dogs

often pretend the Sandhill Cranes don't exist despite

their mighty squawks, like we can't hear

the crying of coal miners and our wounded in Iraq.

A friend on his deathbed cried and said it felt good.

He was crying because he couldn't eat, a lifelong habit.

My little grandson Silas cried painfully until he was fed

macaroni and cheese and then he was merry indeed.

I'm not up to crying this morning over that pretty girl

in the row boat fifty-five years ago. I heard on the radio

that we creatures have about a billion and a half

heartbeats to use. Voles and birds use theirs fast

as do meth heads and stockbrokers, while whales

and elephants are slower. This morning I'm thinking

of recounting mine to see exactly where I am.

I warn the hummingbirds out front, "just slow down,"

as they chase me away from the falling hollyhocks.

Who Shall Deliver Me?

Who Shall Deliver Me?

by Christina Rosetti, Selected Poems, 1996

God strengthen me to bear myself;

That heaviest weight of all to bear,

Inalienable weight of care.

All others are outside myself;

I lock my door and bar them out,

The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.

I lock my door upon myself,

And bar them out; but who shall wall

Self from myself, most loathed of all?

If I could once lay down myself,

And start self-purged upon the race

That all must run! Death runs apace.

If I could set aside myself,

And start with lightened heart upon

The road by all men overgone!

God harden me against myself,

This coward with pathetic voice

Who craves for ease, and rest, and joys:

Myself, arch-traitor to myself;

My hollowest friend, my deadilest foe,

My clog whatever road I go.

Yet One there is can curb myself,

Can roll the strangling road from me,

Break off the yoke and set me free.