Poem of the Day

Cat in an empty apartment
by  Wislawa Szymborska

Dying--you wouldn't do that to a cat.

For what is a cat to do

in an empty apartment?

Climb up the walls?

Brush up against the furniture?

Nothing here seems changed,

and yet something has changed.

Nothing has been moved,

and yet there's more room.

And in the evenings the lamp is not on.

One hears footsteps on the stairs,

but they're not the same.

Neither is the hand

that puts a fish on the plate.

Something here isn't starting

at its usual time.

Something here isn't happening

as it should.

Somebody has been here and has been,

and then has suddenly disappeared

and now is stubbornly absent.

All the closets have been scanned

and all the shelves run through.

Slipping under the carpet and checking came to nothing.

The rule has even been broken and all the papers scattered.

What else is there to do?

Sleep and wait.

Just let him come back,

let him show up.

Then he'll find out

that you don't do that to a cat.

Going toward him

faking reluctance,

slowly,

on very offended paws.

And no jumping, purring at first.

cb  cb  cb

The Uses of Light
by Gary Snyder

It warms my bones
     say the stones

I take it into me and grow
Say the trees
Leaves above
Roots below

A vast vague white
Draws me out of the night
Says the moth in his flight --

Some things I smell
Some things I hear
And I see things move
Says the deer --

A high tower
on a wide plain.
If you climb up
One floor
You'll see a thousand miles more.

cb  cb  cb

Morning
by Billy Collins

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best --
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso --

maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins --
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows --
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.

cb  cb  cb  

Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale

by Jane Yolen

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Cinder Elephant,
Sleeping Tubby,
Snow Weight,
where the princess is not
anorexic, wasp-waisted,
flinging herself down the stairs.

I am thinking of a fairy tale,
Hansel and Great,
Repoundsel,
Bounty and the Beast,
where the beauty
has a pillowed breast,
and fingers plump as sausage.

I am thinking of a fairy tale
that is not yet written,
for a teller not yet born,
for a listener not yet conceived,
for a world not yet won,
where everything round is good:
the sun, wheels, cookies, and the princess.

cb  cb  cb  

i thank You God for most this amazing day 
 By e. e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

cb  cb  cb  

A Wet Time
by Wendell Berry

The land is an ark, full of things waiting.
Underfoot it goes temporary and soft, tracks
filling with water as the foot is raised.
The fields, sodden, go free of plans.  Hands
become obscure in their use, prehistoric.
The mind passes over changed surfaces
like a boat, drawn to the thought of roofs
and to the thought of swimming and wading birds.
Along the river croplands and gardens
are buried in the flood, airy place grown dark
and silent beneath it.  Under the slender branch
holding the new nest of the hummingbird
the river flows heavy with earth, the water
turned the color of broken slopes.  I stand
deep in the mud of the shore, a stake
planted to measure the rise, the water rising,
the earth falling to meet it.  A great cottonwood
passes down, the leaves shivering as the roots
drag the bottom.  I was not ready for this
parting, my native land putting out to sea.

cb  cb  cb  

Winter
by Nikki Giovanni

Frogs burrow the mud
snails bury themselves
and I air my quilts
preparing for the cold

Dogs grow more hair
mothers make oatmeal
and little boys and girls
take Father John's Medicine

Bears store fat
chipmunks gather nuts
and I collect books
for the coming winter

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