Poetry Corner
08/13/17: The Old Pond (Basho)
by Matsuo Basho (translated by Alan Watts)
08/06/17: The Tyger (Blake)
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews […]
07/09/17: The Other (Thomas)
The Other By R.S. Thomas There are nights that are so still that I can hear the small owl calling far off and a fox barking miles away. It is then that I lie in the lean hours awake listening to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic […]
05/28/17: Windnoon (Merwin)
Windnoon by W. S. Merwin On the green hill with the river beyond it long ago and my father there and my grandmother standing in her faded clothes wrinkled high-laced black shoes in the spring grass among the few gravestones inside their low fence by the small white wooden church the clear panes of its […]
05/14/17: Autumn Sonnet #3 (Sarton)
Autumn Sonnet #3 By May Sarton I wake to gentle mist over the meadow The chilling atmosphere before sunrise Where half my world lies still asleep in shadow And half is touched awake as if by eyes. Sparse yellow leaves high in the air are struck To sudden flame as the first rays break […]
05/07/17: Summer Kitchen (Hall)
Summer Kitchen by Donald Hall In June’s high light she stood at the sink With a glass of wine, And listened for the bobolink, And crushed garlic in late sunshine. I watched her cooking, from my chair. She pressed her lips Together, reached for kitchenware, And tasted sauce from her fingertips. “It’s ready now. Come on,” […]
04/30/17: His Claim (Koyama)
His Claim Mark Koyama The sky darkened. We stood under the trees—my boy only nine years old— the yellow slicker and blue rubber boots of his childhood, bright, like a fragment of sun left behind at the edge […]
04/23/17: Sleeping in the Forest (Oliver)
Sleeping in the Forest By Mary Oliver I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my […]