Poetry

I'm not the most in tune to poetry, or what makes it good.

Using this page to share what I like.

Kindness - Naomi Shihab Nai

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

The Wasp - Mary Oliver

Why the wasp was on my bed I didn't
know. Why I was in bed I did know. Why
there wasn't room for both of us I
didn't know. I watched it idly. Idleness
can be a form of dying, I did know that.

The wasp didn't communicate how it felt.
It did look confused on the white sheet,
as though it had landed somewhere in the
Arctic. And it did flick its wings when
I raised my legs, causing an upheaval.

I didn't want to be lying there. I didn't
want to be going in that direction. And
so I say it was a gift when it rose into
the air and, as wasps do, expressed itself
in a sudden and well-aimed motion.

Almost delicious was its deep, inflexible
sting.

Song of the Worm - Eliza Cook

1 THE worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain
2 In the field that is stored with its millions of slain;
3 The charnel-grounds widen, to me they belong,
4 With the vaults of the sepulchre, sculptured and strong.
5 The tower of ages in fragments is laid,
6 Moss grows on the stones, and I lurk in its shade;
7 And the hand of the giant and heart of the brave
8 Must turn weak and submit to the worm and the grave.
9 Daughters of earth, if I happen to meet
10 Your bloom-plucking fingers and sod-treading feet--
11 Oh! turn not away with the shriek of disgust
12 From the thing you must mate with in darkness and dust.
13 Your eyes may be flashing in pleasure and pride,
14 'Neath the crown of a Queen or the wreath of a bride;
15 Your lips may be fresh and your cheeks may be fair--
16 Let a few years pass over, and I shall be there.
17 Cities of splendour, where palace and gate,
18 Where the marble of strength and the purple of state;
19 Where the mart and arena, the olive and vine,
20 Once flourished in glory; oh! are ye not mine?
21 Go look for famed Carthage, and I shall be found
22 In the desolate ruin and weed-covered mound;
23 And the slime of my trailing discovers my home,
24 'Mid the pillars of Tyre and the temples of Rome.
25 I am sacredly sheltered and daintily fed
26 Where the velvet bedecks, and the white lawn is spread;
27 I may feast undisturbed, I may dwell and carouse
28 On the sweetest of lips and the smoothest of brows.
29 The voice of the sexton, the chink of the spade,
30 Sound merrily under the willow's dank shade.
31 They are carnival notes, and I travel with glee
32 To learn what the churchyard has given to me.
33 Oh! the worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain,
34 For where monarchs are voiceless I revel and reign;
35 I delve at my ease and regale where I may;
36 None dispute with the worm in his will or his way.
37 The high and the bright for my feasting must fall--
38 Youth, Beauty, and Manhood, I prey on ye all:
39 The Prince and the peasant, the despot and slave;
40 All, all must bow down to the worm and the grave.