Found Poetry

Beautiful voices

singing into the wind

floating on the trembling water

lilting

delicate

I fell into

the

dark reflecting moonlight

poem for the day: now i become myself by may sarton

poem for the day: Midnight was come by Thomas Sackville (1536-1608)

Midnight was come, and every vital thing
With sweet sound sleep their weary limbs did rest,
The beasts were still, the little birds that sing,
Now sweetly slept beside their mother's breast,
The old and all well shrouded in their nest;
The waters calm, the cruel seas did cease,
The woods, the fields, and all things held their peace.

The golden stars were whirl'd amid their race,
And on the earth did with their twinkling light,
When each thing nestled in his resting place,
Forget day's pain with pleasure of the night;
The hare had not the greedy hounds in sight,
The fearful deer of death stood not in doubt,
The partridge dreamt not of the falcon's foot.

from:  The Complaint of |Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham

poem for the day: Hello, sun in my face by Mary Oliver

“Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness”

— Mary Oliver

 

poem for the day: A Frosty Day - Lord de Tabley (1835-1895)

Grass afield wears silver thatch;
Palings all are edged with rime;
Frost-flowers pattern round the latch;
Cloud nor breeze dissolve the clime;

When the waves are solid floor,
And the clods are iron-bound,
And the boughs are crystall'd hoar,
And the red leaf nailed a-ground.

When the fieldfare's flight is slow,
And a rosy vapour rim,
Now the sun is small and low,
Belts along the region dim.

When the ice-crack flies and flaws,
Shore to shore, with thunder shock,
Deeper than the evening daws,
Clearer than the village clock.

When the rusty blackbird strips,
Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn;
And the pale day-crescent dips,
Now to heaven, a slender horn.

poem for the day: morning poem by mary oliver

poem for the day: An Autumn perspective by eric jong

Now, moving in, cartons on the floor,
the radio playing to bare walls,
picture hooks left stranded
in the unsoiled squares where paintings were,
and something reminding us
this is like all other moving days;
finding the dirty ends of someone else's life,
hair fallen in the sink, a peach pit,
and burned-out matches in the corner;
things not preserved, yet never swept away
like fragments of disturbing dreams
we stumble on all day. . .
in ordering our lives, we will discard them,
scrub clean the floorboards of this our home
lest refuse from the lives we did not lead
become, in some strange, frightening way, our own.
And we have plans that will not tolerate
our fears-- a year laid out like rooms
in a new house--the dusty wine glasses
rinsed off, the vases filled, and bookshelves
sagging with heavy winter books.
Seeing the room always as it will be,
we are content to dust and wait.
We will return here from the dark and silent
streets, arms full of books and food,
anxious as we always are in winter,
and looking for the Good Life we have made.

I see myself then: tense, solemn,
in high-heeled shoes that pinch,
not basking in the light of goals fulfilled,
but looking back to now and seeing
a lazy, sunburned, sandaled girl
in a bare room, full of promise
and feeling envious.

Now we plan, postponing, pushing our lives forward
into the future--as if, when the room
contains us and all our treasured junk
we will have filled whatever gap it is
that makes us wander, discontented
from ourselves.

The room will not change:
a rug, or armchair, or new coat of paint
won't make much difference;
our eyes are fickle
but we remain the same beneath our suntans,
pale, frightened,
dreaming ourselves backward and forward in time,
dreaming our dreaming selves.

I look forward and see myself looking back.

poem for the day: Nocturne by Edith Sodergran

Moonlit evening, silver clear
and the night's blue billows,
sparkling waves, numberless,
follow one another.
Shadows fall along the path,
on the shore the bushes softly weep,
black giants guard its silver in their keep.
Silence deep in summer's midst,
sleep and dream, -
the moon glides out across the sea
white tender gleam.

poem for the day: the healing improvisation of hair by jay wright

The Healing Improvisation of Hair

Jay Wright, 1934

If you undo your do you wóuld 
be strange. Hair has been on my mind. 
I used to lean in the doorway 
and watch my stony woman wind 
the copper through the black, and play 
with my understanding, show me she cóuld 
take a cup of river water, 
and watch it shimmy, watch it change, 
turn around and become ash bone. 
Wind in the cottonwoods wakes me 
to a day so thin its breastbone 
shows, so paid out it shakes me free 
of its blue dust. I will arrange 
that river water, bottom juice. 
I conjure my head in the stream 
and ride with the silk feel of it 
as my woman bathes me, and shaves 
away the scorn, sponges the grit 
of solitude from my skin, laves 
the salt water of self-esteem 
over my feathering body. 
How like joy to come upon me 
in remembering a head of hair 
and the way water would caress 
it, and stress beauty in the flair 
and cut of the only witness 
to my dance under sorrow’s tree. 
This swift darkness is spring’s first hour. 

I carried my life, like a stone, 
in a ragged pocket, but I 
had a true weaving song, a sly 
way with rhythm, a healing tone.

poem for the day: Dust if you must by Rose Milligan

poem for the day: The Moment by Margaret Atwood

poem for the day: the best time of day by raymond carver

Cool summer nights.
Windows open.
Lamps burning.
Fruit in the bowl.
And your head on my shoulder.
These the happiest moments in the day.
Next to the early morning hours,
of course. And the time
just before lunch.
And the afternoon, and
early evening hours.
But I do love
these summer nights.
Even more, I think,
than those other times.
The work finished for the day.
And no one who can reach us now.
Or ever

poem for the day: Dreamhouse by Mary Oliver

poem for the day: Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey by Wm. wordsworth

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Among the woods and copses lose themselves,
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone. (On revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour - July 13, 1798)

Poem for the day: the garden by andrew marvell

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How vainly men themselves amaze

To win the palm, the oak, or bays,

And their uncessant labours see

Crown’d from some single herb or tree,

Whose short and narrow verged shade

Does prudently their toils upbraid;

While all flow’rs and all trees do close

To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,

And Innocence, thy sister dear!

Mistaken long, I sought you then

In busy companies of men;

Your sacred plants, if here below,

Only among the plants will grow.

Society is all but rude,

To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen

So am’rous as this lovely green.

Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,

Cut in these trees their mistress’ name;

Little, alas, they know or heed

How far these beauties hers exceed!

Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound,

No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion’s heat,

Love hither makes his best retreat.

The gods, that mortal beauty chase,

Still in a tree did end their race:

Apollo hunted Daphne so,

Only that she might laurel grow;

And Pan did after Syrinx speed,

Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wond’rous life in this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head;

The luscious clusters of the vine

Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach

Into my hands themselves do reach;

Stumbling on melons as I pass,

Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,

Withdraws into its happiness;

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find,

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas;

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,

Or at some fruit tree’s mossy root,

Casting the body’s vest aside,

My soul into the boughs does glide;

There like a bird it sits and sings,

Then whets, and combs its silver wings;

And, till prepar’d for longer flight,

Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,

While man there walk’d without a mate;

After a place so pure and sweet,

   What other help could yet be meet!

But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share

To wander solitary there:

Two paradises ’twere in one

To live in paradise alone.

How well the skillful gard’ner drew

Of flow’rs and herbs this dial new,

Where from above the milder sun

Does through a fragrant zodiac run;

And as it works, th’ industrious bee

Computes its time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours

Be reckon’d but with herbs and flow’rs!

poem for the day: There is pleasure in the pathless woods by george gordon byron

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more…
— Byron”

poem for the day: loafing by raymond carver

Loafing

I looked into the room a moment ago,
and this is what I saw—
my chair in its place by the window,
the book turned facedown on the table.
And on the sill, the cigarette
left burning in its ashtray.
Malingerer! my uncle yelled at me
so long ago. He was right.
I’ve set aside time today,
same as every day,
for doing nothing at all. -Raymond Carver

poem for the day: Vanished Summers by Margaret Sackville


Vanished Summers, passed and gone,
Here find resurrection. -
Each crowned corn-head closely filled,
Packed and pressed with suns distilled
Into lively sap which throws
Rays of sunlight as it grows. -
These enchanted, waving tall
Golden ears contain them all:
All the long delightful days,
When June met us face to face;
Light and laughing grace re-born
In great fields of upright corn. -
Earth's tremendous charity
Full-accomplished here we see
Who gives us for familiar food
The lovely lilt of July's mood. -
One minute, brown husk contains
Summer's shadow, Autumn rains,
Spring's delicious wayward green,
Even Winter's pallid, lean
Blood of mingled frost and snows
Virtue on our sheaves bestows.
So to give us daily bread
The very sky's transfigured.

poem for the day: Life by Henry van dyke

Let me but live my life from year to year,
With forward face and unreluctant soul;
Not hurrying to, nor turning from the goal;
Not mourning for the things that disappear
In the dim past, nor holding back in fear
From what the future veils; but with a whole
And happy heart, that pays its toll
To Youth and Age, and travels on with cheer.
So let the way wind up the hill or down,
O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy:
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy,
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
My heart will keep the courage of the quest,
And hope the road's last turn will be the best.

poem for the day: When death comes by mary oliver

"When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

-Mary Oliver