Risk by Anais Nin

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom

 Why love what you will lose?

There is nothing else to love.

Louise Glück

 

TIRED

by Langston Hughes

I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two-
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.

CODA by  Jason Shinder

And now I know what most deeply connects us

after that summer so many years ago,

and it isn’t poetry, although it is poetry,

and it isn’t illness, although we have that in common,

and it isn’t gratitude for every moment,

even the terrifying ones, even the physical pain,

though we are halfway through

it, or even the way you describe the magnificence

of being alive, catching a glimpse,

in the store window, of your blowing hair and chapped lips,

though it is beautiful, it is; but it is

that you’re my friend out here on the far reaches

of what humans can find out about each other.

"Coda" by Jason Shinder. Published in American Poetry Review (November/December, 2008). © Jason Shinder.

This poem was written during the illness that claimed the poet's life in April 2008.

MYSTERIES, YES

by Mary Oliver

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
 to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

 

 

I Never Wanted to Die   Dorianne Laux It’s the best part of the day, morning light sliding down rooftops, treetops, the birds pulling themselves up out of whatever stupor darkened their wings, night still in their throats. I never wanted to die. Even when those I loved died around me, away from me, beyond me.  My life was never in question, if for no other reason than I wanted to wake up and see what happened next.  And I continue to want to open like that, like the flowers who lift their heavy heads as the hills outside the window flare gold for a moment before they turn on their sides and bare their creased backs. Even the cut flowers in a jar of water lift their soon to be dead heads and open their eyes, even they want a few more sips, to dwell here, in paradise, a few days longer.

 LOVE AFTER LOVE

by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.