When You Are Old

by William Butler Yeats

 

WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

 

The Song of Wandering Aengus

by William Butler Yeats

 

I WENT out to the hazelwood
Because a fire was in my head
Cut and peeled a hazel wand
And hooked a berry to a thread
And when white moths were on the wing
And moth-like stars were flickering out
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
And gone to blow the fire aflame
Something rustled on the floor
And someone called me by my name.
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossoms in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And vanished in the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands
I will find out where she has gone
And kiss her lips and take her hand
And walk through long green dappled grass
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon
The golden apples of the sun.

 

 

Saddest Poem

by Pablo Neruda

 

I can write the saddest lines tonight.
  
Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’
  
The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
  
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.
  
On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.
  
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.
  
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.
  
Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.
  
What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.
  
That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.
  
As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me.
                    
The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.
  
Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.
  
I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.
  
Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.
  
Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.

 

 

Reciprocity

by John Drinkwater

 

I do not think that skies and meadows are
Moral, or that the fixture of a star
Comes of a quiet spirit, or that trees
Have wisdom in their windless silences.
Yet these are things invested in my mood
With constancy, and peace, and fortitude;
That in my troubled season I can cry
Upon the wide composure of the sky,
And envy fields, and wish that I might be
As little daunted as a star or tree.

 

 

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

 

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.

 

 

Haiku

by Shiki Masaoka 

 

Above a hollow of rock
An ivy hangs.
One small temple.

 

 

Haiku

by Kyoshi Takahama

 

They call this flower white peony.
Yes, but
A little red.

 

 

Haiku

by Matsuo Basho

 

A kite floats
At the place in the sky
Where it floated yesterday.

 

 

For Yaedi

by David Ignitor

 

Looking out the window at the trees
and counting the leaves,
listening to a voice within
that tells me nothing is perfect
so why bother to try, I am thief
of my own time. When I die
I want it to be said that I wasted
hours in feeling absolutely useless
and enjoyed it, sensing my life
more strongly than when I worked at it.
Now I know myself from a stone
or a sledgehammer.

 

 

Utterance

by W. S. Merwin

 

Sitting over words
very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
not far
like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
the echo of everything that has ever
been spoken
still spinning its one syllable
between the earth and silence

 

 

What Do I Do When Lost In The Forest?

by David Wagner

 

Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here.
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger;
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes.
Listen.
It answers.
I have made this place around you,
And if you leave it 
You may come back again
Saying…
“Here.”
No two trees are the same to raven
No two branches are the same to wren.
If what a tree or branch 
Does is lost on you,
Then you are surely lost.
Stand still.
The forest knows where you are.
You must let it find you.

 

 

Poem 657

by Emily Dickinson

 

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of Eye –
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –

 

 

Snowy Night

by Mary Oliver

 

Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
  
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
  
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
  
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
  
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
  
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
  
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
  
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
  
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.

 

 

Agnes' Song

by Lee chang-Dong

from the film "Poetry"

 

How is it over there?

How lonely is it?

Is it still glowing red at sunset?

Are the birds still singing on the way to the forest?

Can you receive the letter I dared not send?

Can I convey...

the confession I dared not make?

Will time pass and roses fade?

Now it's time to say goodbye

Like the wind that lingers and then goes,

just like shadows

To promises that never came,

to the love sealed 'till the end.

 

To the grass kissing my weary ankles

And to the tiny footsteps following me

It's time to say goodbye

Now as darkness falls

Will a candle be lit again?

Here I pray...

nobody shall cry...

and for you to know...

how deeply I loved you

The long wait in the middle of a hot summer day

An old path resembling my father's face

Even the lonesome wild flower shyly turning away

How deeply I loved

How my heart fluttered at hearing faint song

I bless you

Before crossing the black river

With my foul's last breath

I am beginning to dream...

a bright sunny morning...

again I awake blinded by the light...

and meet you...

standing by me.

 

When Death Comes

by Mary Oliver

 

 

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes the bright coins from his purse

 

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

 

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

 

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility,

 

And I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular,

 

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence,

 

and each body of a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth.

 

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

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was a 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.

 

Spark

by Charles Bukowski

 

I always resented all the years, the hours, the

minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it

actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me

dizzy and a bit crazy—I couldn't understand the 

murdering of my years

 

yet my fellow workers gave no signs of

agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and

seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy

as the dull and senseless work.

 

I resented each minute, every minute

as it was mutilated

and nothing relieved the monotonous ever-structure.

 

I considered suicide.

I drank away my few leisure hours.

 

I worked for decades.

 

I lived with the worst women, they killed

what the job failed to kill.

 

I knew that I was dying.

something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become

like them, accept.

 

then something else in me said, no,

save the tiniest bit.

it needn't be much, just a spark.

a spark can set a while forest on fire.

just a spark.

save it.

 

I think I did.

I'm glad I did.

what a lucky god damned

thing.

 

 

If You Forget Me

by Pablo Neruda

 

I want you to know

one thing.

 

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

 

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you, little by little.

 

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

 

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

 

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.