"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

When I made my first lists of poems for the poetry box in 2020, this well-known piece was there. It’s taken two years to find its place, however. With an election looming and plenty of challenges to go around, many of us may be taxing our “lives with forethought of grief.” But then there’s Wendell Berry.

Yesterday, Chris and I sat on a bench on a perfect late afternoon in fall, watching the paddlers on the river and listening to a busker. A heron soared past, skimming above the water. I didn’t yet know this poem and its great heron were going into the box today, but I definitely experienced a moment of resting “in the grace of the world.”

Listen to Berry read his poem, accompanied a cool animation, here.

“I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.”

"The Orange" by Wendy Cope

It’s not often that a rhyming poem makes its way into the poetry box, but I find this little piece by the British poet Wendy Cope quite irresistible. An Amazon reviewer said of her book, Serious Concerns, “It shows that when the most serious subjects are treated light-heartedly, they become even more telling.” Exactly. Wishing you today the surprise of happiness in the ordinary things and the gladness of knowing you exist.

“And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do”

"What Now?" by Mark Van Doren

My friend Maureen introduced me to this poem years ago, and its final lines – “Well, it is difficult / Dear ones. It is.” – have stayed with me since. I shared them with a friend last week and then went to find the whole piece for the poetry box. It’s curious little conglomeration, and I think the heart of it is how the poet interrupts himself for the dancing, for the weeping, and to claim us as “dear ones.”

“Don’t you hear the dance music,
Old as these hills?”

"When in Doubt" by Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros’ new book, Woman Without Shame, comes out today, though I encountered this poem in a recent issue of Orion magazine. For years I got to witness students responding with full hearts and heads to Cisneros’ much-loved The House on Mango Street as it was taught in Free Minds. In her work the plain-spoken sits beside the poetic, the faux leopard beside the true wisdom. And in this poem, thank you beside thank you.

“When in doubt,
Err on the side of generosity.”

"Mercy" by Rudy Francisco and three more poems

While we were away for a good portion of July and August, our lovely house sitter was updating the poetry box each Monday with the poems I’d left in a manila folder. But I somehow didn’t manage to keep the blog and newsletter going at the same time. So today is a big catch up. It begins with this simple but impactful poem by the California spoken word poet, Rudy Francisco, that will make me think more broadly the next time I get a glass and piece paper to relocate a wayward spider. Mercy is such a potent word. Don’t we all deserve it?

Also, while I was gone, the box held “August Morning” by Albert Garcia, “Self-Compassion” by James Crews, whose anthologies have provided good fodder for the poetry box, and “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon. All of these poems have been little gifts for me to (re)discover as I came home, and I hope they were the same for our neighbors in those hot (merciless?) days that just passed.

I hope I am greeted
with the same kind
of mercy.

"First Blues" by Saundra Rose Maley

I’ve been learning how to play Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” on ukulele, which is probably not the opening sentence you expected today. It begins, “On a warm summer evening.” And this poem, which went into the box on Monday, begins, “That summer night / was hot.” It’s the season for simmering evenings, tales about trains, and poems about backporch sitting. I think we can agree that this blazing summer can only be made better by savoring some music and “listening like a fool.”

“That summer night
Was hot
Steaming like a crab”

"How to Triumph Like a Girl" by Ada Limón

Last week the fabulous poet Ada Limón was named the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, to which I say Brava! Brava! A perfect choice. Do you know her podcast “The Slowdown,” where she shares a poem and a story each day? It’s so good!

This isn’t the first Ada Limón poem I’ve put in the poetry box. I love her work. Her “Instructions on Not Giving Up” and “What I Didn’t Know Before” went in that first year, and some of her selections from “The Slowdown” have been there too. But this poem seemed a sweet way to celebrate her new role, one in which she is sure to triumph.

“...somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.”

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats

Most everyone I know in Austin is dreaming of escape from the hottest summer in Texas history. This Yeats poem remains one of my favorite poems about the sweet pull of elsewhere. That lake water lapping and bee-loud glade and the music of these stanzas may be the big exhale we need right now.

“I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore”

"The Sabbath of Mutual Respect" by Marge Piercy

In the wake of the heartbreak and outrage of last week’s Supreme Court decision, I have seen numerous references to the poet Marge Piercy, who is often called “the feminist poet Marge Piercy” as if she is alone in that category. She is not. I’ve chosen this short excerpt from “The Sabbath of Mutual Respect” for the box this week in praise of choices and a breadth of imagination that acknowledges the many lives that might have been ours.

I paired Piercy with RBG for good measure and to tip my hat to the neighbor who is once again flying her DISSENT flag from its second-story pole.

“Praise all our choices. Praise any woman
who chooses, and make safe her choice.”

Three Haiku by Basho

Last night we saw a staged reading of four works by Ukrainian playwrights at Austin’s Hyde Park Theatre. That tiny, scruffy performance space with its worn chairs and simple sets was the site of so many creative experiences during my early years in Austin. Stepping into it was like stepping into the past, an Austin I so rarely encounter now. As we walked to the car after the show, we passed the familiar sign of the Bookcase Store, now shuttered after 32 years. The ache of nostalgia for my younger self and younger city brought to mind this haiku by the Japanese master, Basho.

“Even in Kyoto
hearing the cuckoo’s cry —
I long for Kyoto”

This morning I put it in the box along with two of his poems for summer and asking the question, “What were the ancient warriors’ dreams?”

You can learn about the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings here.

"Heat" by H.D.

The weather map is daunting with its palette of orange, red, and purple. If you’ve found yourself someplace temperate, count yourself lucky. Here in Austin we are burning up and a glimpse across the globe tells me we’re not alone. So I knew heat would be the theme for the poetry box this week, though only the hardiest of dog walkers may pass by in person. Here’s a little plea for a breeze from H.D.

“Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—”

"Let Me Begin Again" by Major Jackson

Oh, transitions. In my life people are leaving jobs, selling houses, moving to new places, following up on diagnoses, completing degrees, starting new careers, having babies, testing the word retirement in their mouths. So much change is underway, and I was delighted to discover this poem by Major Jackson in my in-box this morning, care of the marvelous Chris at Firefly Creative Writing. Wishing you blessings on whatever journey you’ve undertaken. There are “no more dress rehearsals / to attend.”

“This time, let me circle
the island of my fears only once then
live like a raging waterfall and grow
a magnificent mustache.”

"Questions Before Dark" by Jeanne Lohmann

It is a new month, a new season – summer is already pummeling us in Texas, and the kids are out of school. Even small transitions can make me reflective, and the news from Uvalde and Ukraine and elsewhere has me asking again how it is we are supposed to live our lives. This poem, which I first encountered through the wonderful Parker Palmer, offers ways of reflecting beyond the big transitions. How did we live our day? 

Here is some of what we know about how the poet, Jeanne Lohmann, lived her days: She continued to mentor poets in her community into her 90s, opened her home as a gathering place for writers, and her poems can be found in the woods and walkways at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, WA. Her obituary opens, “She was a mother, sister, wife, poet, lover of literature, social justice, beauty and cooking!”

“What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again?”

"Dawn Revisited" by Rita Dove

And suddenly I missed a week in the poetry box, unsure what words were right for the moment, or the many moments happening right now. Then today, I offered it some Rita Dove. This is a poem that says, “Chin up. Hop to it, now.” And so we will, amid spring gardens and war and hard news and graduation joys. Amid all of it.

Plus, who doesn’t love a poem with fried eggs in it?

“The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open
to a blank page. ”

"why i feed the birds" by Richard Vargas

We are home from nearly three weeks of meandering through Southern Spain (glorious!). As we step back into our lives at home, we face again the realities of our responsibilities. Some of them we want to turn away from—the leak from the washing machine, the mountains of email. And some of them draw us forward. I’m happy to water the garden, to try the new chicken and rice recipe, to refill the bird feeder. As I got ready to do the latter, I came across this small poem. It reminds me again that while the domestic life may lack sweeping landscapes, it is also where we often find the holy.

he jumped into her hand
began to eat
she smiled

"Instructions for the Journey" by Pat Schneider

This poem by Pat Schneider, founder of Amherst Writers & Artists and its teaching method, often appears in collections of spiritual poetry. The journey here is metaphorical, and one we all take at different times in our lives. One that sometimes takes us far away and sometimes leads us right back home.

“The world, too, sheds its skin:
politicians, cataclysms, ordinary days.”

"cutting greens" by Lucille Clifton

It’s prime garden time here in Austin, one of those rare moments of lushness in our often scruffy, prickly environment. The greens in my veggie beds are insistent in their brightness, and they brought me to this little domestic scene from Lucille Clifton. In this reading, she said, “Greens aren’t funny. Greens are good.” Greens are good.

(Also wonderful is poet Terrance Haye’s more recent reading of this poem.)

“i hold their bodies in obscene embrace
thinking of everything but kinship.”

"So?" by Leonard Nathan

I listened (again) last week to Krista Tippett’s interview with poet Mary Oliver, and Oliver talked about how as she got older, her poems got shorter. “But if you can say it in a few lines, you’re just decorating for the rest of it,” she said.  

Seeking poems for the poetry box has made me aware of how rare and powerful a tiny poem can be. I need something short enough to be read during a pause in a walk, short enough to be printed in a font that can be read from the curb. The search is training my eye differently. 

This poem by Leonard Nathan is 14 lines like a sonnet. It’s one of those I come across every few years, and reading it now, it seems to align well with Oliver’s famous lines, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”

“You’ve been given just the one life
in this world that matters”

"The Diameter of the Bomb" by Yehuda Amichai

This elegant poem by the late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai captures the way that violence reverberates, the way that we are all contained within the circle of “pain and time.” It is a poem of war that reminds us that its real impact is found not in the logistics or big news stories, but in the small losses that echo outward. It’s a poem I always return to when the world erupts, here and elsewhere.

“...the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.”

"The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass

The William Stafford poem I last put in the box got such a response that I left it up an extra week, letting its nine short lines have their say a little longer. I took it down about an hour before a series of tornadoes ripped through Central Texas, overturning semis and tearing roofs off houses. Given that Stafford places a tornado at the end of his first line, perhaps he should have been afforded a few more hours

But Ellen Bass picks up Stafford’s theme in “The Thing Is,” a poem that acknowledges all the dark and hard things central to our human experience and still urges that ultimately, we must come back to love. I think Stafford would agree

“Then you hold life like a face
between your palms”