The Blue Robe

by Wendell Berry

How joyful to be together, alone
As when we first were joined
In our little house by the river
Long ago, except that now we know

Each other, as we did not then;
And now instead of two stories fumbling
To meet, we belong to one story
That the two, joining, made. And now

We touch each other with the tenderness
Of mortals, who know themselves:
How joyful to feel the heart quake

At the sight of a grandmother,
Old friend in the morning light,
Beautiful in her blue robe!

“The Blue Robe” by Wendell Berry, from New Collected Poems; copyright  Counterpoint Press 2012.

Most Poetry will post a poem on the theme of joy and celebration, selected by our members, each day through the month of September.

Chaplinesque

By Hart Crane

We make our meek adjustments,
Contented with such random consolations
As the wind deposits
In slithered and too ample pockets.

For we can still love the world, who find
A famished kitten on the step, and know
Recesses for it from the fury of the street,
Or warm torn elbow coverts.

We will sidestep, and to the final smirk
Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb
That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us,
Facing the dull squint with what innocence
And what surprise!

And yet these fine collapses are not lies
More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane;
Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise.
We can evade you, and all else but the heart:
What blame to us if the heart live on.

The game enforces smirks; but we have seen
The moon in lonely alleys make
A grail of laughter of an empty ash can,
And through all sound of gaiety and quest
Have heard a kitten in the wilderness.

From: The Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose of Hart Crane, Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company, 1966.

Most Poetry will post a poem on the theme of joy and celebration, selected by our members, each day through the month of September.

The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog

by Alicia Ostriker

To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow

To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended skirt

To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other
dogs can smell it

“The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog” from The Book of Seventy, by Alicia Suskin Ostriker, © 2009. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Most Poetry will post a poem on the theme of joy and celebration, selected by our members, each day through the month of September.

Primavera

by Louise Glück

Spring comes quickly: overnight
the plum tree blossoms,
the warm air fills with bird calls.

In the plowed dirt, someone has drawn a picture of the sun
with rays coming out all around
but because the background is dirt, the sun is black.
There is no signature.

Alas, very soon everything will disappear:
the bird calls, the delicate blossoms. In the end:
even the earth itself will follow the artist’s name into oblivion.

Nevertheless, the artist intends
a mood of celebration.

How beautiful the blossoms are—emblems of the resilience of life.
The birds approach eagerly.

from A VILLAGE LIFE by Louise Glück. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.

Most Poetry will post a poem on the theme of joy and celebration, selected by our members, each day through the month of September.

anyone lived in a pretty how town

by e.e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

Source: Complete Poems 1904-1962 (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1994)

Most Poetry will post a poem on the theme of joy and celebration, selected by our members, each day through the month of September.