Saturday, September 28, 2019

1037. Missing the Boat - Naomi Shihab-Nye

.
It is not so much that the boat passed 
and you failed to notice it.
It is more like the boat stopping
directly outside your bedroom window, 
the captain blowing the signal-horn,
the band playing a rousing march.
The boat shouted, waving bright flags,
its silver hull blinding in the sunlight.
But you had this idea you were going by train.
You kept checking the time-table,
digging for tracks.
And the boat got tired of you,
so tired it pulled up the anchor
and raised the ramp.
The boat bobbed into the distance,
shrinking like a toy—
at which point you probably realized 

you had always loved the sea.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

1036. Unloading The Elephants - David Wagoner

.
Out of the sliding doors
Of steel-gray boxcars
The trunks come groping
Through the gray morning.
Where are we now?
The greatest show
Is on earth, trumpeting
Down the steep ramps and bracing
Forelegs against the heavy
Heavenly bodies
They so carefully balance
Like the commandments 
Shouted to massive heads, to ears
Pondering old orders,
Older than canvas.
Why are you keeping us?
In a huge row, seventeen
Elephants. Why must we learn
From you? What have we done
To be so weighted down?
Trunks raised, they shuffle forward

To the long parade.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

1035. Ruins - Linda Pastan


.
We picnic by these bleached ruins
a few miles from the village
where we bought this rough
bread and cheese, this bottle
of wine shaped
like a Cycladic goddess.
Nearby is Homer’s Aegean
where bathers in their sculpted
flesh, their beauty, might have been
the models for the limbs
now broken, the faces
fallen from the frieze
of this temple whose ruins
we love because they show
how life is both continuous
and brief and must
be honored with good wine,

with bread and cheese.

Sunday, September 08, 2019

1034. I Love To See You - James Laughlin


in the box of paperclips on by desk
it’s a good place for you because I

can look at you when I’m telephoning
or typing a poem or putting poems in-

to the copy machine to send to maga-
zines that don’t want them    I tried

putting you in the little ormolu
frame where the daguerreotype of

great-grandmother Henrietta used to
be but it didn’t suit    you looked

too formal (you have lovely manners
but thank heaven you aren’t formal)

so I pushed up the paperclips in the 
box and leaned you against the heap

it can’t be very comfortable ( paper-
clips are harder than hay) but you’re

smiling away as if you loved it    I
hope you’re also smiling because you

love me so much you don’t care where
I keep you even in the paperclip box.



Her Reply

I like my picture to be in the box
where you keep your paperclips    I

imagine that when you reach for a
clip you are reaching out for me

it’s a gesture you’ve made a thou-
sand times (whenever you’ve needed

a clip) but now I hope it has be-
come different    given a new mean-

ing by my image    does the movement
of your hand now plead more for me

than thought or memory can    even
at this distance I feel the touch

of your fingers    do they feel they
are touching me    or must I become

again only the icon of my everyday
self as ordinary as your paperclips?