Saturday, November 08, 2014

973. The Laboratory - Wislawa Szymborska

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Translated from the Polish by Walter Whipple Did it all happen in the laboratory? Beneath one lamp by day and billions by night? Ar...
Sunday, September 07, 2014

972. Some Advice from a Mother to Her Married Son - Judith Viorst

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. The answer to do you love me isn't, I married you, didn't I? Or, Can't we discuss this after the ballgame is through? It...
Thursday, August 14, 2014

971. I Live My Life In Widening Circles - Rilke

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Translated by Edward Snow I live my life in widening circles that drift out over the things. I may not achieve the very last, but...
Monday, July 21, 2014

970. Before We Leave - Stephen Dunn

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. Just so it’s clear— no whining on the journey. If you whine, you’ll get stuck somewhere with people like yourself. It’s an unwr...
Tuesday, July 15, 2014

969. A Story That Could Be True - William Stafford

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. If you were exchanged in the cradle and your real mother died without ever telling the story then no one knows your name, and s...
Sunday, June 01, 2014

968. Memory - Rilke

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Translated by Edward Snow And you wait, you wait for that one thing that will infinitely enlarge your life; that gigantic, the stupendous, t...
Sunday, May 04, 2014

967. "I Love You" - Billy Collins

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. Early on, I noticed that you always say it to each of your children as you are getting off the phone with them just as you never fail to s...
Tuesday, April 22, 2014

966. Sharks' Teeth - Kay Ryan

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. Everything contains some silence. Noise gets its zest from the small shark’s-tooth shaped fragments of rest angled in it. An hour of city ...
Saturday, March 08, 2014

965. Request - Lawrence Raab

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. For a long time I was sure it should be "Jumping Jack Flash," then the adagio from Schubert's C major Quintet, but right now...
Friday, February 07, 2014

964. You can rely on him - Yehuda Amichi

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. Happiness has no father. No happiness ever Learns from the one before, and it dies, without heirs. But sadness has a long tradition, P...
Sunday, January 26, 2014

963. When I Wrote A Little - Hayden Carruth

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When I Wrote A Little poem in the ancient mode for you 
that was musical and had old words 

in it such as would never do in 
the acad...
Saturday, January 04, 2014

962. A Thank-You Note - Wislawa Szymborska

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Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzecia k I owe a lot to those I do not love. Relief in accepting others care for them more. Joy that I...
Thursday, December 26, 2013

961. In The White Sky - William Stafford

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. Many things in the world have already happened. You can go back and tell about them. They are part of what we own as we speed along ...
Monday, December 23, 2013

960. Yes! No! - Mary Oliver

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. How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I think sere...
Thursday, December 19, 2013

959. The Other Tiger - Jorge Luis Borges

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  Translated from the Spanish by Alastair Reid          "And the craft createth a semblance."             —Morris, Sigurd the V...
Monday, December 09, 2013

958. Lying in wait for happiness - Yehuda Amichai

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. On the broad steps leading down to the Western Wall A beautiful woman came up to me: You don't remember me, I'm Shoshana in Hebrew...
Thursday, December 05, 2013

957. The Makers - Howard Nemerov

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. Who can remember back to the first poets, The greatest ones, greater even than Orpheus? No one has remembered that far back Or now conside...
Thursday, November 28, 2013

956. Words In A Certain Appropriate Mode - Hayden Carruth

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. It is not music, though one has tried music. 
It is not nature, though one has tried
 The rose, the bluebird, and the bear.
 It is not...
Thursday, November 21, 2013

955. Going To Horse Flats (excerpt) - Robinson Jeffers

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. Amazingly active a toothless old man Hobbled beside me up the canyon, going to Horse Flats, he said, To see to some hives of bees. It w...
Sunday, November 10, 2013

954. The Fix-Up - Judith Viorst

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. I have this friend Muriel who is attractive and intelligent and     terribly understanding and loyal and My husband has this friend Ralph ...