1176. Late Abed - Archibald MacLeish

Ah, but a good wife!

To lie late in a warm bed

(warm where she was) with your life

suspended like a music in the head,

hearing her foot in the house, her broom

on the pine floor of the down-stairs room,

hearing the window toward the sun go up,

the tap turned on, the tap turned off,

the saucer clatter to the coffee cup . . .

To lie late in the odor of coffee

thinking of nothing at all, listening . . .

and she moves here, she moves there,

and your mouth hurts still where last she kissed you:

you think how she looked as she left, the bare

thigh, and went to her adorning . . .

You lie there listening and she moves –––

prepares her house to hold another morning,

prepares another day to hold her loves . . .

You lie there

thinking of nothing

watching the sky . . .

1175. Psalm - Richard Wilbur

 Give thanks for all things

On the plucked lute, and likewise

The harp of ten strings.

Have the lifted horn

Greatly blare, and pronounce it

Good to have been born.

Lend the breath of life

To the stops of the sweet flute.

Or capering fife,

And tell the deep drum

To make at the right juncture,

Pandemonium.

Then, in grave relief,

Praise too our sorrows on the

Cello of shared grief. 

1174. Veterinarians - A. R. Zari

because their patients cannot tell them

what’s wrong they say veterinarians
are the noblest doctors they say
that when he died St. Augustine
was the only person in the town
who owned any books they say Freud said
mental health is the capacity to love
and to work they say a chimpanzee
named Washoe learned sign language in the 60s
they say Augustine went to visit the Bishop of Milan
and the bishop would read without speaking
the words out loud they say he sensed the meaning
with his heart but that his tongue was still they
say this was the invention of reading silently
they say one of Washoe’s caretakers was pregnant
and missed work for several weeks after miscarrying
Washoe greeted her coldly when she finally came back
the caretaker told Washoe what happened
and signed MY BABY DIED
Washoe looked down and touched the corner
of her own eye and drew her finger down
her cheek they say chimpanzees can’t
shed tears but can recognize the path they take