Tuesday, November 24, 2015

I Am, I Am Not

I Am, I Am Not
a poem by a 6th grader I know

I am American
strong and proud.
Devoted to this country,
I always root for the American team.


I was born here,
lived here all my life.
Never slept anywhere else.
Never loved a place as much.

I am not American
ancestors are Chinese.
Hints of them in my life,
happy to be different.

I love Chinese things.
Food is delicious,
clothes are beautiful.
Disappointed at some American things.

I am both,
American and not.
Proud and disappointed,
loving and not.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Mist

Mist by Henry David Thoreau

Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the dasied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of the lake and seas and rivers,
Bear only purfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields! 



http://www.bartleby.com/248/303.html

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Praise Song

Praise Song
by Barbara Crooker

Praise the light of late November
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there's left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds; yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though the darkness gathers, praise the crazy
fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.



Found on the Writer's Almanac here
 

Sunday, November 15, 2015

God got a dog

God got a dog
 by Cynthia Rylant

She never meant to
She liked dogs. She'd
liked them ever since She was a kid,
but She didn't think
She had time for a dog now.
She was always working
and dogs needed so
much attention.
God didn't know if She
could take being needed
by one more thing.
But She saw this dog
out by the tracks
and it was hungry
and cold
and lonely
and God realized
She'd made that dog
somehow,
somehow She was responsible
though She knew logically
that She had only set the
world on its course.
She couldn't be blamed
for everything.
But She saw this dog
and She felt bad
so She took it home
and named it Ernie
and now God....
has somebody
keeping Her feet warm at night.



buy the book here:
http://www.powells.com/book/god-got-a-dog-9781442465183

One Way Ticket

One Way Ticket
By Langston Hughes

I pick up my life,
And take it with me,
And I put it down in
Chicago, Detroit,
Buffalo, Scranton,
Any place that is
North and East,
And not Dixie.



http://smsgreatmigration.blogspot.com/2010/02/one-way-ticket-by-langston-hughes.html

Saturday, November 14, 2015

My Triumph

My Triumph
by John Greenleaf Whittier
 
The autumn-time has come;
On woods that dream of bloom,
And over purpling vines,
The low sun fainter shines.

The aster-flower is failing,
The hazel’s gold is paling;
Yet overhead more near
The eternal stars appear!

And present gratitude
Insures the future’s good,
And for the things I see
I trust the things to be;

That in the paths untrod,
And the long days of God,
My feet shall still be led,
My heart be comforted.

O living friends who love me!
O dear ones gone above me!
Careless of other fame,
I leave to you my name.

Hide it from idle praises,
Save it from evil phrases:
Why, when dear lips that spake it
Are dumb, should strangers wake it?

Let the thick curtain fall;
I better know than all
How little I have gained,
How vast the unattained.

Not by the page word-painted
Let life be banned or sainted:
Deeper than written scroll
The colors of the soul.

Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.

Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.

What matter, I or they?
Mine or another’s day,
So the right word be said
And life the sweeter made?

Hail to the coming singers!
Hail to the brave light-bringers!
Forward I reach and share
All that they sing and dare.

The airs of heaven blow o’er me;
A glory shines before me
Of what mankind shall be,—
Pure, generous, brave, and free.

A dream of man and woman
Diviner but still human,
Solving the riddle old,
Shaping the Age of Gold!

The love of God and neighbor;
An equal-handed labor;
The richer life, where beauty
Walks hand in hand with duty.

Ring, bells in unreared steeples,
The joy of unborn peoples!
Sound, trumpets far off blown,
Your triumph is my own!

Parcel and part of all,
I keep the festival,
Fore-reach the good to be,
And share the victory.

I feel the earth move sunward,
I join the great march onward,
And take, by faith, while living,
My freehold of thanksgiving.
 
 
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174756

Friday, November 13, 2015

Henry V Speech to the troops

St. Crispin's Day Speech from Henry V, William Shakespeare

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.




Read the whole text here or just watch Kenneth Branagh do it here  :)





An Ancient Horse

An Ancient Horse by Jeff Moss
 
Hyracotherium, a tiny horse
Lived millions of years ago.
He measured just twelve inches high,
So what I'd like to know -
Did paleontologist ever find,
Near where that horse was at,
Some eensy-weensy boots and spurs
And a teeny cowboy hat?





Found here  :)

My Three Friends

My Three Friends
by Louis L'Amour



I have three friends, three faithful friends,
More Faithful could not be–
And every night, by the dim firelight,
They come to sit with me.
~~~
The first of these is tall and thin
With hollow cheeks, and a toothless grin;
A ghastly stare, and scraggly hair,
And an ugly lump for a chin.
~~~
The second of these is short and fat
With beady eyes, like a starving rat–
He was soaked in sin to his oily skin,
And verminous, at that.
~~~
The crouching one is of ape-like plan,
Formed like a beast that resembled man:
A freakish thing, with arms a-swing,
And he was the third of that gruesome clan.
~~~
The first I stabbed with a Chinese knife,
And left on the white beach sand,
With his ghastly stare, and blood soaked hair,
And an out-flung, claw-like hand;
~~~
The fat one stole a crumbling crust,
That he wolfed in his swineish way–
So I left him there, with eyes a glare,
An his head cut off half-way.
~~~
We fought to kill, the brute and I,
That the one that lived might eat,
So I killed him too, and made a stew,
And dined on human meat.
~~~
And so these three come to visit me,
When without the night winds howl–
The one with the leer, the one with a sneer,
And the one with a brutish scowl;
~~~
Their lips are dumb, but the three dead come
And crouch by the hollow grate–
The man that I stabbed, the man that I cut,
And the gruesome thing that I ate.
~~~
Their lips are sealed, with blood congealed,
But they will not let me be,
And so they haunt, grim, ghastly, and gaunt,
Till death shall set me free.
~~~
I have three friends, three faithful friends,
More Faithful could not be–
And every night, by the dim firelight,
They come to sit with me.


https://rhymenreview.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/a-friendly-poem-for-friday-the-13th/

Saturday, November 7, 2015

What the Bird Said Early In the Year

What the Bird Said Early In the Year
C.S. Lewis


I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear:
This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.

Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees
This year nor want of rain destroy the peas.

This year time’s nature will no more defeat you.
Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.

This time they will not lead you round and back
To Autumn, one year older, by the well worn track.

This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell,
We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.

Often deceived, yet open once again your heart,
Quick, quick, quick, quick! – the gates are drawn apart.


Found here

Friday, November 6, 2015

Golden Retrievals

Golden Retrievals 
 by Mark Doty

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then


I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,


or else you’re off in some fog concerning
—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,


a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

The Naming of Cats

The Naming of Cats
T.S. Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.


Hear T.S. Eliot recite this lovely poem here

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

I Have News For You

I Have News for You
by Tony Hoagland

There are people who do not see a broken playground swing
as a symbol of ruined childhood

and there are people who don't interpret the behavior
of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.

There are people who don't walk past an empty swimming pool
and think about past pleasures unrecoverable

and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians.
I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings

do not send their sinuous feeder roots
deep into the potting soil of others' emotional lives

as if they were greedy six-year-olds
sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;

and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without
debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.

Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon?
There are some people, unlike me and you,

who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as
unattainable as that moon;
thus, they do not later
have to waste more time
defaming the object of their former ardor.

Or consequently run and crucify themselves
in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.

I have news for you—
there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room

and open a window to let the sweet breeze in
and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.

Found here

Monday, November 2, 2015

The Wild Swans at Coole

The Wild Swans at Coole
W.B. Yeats
The trees are in their autumn beauty,   
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water   
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones   
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me   
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings   
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,   
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,   
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,   
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;   
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,   
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,   
Mysterious, beautiful;   
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day   
To find they have flown away?