M Christine Delea's Blog, page 8

Birds in Snow by H.D.

Birds in Snow

by H.D.

(published in Poetry, December 1928)

See

how they trace,

across the very-marble

of this place,

bright sevens and printed fours,

elevens and careful eights,

abracadabra

of a mystic’s lore

or symbol

outlined

on a wizard’s gate.

Like plaques of ancient writ

our garden flags now name

the great and very-great;

our garden flags acclaim

in carven hieroglyph,

here king and kinglet lie,

here prince and lady rest,

mythical queens sleep here

and heroes that are slain

in holy righ...

God Says Yes To Me by Kaylin Haught

God Says Yes to Me

by Kaylin Haught

(published in Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins, 2003, Random House)

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she said yes

I asked her if it was okay to be short

and she said it sure is

I asked her if I could wear nail polish

or not wear nail polish

and she said honey

she calls me that sometimes

she said you can do just exactly

what you want to

Thanks God I said

And is it even okay if I don't paragraph

my letters

Sweetcakes God said

who knows wh...

Did I Miss Anything? by Tom Wayman

Did I Miss Anything?

by Tom Wayman

(published in Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins, 2003, Random House)

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here

we sat with our hands folded on our desks

in silence, for the full two hours

   Everything. I gave an exam worth

   40 percent of the grade for this term

   and assigned some reading due today

   on which I’m about to hand out a quiz

   worth 50 percent

Nothing. None of the content of this course

has value or meaning

Take as many days off as y...

Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation by Natalie Diaz

Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation

by Natalie Diaz

Angels don’t come to the reservation.

Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things.

Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—

death. And death

eats angels, I guess, because I haven’t seen an angel

fly through this valley ever.

Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though—

he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical

Indian. Sure he had wings,

jailbird that ...

My Daughter at the Gymnastics Party by David Bottoms

My Daughter at the Gymnastics Party

by David Bottoms

(from his 1999 book, Vagrant Grace, published by Copper Canyon Press)

When I sat for a moment in the bleachers

of the lower-school gym

to watch, one by one, the girls of my daughter’s kindergarten

climb the fat rope hung over the Styrofoam pit,

I remembered my sweet exasperated mother

and those shifting faces of injury

that followed me like an odor to ball games and practices,

playgrounds of monkey bars

and trampolines, those wilted childr...

Five Thousand Blackbirds by Melissa Slayton

Five Thousand Blackbirds

by Melissa Slayton

(published in Tinge Magazine, Issue 1)

After the death of blackbirds and drum fish in Beebe, Arkansas, on 1/1/11.

Say what you will about science and

the deadly firmament

that is the New Year’s sky.

Say the birds hit power lines.

Fireworks, with magnanimous

splatter, jarred them

from their cedar roost. But I

have seen a cat’s mouth

ajar with blackbird

and that same blackbird

pry open the unwilling

jaw, skyrocket towards

the roving moon.

Blackb...

Sonnet by James Weldon Johnson

Sonnet

by James Weldon Johnson

My heart be brave, and do not falter so,   

Nor utter more that deep, despairing wail.   

Thy way is very dark and drear I know,   

But do not let thy strength and courage fail;   

For certain as the raven-winged night

Is followed by the bright and blushing morn,   

Thy coming morrow will be clear and bright;   

’Tis darkest when the night is furthest worn.   

Look up, and out, beyond, surrounding clouds,   

And do not in thine own gross darkness grope,   

Rise u...

It ain’t heavy, it’s my purse by Marge Piercy

It ain’t heavy, it’s my purse

by Marge Piercy

(published in her 1992 book, Mars and Her Children, Knopf)

We have marsupial instincts, women

who lug purses as big as garbage igloos,

women who hang leather hippos from their shoulders:

we are hiding the helpless greedy naked worms

of our intentions shivering in chaos.

In bags the size of Manhattan studio apartments,

we carry not merely the apparatus of neatness

and legality, cards, licenses, combs,

mirrors, spare glasses, lens fluid,

but hex...

The Thing Is by Ellen Bass

The Thing Is

by Ellen Bass

(published in her 2002 book, Mules of Love, BOA Editions)

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you've held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weighs you down like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body understand this...

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa by Ada Limón

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa

by Ada Limón

(published in The Best American Poetry 2024, edited by Mary Jo Salter and David Lehman, Scribner)

Arching under the night sky inky

with black expansiveness, we point

to the planets we know, we

pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,

we read the sky as if it is an unerring book

of the universe, expert and evident.

Still, there are mysteries below our sky:

the whale song, the songbird singing

its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.

...