I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.
This poem is in the public domain.
Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers. Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with little hands, Comes and touches you With a thousand memories, And asks you Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
This poem is in the public domain.
1 Every October it becomes important, no, necessary to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism, to confront in the death of the year your death, one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive when it's about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its incipient exit, an ending that at least so far the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain) have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception because of course nature is always renewing itself— the trees don't die, they just pretend, go out in style, and return in style: a new style. 2 Is it deliberate how far they make you go especially if you live in the city to get far enough away from home to see not just trees but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves: so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks like rain, or snow, but it's probably just clouds (too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder, given the poverty of your memory, which road had the most color last year, but it doesn't matter since you're probably too late anyway, or too early— whichever road you take will be the wrong one and you've probably come all this way for nothing. 3 You'll be driving along depressed when suddenly a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably won't last. But for a moment the whole world comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives— red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion, gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations of burning. You're on fire. Your eyes are on fire. It won't last, you don't want it to last. You can't stand any more. But you don't want it to stop. It's what you've come for. It's what you'll come back for. It won't stay with you, but you'll remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt or something you've felt that also didn't last.
Copyright © 1992 by Lloyd Schwartz. From Goodnight, Gracie (The University of Chicago Press, 1992). Appears courtesy of the author.
But the rocking chair appears to be missing a little something. If you hang the birdcage there, we'll hear its singing. Keep the curtains sheer drawn over the four poster—that’s the kind of bed I would like to have. I will can the preserves; I will can the preserves so that come autumn, come autumn when I have hung up the dustpan, you will have this small bit of apricot to remember. Me by. I don’t think I quite believe in that anymore, and besides, this here tooth has fallen out; it's the last one I've needed for quite a while. I will cut the slices of apple for you; I will shake the grove of bramble bushes for you; the raspberries, too tart, too tart, I will lemon and sugar them for you, 'cause that is what mother has taught. My dear, did I write down all of my symptoms this morning?Has the paper been left right on our doorstep? I do believe, Wendy, I do believe that Smee has stolen it.
Copyright © 2008 by Jenny Boully; reprinted by permission of the author.
When the danger of fire has passed,
the children (even when wanting to text)
form letters with pencils,
tracing gray skin around
the unsayable while geese honk ~
overhead oñ-oñ-oñ- in their ~ ~
wedge of funny adults. The children ~ ~ ~
try to be normal, though ~ ~
no one knows what normal is …
In nearby gardens, the unwanted
dandelion: Taraxacum officionale. A large
squash prepares for harvest, its S-shaped
stem with moisture bent.
Children braid languages & some
are praised for confidence but who
praises the garden for all that breath?
The cheerful mild constant anxiety
of your childhood turned
to writing, then meaning came
with its invincible glare—; the page
had borders but no limit—
& you loved letters then,
their breath allowed not
to decide as it curved between
skin-bearer & the being said—
From Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire (Wesleyan University Press, 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Hillman. Used with permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Just look—nothing but sincerity
as far as the eye can see—
the way the changed leaves,
flapping their yellow underbellies
in the wind, glitter. The tree
looks sequined wherever
the sun touches. Does anyone
not see it? Driving by a field
of spray-painted sheep, I think
the world is not all changed.
The air still ruffles wool
the way a mother’s hand
busies itself lovingly in the hair
of her small boy. The sun
lifts itself up, grows heavy
treading there, then lets itself
off the hook. Just look at it
leaving—the sky a tigereye
banded five kinds of gold
and bronze—and the sequin tree
shaking its spangles like a girl
on the high school drill team,
nothing but sincerity. It glitters
whether we’re looking or not.
Copyright © 2018 Maggie Smith. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Summer 2018.
This poem is in the public domain.
Now is the time of year when bees are wild
and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped
loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants
in the bright, late-September out-of-doors.
I have found their dried husks in my clothes.
They are dervishes because they are dying,
one last sting, a warm place to squeeze
a drop of venom or of honey.
After the stroke we thought would be her last
my grandmother came back, reared back and slapped
a nurse across the face. Then she stood up,
walked outside, and lay down in the snow.
Two years later there is no other way
to say, we are waiting. She is silent, light
as an empty hive, and she is breathing.
From Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010. Copyright © 2010 by Elizabeth Alexander. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. for Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
From The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1923, 1947, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1942, 1951 by Robert Frost, copyright © 1970, 1975 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
O Autumn, Autumn! O pensive light
and wistful sound!
Gold-haunted sky, green-haunted ground!
When, wan, the dead leaves flutter by
Deserted realms of butterfly!
When robins band themselves together
To seek the sound of sun-steeped weather;
And all of summer’s largesse goes
For lands of olive and the rose!
This poem is in the public domain.
I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.
This poem is in the public domain.
(after Holderlin) The yellow pears hang in the lake. Life sinks, grace reigns, sins ripen, and in the north dies an almond tree. A genius took me by the hand and said come with me though the time has not yet come. Therefore, when the gods get lonely, a hero will emerge from the bushes of a summer evening bearing the first green figs of the season. For the glory of the gods has lain asleep too long in the dark in darkness too long too long in the dark.
Copyright © 2010 by David Lehman. Used with permission of the author.
When latest autumn spreads her evening veil, And the gray mists from these dim waves arise, I love to listen to the hollow sighs Through the half leafless wood that breathes the gale. For at such hours the shadowy phantom pale, Oft seems to fleet before the poet's eyes; Strange sounds are heard, and mournful melodies As of night-wanderers who their woes bewail. Here by his native stream, at such an hour, Pity's own Otway I methinks could meet And hear his deep sighs swell the saddened wind! O Melancholy, such thy magic power That to the soul these dreams are often sweet And soothe the pensive visionary mind.
This poem is in the public domain.
They brought me a quilled, yellow dahlia, Opulent, flaunting. Round gold Flung out of a pale green stalk. Round, ripe gold Of maturity, Meticulously frilled and flaming, A fire-ball of proclamation: Fecundity decked in staring yellow For all the world to see. They brought a quilled, yellow dahlia, To me who am barren Shall I send it to you, You who have taken with you All I once possessed?
This poem is in the public domain.
No sun—no moon!
No morn—no noon—
No dawn—
No sky—no earthly view—
No distance looking blue—
No road—no street—no “t’other side the way”—
No end to any Row—
No indications where the Crescents go—
No top to any steeple—
No recognitions of familiar people—
No courtesies for showing ’em—
No knowing ’em!
No traveling at all—no locomotion,
No inkling of the way—no notion—
“No go”—by land or ocean—
No mail—no post—
No news from any foreign coast—
No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility—
No company—no nobility—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
This poem is in the public domain.
I. IN WINTER Myself Pale mornings, and I rise. Still Morning Snow air--my fingers curl. Awakening New snow, O pine of dawn! Winter Echo Thin air! My mind is gone. The Hunter Run! In the magpie's shadow. No Being I, bent. Thin nights receding. II. IN SPRING Spring I walk out the world's door. May Oh, evening in my hair! Spring Rain My doorframe smells of leaves. Song Why should I stop for spring? III. IN SUMMER AND AUTUMN Sunrise Pale bees! O whither now? Fields I did not pick a flower. At Evening Like leaves my feet passed by. Cool Nights At night bare feet on flowers! Sleep Like winds my eyelids close. The Aspen's Song The summer holds me here. The Walker In dream my feet are still. Blue Mountains A deer walks that mountain. God of Roads I, peregrine of noon. September Faint gold! O think not here. A Lady She's sun on autumn leaves. Alone I saw day's shadow strike. A Deer The trees rose in the dawn. Man in Desert His feet run as eyes blink. Desert The tented autumn, gone! The End Dawn rose, and desert shrunk. High Valleys In sleep I filled these lands. Awaiting Snow The well of autumn--dry.
This poem is in the public domain.
In fields of bush clover and hay-scent grass the autumn moon takes refuge The cricket's song is gold Zeshin's loneliness taught him this Who is coming? What will come to pass, and pass? Neither bruise nor sweetness nor cool air not-knowing knows the way And the moon? Who among us does not wander, and flare and bow to the ground? Who does not savor, and stand open if only in secret taking heart in the ripening of the moon? (Shibata Zeshin, Autumn Grasses, two-panel screen)
From Autumn Grasses by Margaret Gibson. Copyright © 2003 by Margaret Gibson. Reproduced with permission of Louisiana State University Press. All rights reserved.
There’s Baxter, our neighbor’s harmless little dog,
before a storm door window, contented as a cat.
We’re in a row house and share a front area. One day
this summer we were headed out just as our neighbor
and his pet were coming back from a pee jaunt. Much barking
before our neighbor calmly said,
“Let them live, Baxter.”
And there’s our maple, now in winter
stark as any other tree, when only months ago
it tried to dominate the block with color
and, as far as I’m concerned, succeeded.
Now let’s bring in snow
there on limbs and branches, speaking up
as streetlights come on. Does that do
the trick? The idea is for the poem
to be as good as a pot- au- feu, where, to my taste,
after all those cuts of meat, plus marrow bones,
plus vegetables pulled from the earth,
the trick is done by cloves.
Copyright © 2019 David Curry. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Winter 2019.
I was there at the edge of Never,
of Once Been, bearing the night’s hide
stretched across the night sky,
awake with myself disappointing myself,
armed, legged & torsoed in the bed,
my head occupied by enemy forces,
mind not lost entire, but wandering
off the marked path ill-advisedly. This March
Lucie upped and died, and the funny show
of her smoky-throated world began to fade.
I didn’t know how much of me was made
by her, but now I know that this spooky art
in which we staple a thing
to our best sketch of a thing was done
under her direction, and here I am
at 4 AM, scratching a green pen over a notebook
bound in red leather in October.
It’s too warm for a fire. She’d hate that.
And the cats appear here only as apparitions
I glimpse sleeping in a chair, then
Wohin bist du entschwunden? I wise up,
know their likenesses are only inked
on my shoulder’s skin, their chipped ash poured
in twin cinerary jars downstairs. Gone
is gone, said the goose to the shrunken boy
in the mean-spirited Swedish children’s book
I love. I shouldn’t be writing this
at this age or any other. She mothered
a part of me that needed that, lit
a spirit-lantern to spin shapes inside
my obituary head, even though—
I’m nearly certain now—she’s dead.
Copyright © 2019 by Mark Wunderlich. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 23, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
Do you know what I was, how I lived? —Louise Glück
It is a goldfinch
one of the two
small girls,
both daughters
of a friend,
sees hit the window
and fall into the fern.
No one hears
the small thump but she,
the youngest, sees
the flash of gold
against the mica sky
as the limp feathered envelope
crumples into the green.
How many times
in a life will we witness
the very moment of death?
She wants a box
and a small towel
some kind of comfort
for this soft body
that barely fits
in her palm. Its head
rolling side to side,
neck broke, eyes still wet
and black as seed.
Her sister, now at her side,
wears a dress too thin
for the season,
white as the winter
only weeks away.
She wants me to help,
wants a miracle.
Whatever I say now
I know weighs more
than the late fall’s
layered sky,
the jeweled leaves
of the maple and elm.
I know, too,
it is the darkest days
I’ve learned to praise —
the calendar packages up time,
the days shrink and fold away
until the new season.
We clothe, burn,
then bury our dead.
I know this;
they do not.
So we cover the bird,
story its flight,
imagine his beak
singing.
They pick the song
and sing it
over and over again.
Copyright © 2019 by Didi Jackson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 23, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
to a young child Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow's spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.
This poem is in the public domain.
to a young child Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow's spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.
This poem is in the public domain.
As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, "Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to fly!
But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax—
And do everything!
And perhaps in the spring
He would come back and sing."
This poem is in the public domain.