Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes published by Alfred A. Knopf/Vintage. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
From Collected Poems by Galway Kinnell. Copyright © 2017 by The Literary Estate of Galway Kinnell. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
If you are like me and can only see the horizon
that unreachable don’t know that want sheds and
grows and sheds and grows please don’t
keep trying the outline is fine find a closer
aisle pull the cans and boxes from the shelves so
you can eat so you can feed on likeness anything
is possible but the possible isn’t always foldable
it’s okay to not spin the diamond that begs for your
finger it’s okay to reach behind you allow your clothes
to snag onto air to hide in time to exist in
the stars to believe that awards signify nothing it is
okay to watch the birds in the ficus tree clutter the
branches each season leave their waste and let
your hands be hands and the wings be wings
From Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by Victoria Chang. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
This poem is in the public domain.