We have a single sky.

                     have a single slash
 

a single sleeprose
single sleeverosebud
single slaprosette
single sliceroster
   sliderostrum
a single sliprotunda
single sloperouble
single smellroue
single smilerouge
a single smokerough
      snakeroughcast
single snowround

gotta let the passageway silhouette,
benediction of my kneel creaks in ________ labyrinths;
trying to ________ pregnant, backgrounds with or without; married, single. pressing
hard, bloom drains from my hand. patch. sunlight dims
in the late aftertaste. sunshade dimming in the late age. 66°

Your pearl self slows power, circles

 

Copyright © 2012 by Shira Dentz. Used with permission of the author.

O day—if I could cup my hands and drink of you,
And make this shining wonder be
A part of me!
O day! O day!
You lift and sway your colors on the sky
Till I am crushed with beauty. Why is there
More of reeling sunlit air
Than I can breathe? Why is there sound
In silence? Why is a singing wound
About each hour?
And perfume when there is no flower?
O day! O Day! How may I press
Nearer to loveliness?

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on March 22, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

I wear an easy garment,
   O’er it no toiling slave
Wept tears of hopeless anguish,
   In his passage to the grave.

And from its ample folds
   Shall rise no cry to God,
Upon its warp and woof shall be 
   No stain of tears and blood.

Oh, lightly shall it press my form,
   Unladened with a sigh,
I shall not ‘mid its rustling hear,
   Some sad despairing cry.

This fabric is too light to bear
   The weight of bondsmen’s tears,
I shall not in its texture trace
   The agony of years.

Too light to bear a smother’d sigh,
   From some lorn woman’s heart,
Whose only wreath of household love
   Is rudely torn apart.

Then lightly shall it press my form,
   Unburden’d by a sigh;
And from its seams and folds shall rise,
   No voice to pierce the sky, 

And witness at the throne of God,
   In language deep and strong,
That I have nerv’d Oppression’s hand,
   For deeds of guilt and wrong. 

Poems on miscellaneous subjectsMerrihew & Thompson, 1857. This poem is in the public domain.