From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
Li-Young Lee, “From Blossoms” from Rose. Copyright © 1986 by Li-Young Lee. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions, Ltd., boaeditions.org.
There is no silence lovelier than the one
That flowers upon a flowering tree at night.
There is no silence known beneath the sun
That is so strange to bear, nor half so white.
If I had all that silence in my heart,
What yet unfinished heavens I could sing!
My words lift up and tremble to depart,
Then die in air, from too much uttering.
It must have been beneath a tree like this
An angel sought a girl in Galilee,
While she looked up and pondered how the kiss
Of God had come with wings and mystery.
It may be that a single petal fell.
Heavy with sorrow that it could not tell.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 4, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
How many times I tried to record the Goldberg Variations
Once in Iceland another time in California
It was Mercury in retrograde I didn’t get the chords right
You see I wanted a different kind of music
One that felt like a foreign city or ice cracking
A prediction of snow and then the snow itself endless
I wanted the blue stripes on your shirt the paleness of your underarm
The whiteout of a spring blizzard, everything unexpected
See I didn’t do well with indeterminacy—the blank sides of a dice
The piano chord I recognized but couldn’t name
A different kind of intimacy because I was tired of being unsurprised
Behind me in the photo the black river unraveled
Like a list of the dead children or the ones I never had
The field split open like a lip
I asked the river for answers but heard nothing
The path was obscured by another person’s tracks in the snow
Snow falling so slowly that no one noticed it.
Copyright © 2024 by J. Mae Barizo. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 23, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
with grievance’s command.
I am the daughter she trains
to translate lightning.
I am the half-deaf child she assigned
to tone-deaf judges.
I am the girl
riding shot-gun to iron.
I am birthing feet first
with no mid-wife to catch.
I sprint, high-jump,
and fist-fight in her defense.
I am a dialect
born inside her quietude.
I susurrate incantations
transcribing her rivered idioms.
She is rivered remembering,
and I am her subpoenas.
Copyright © 2024 by Margo Tamez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 5, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
We were never ones to avoid pain
even if we found him in another person.
And when we do (find him again)—
let him have not been born in the rain
and grown up to become a storm.
His kisses lightning that scorches the earth.
As young girls, our grandmothers warned us
When there is lightning, cover all the mirrors.
But, one night thunder snapped;
its rumble shattering the vanity.
We’ve chased cloudbursts ever since.
Committed ourselves to flood and flight.
For girls like us who pray to the Sky Beings—
Protect us whenever we go
where we were never meant to be.
Put tobacco down
for the ones
with Creator-shaped holes in our hearts.
We spend lifetimes trying to fill,
to feel. What is the medicine for this?
Our mothers tell us (as they taught)
Send them love. Send them love. Send [say it] love—
So, praise our fathers who left in the night,
mapping us into unlovable.
They made us tough as nails. Now we know
how to hold ourselves together.
Praise the ones who listened
when girls like us asked them to leave.
Praise the lovers who never returned.
You helped us no longer be afraid of ghosts.
For girls like us,
the wound never fully heals.
The gentle rhythm of its pulse, a reminder to
praise our mothers for teaching us words are seeds.
We plant, bloom ourselves anew.
Praise the lightning. Praise the storms
we run through
because girls like us know—
this is where
our medicine comes from.
Copyright © 2024 by Tanaya Winder. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 4, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air,
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remembered, even in the sky.
Then I sing the wild song ’twas once such pleasure to hear!
When our voices commingling breathed, like one, on the ear;
And, as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, oh my love! ’tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls,
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 9, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
At six being a girl meant Tinkerbell
nail polish and pointed, pink Barbie shoes.
Sequined fairy wands and slippers that fell
off my feet when I ran. Outside the blue
sky a backdrop for green grass, the sweet
gum tree that was home base. Everything caught
my eye and sparkled. Rain-freshened earthworms,
armored rollie-pollies, and firefly dots.
At night the television played the news.
Its cyclopean eye returned my stare.
The goat-like pupil reflected a parade
of women and girls like ewes. Fair
and lovely. I thought they were adored.
Later, I was not a girl anymore.1
1. Stardate 2373, Earthdate 12.25.2021: I watch the crew stand on deck and chart a course around
the asteroid. I want Roddenberrian optimism, but I worry that one of us misunderstands a
time-paradox. I worry one of us misunderstands humanoids.
The rerun ends and another documentary begins. Onscreen
a model James Webb unfolds its mirrors
like petals
Copyright © 2024 by Annie Wenstrup. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 21, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.