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Category: A philosophical phrase
Clues:
1. Lock: Damn it … not everyone believes what you believe!
Morpheus: My beliefs do not require them to.
—The Matrix Reloaded
2. It is achieved in solitude but never by separation.
3. No trinity—the ocean moves as one body, never confused with a
collection of raindrops.
4. Morning dew has a way more iconic metamorphosis than the butterfly,
sadly said no one.
5. It is Spring under a Bodhi Tree awakening to the Earth holding you—in
wooden arms against grass-hilled breasts—the Earth is always holding you.
6. The moment a raindrop touches the ocean, it becomes the whole ocean.
7. “Even if you are not ready for the day, it cannot always be night”—G. Brooks
“... the devil my opp”—K. West
(—YouTube fan mashup)
8. Fail and hang, death can’t save you—rebirth starts this game over.
9. Raindrops in the ocean suffer imposter syndrome;
10. there are no raindrops in the ocean—it is honing this sole wisdom.
11. This is the single most important answer of your life to get right.
Copyright © 2025 by Anacaona Rocio Milagro. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 21, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
Keep to yourself—moms’ solemn advice but,
as soon as I got there, they had it in for me,
long shadows, of boys I knew, in white
isolation, jumped, cut. There was feces on the wall,
everywhere mice, spoiled milk.
Festering, we ran inside our minds,
berserk with capture—so much chaos,
right and wrong is weird in there.
Once we smell weakness, we on you,
was how The Tailor put it and meant it,
daring a brawl for table rights, the poisoned food.
Each unheard voice surrounds me,
raging, and gives no quarter.
Copyright © 2021 by Dante Micheaux. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 15, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
The eager clattering singing wastes my listening
and I am over
ready to run breathing the ways the
sticks invite my wanting
I want to think in feeling ways the talking thinks
in moving ways the sticks invite
thinking answering their questions
the eager clattering singing does
always interrupt the sailing play
the play is the questions the sailing
is the tears I know the tears
will overfill ready to become
a thinking and feeling I am
ready to become a loving man
From The Wanting Way (Milkweed Editions, 2022) by Adam Wolfond. Copyright © 2022 by Adam Wolfond. Reprinted with the permission of the Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Milkweed Editions, milkweed.org