Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time’s bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 20, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.
We did right by your death and went out, Right away, to a public place to drink, To be with each other, to face it. We called other friends—the ones Your mother hadn't called—and told them What you had decided, and some said What you did was right; it was the thing You wanted and we'd just have to live With that, that your life had been one Long misery and they could see why you Had chosen that, no matter what any of us Thought about it, and anyway, one said, Most of us abandoned each other a long Time ago and we'd have to face that If we had any hope of getting it right.
From American Prodigal by Liam Rector, published by Story Line Press. Copyright © 1994 by Liam Rector. Reprinted by permission of the author and Story Line Press.
We live in secret cities And we travel unmapped roads. We speak words between us that we recognize But which cannot be looked up. They are our words. They come from very far inside our mouths. You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city Inside us, and inside us There go all the cars we have driven And seen, there are all the people We know and have known, there Are all the places that are But which used to be as well. This is where They went. They did not disappear. We each take a piece Through the eye and through the ear. It's loud inside us, in there, and when we speak In the outside world We have to hope that some of that sound Does not come out, that an arm Not reach out In place of the tongue.
Copyright © 1998 by Alberto Rios. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Sometimes you don’t die
when you’re supposed to
& now I have a choice
repair a world or build
a new one inside my body
a white door opens
into a place queerly brimming
gold light so velvet-gold
it is like the world
hasn’t happened
when I call out
all my friends are there
everyone we love
is still alive gathered
at the lakeside
like constellations
my honeyed kin
honeyed light
beneath the sky
a garden blue stalks
white buds the moon’s
marble glow the fire
distant & flickering
the body whole bright-
winged brimming
with the hours
of the day beautiful
nameless planet. Oh
friends, my friends—
bloom how you must, wild
until we are free.
Copyright © 2018 by Cameron Awkward-Rich. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 30, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
by HAUNTIE
That I could be this human at this time
breathing, looking, seeing, smelling
That I could be this moment at this time
resting, calmly moving, feeling
That I could be this excellence at this time
sudden, changed, peaceful, & woke
To all my friends who have been with me in weakness
when water falls rush down my two sides
To all my friends who have felt me in anguish
when this earthen back breaks between the crack of two blades
To all my friends who have held me in rage
when fire tears through swallows behind tight grins
I know you
I see you
I hear you
Although the world is silent around you
I know you
I see you
I hear you
From To Whitey & the Cracker Jack (Anhinga Press, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by May Yang. Reprinted by permission of Anhinga Press.
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.
We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—
Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.
Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:
Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.
You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me
What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made
Something greater from the difference.
Copyright © 2014 by Alberto Ríos. Used with permission of the author.
(at St. Mary’s)
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that
From Quilting: Poems 1987–1990 by Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 2001 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with permission of BOA Editions Ltd. All rights reserved.
to Ken Kesey & Ken Babbs
Clumsy at first, fitting together
the years we have been apart,
and the ways.
But as the night
passed and the day came, the first
fine morning of April,
it came clear:
the world that has tried us
and showed us its joy
was our bond
when we said nothing.
And we allowed it to be
with us, the new green
shining.
*
Our lives, half gone,
stay full of laughter.
Free-hearted men
have the world for words.
Though we have been
apart, we have been together.
*
Trying to sleep, I cannot
take my mind away.
The bright day
shines in my head
like a coin
on the bed of a stream.
*
You left
your welcome.
From Collected Poems: 1957-1982 by Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1985 by Wendell Berry. Used by permission of Counterpoint Press. All rights reserved.
My friends without shields walk on the target It is late the windows are breaking My friends without shoes leave What they love Grief moves among them as a fire among Its bells My friends without clocks turn On the dial they turn They part My friends with names like gloves set out Bare handed as they have lived And nobody knows them It is they that lay the wreaths at the milestones it is their Cups that are found at the wells And are then chained up My friends without feet sit by the wall Nodding to the lame orchestra Brotherhood it says on the decorations My friend without eyes sits in the rain smiling With a nest of salt in his hand My friends without fathers or houses hear Doors opening in the darkness Whose halls announce Behold the smoke has come home My friends and I have in common The present a wax bell in a wax belfry This message telling of Metals this Hunger for the sake of hunger this owl in the heart And these hands one For asking one for applause My friends with nothing leave it behind In a box My friends without keys go out from the jails it is night They take the same road they miss Each other they invent the same banner in the dark They ask their way only of sentries too proud to breathe At dawn the stars on their flag will vanish The water will turn up their footprints and the day will rise Like a monument to my Friends the forgotten
From The Moving Target, by W. S. Merwin, published by Atheneum. Copyright © 1963 by W. S. Merwin. Used with permission.
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
This poem is in the public domain.