If I had one more day
I would write a love poem
composed of one word
repeated like binary code.
I’ll multiply it by the number
of days that passed
without saying it to you
and I’ll add the days
when I said it with no words
because I want to say it
more. And like a bee
gathering pollen, I’ll collect
everything ever said
in one word like a square root
multiplied by the power of ten.
I’ll count even that day
when my anger at you
or for you turned me into
a stone, and also the days
when I was away
sending my songs like
postcards to the lonely,
feeling you in every touch
of love I gave to the world.
I’ll count all my days,
even the nine months of days
before I was born, to say
this exponential, growing “I love you.”
Copyright © 2021 by Dunya Mikhail. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 2, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
If I had one more day
I would write a love poem
composed of one word
repeated like binary code.
I’ll multiply it by the number
of days that passed
without saying it to you
and I’ll add the days
when I said it with no words
because I want to say it
more. And like a bee
gathering pollen, I’ll collect
everything ever said
in one word like a square root
multiplied by the power of ten.
I’ll count even that day
when my anger at you
or for you turned me into
a stone, and also the days
when I was away
sending my songs like
postcards to the lonely,
feeling you in every touch
of love I gave to the world.
I’ll count all my days,
even the nine months of days
before I was born, to say
this exponential, growing “I love you.”
Copyright © 2021 by Dunya Mikhail. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 2, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
From The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks (Library of America, 2005). Copyright © 1970 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted By Consent of Brooks Permissions.
translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
Give me your hand and give me your love,
give me your hand and dance with me.
A single flower, and nothing more,
a single flower is all we'll be.
Keeping time in the dance together,
singing the tune together with me,
grass in the wind, and nothing more,
grass in the wind is all we'll be.
I'm called Hope and you're called Rose:
but losing our names we'll both go free,
a dance on the hills, and nothing more,
a dance on the hills is all we'll be.
Dame La Mano
Dame la mano y danzaremos;
dame la mano y me amarás.
Como una sola flor seremos,
como una flor, y nada más.
El mismo verso cantaremos,
al mismo paso bailarás.
Como una espiga ondularemos,
como una espiga, y nada más.
Te llamas Rosa y yo Esperanza;
pero tu nombre olvidarás,
porque seremos una danza
en la colina y nada más.
From Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral: Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin. Copyright © 2003 Ursula K. Le Guin. Courtesy of University of New Mexico Press.
It’s neither red
nor sweet.
It doesn’t melt
or turn over,
break or harden,
so it can’t feel
pain,
yearning,
regret.
It doesn’t have
a tip to spin on,
it isn’t even
shapely—
just a thick clutch
of muscle,
lopsided,
mute. Still,
I feel it inside
its cage sounding
a dull tattoo:
I want, I want—
but I can’t open it:
there’s no key.
I can’t wear it
on my sleeve,
or tell you from
the bottom of it
how I feel. Here,
it’s all yours, now—
but you’ll have
to take me,
too.
Copyright © 2017 Rita Dove. Used with permission of the author.