Bend low again, night of summer stars. So near you are, sky of summer stars, So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars, Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl, So near you are, summer stars, So near, strumming, strumming, So lazy and hum-strumming.
From Smoke and Steel (Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920). This poem is in the public domain.
Many ways to spell good night.
Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July
spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes.
They fizz in the air, touch the water and quit.
Rockets make a trajectory of gold-and-blue
and then go out.
Railroad trains at night spell with a smokestack
mushrooming a white pillar.
Steamboats turn a curve in the Mississippi crying
in a baritone that crosses lowland cottonfields
to a razorback hill.
It is easy to spell good night.
Many ways to spell good night.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on July 4, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.