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Poem-a-day

Rain All Night, Paris

On the road home the tide is rising.

Riding the road-tide is dangerous 
but it’s not safe to stand still. 
Hang on the verge & you drown.

I’m going along for the tide. 
I may see more riders further on. 
Drowning must wait till I get there

and who knows who might be waiting 
with a flashlight, a thermos, 
even a raft or canoe. 

“Rain All Night, Paris” from SPRINGING: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Marie Ponsot, copyright © 2002 by Marie Ponsot. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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Marie Ponsot

Marie Ponsot
Photo credit: Brian Palmer
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Khaled Mattawa is the Guest Editor of December. Read or listen to a Q&A with Mattawa about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2025 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

Previous Poems

Title Author Date
Most Sweet It Is With Unuplifted Eyes William Wordsworth 12/06/2015
The Lighted Window Sara Teasdale 12/05/2015
With My Brother Robert Ostrom 12/04/2015
Endtime Anne Waldman 12/03/2015
Sinking into the Leopard Pillow Gillian Conoley 12/02/2015
A Nearly Perfect Morning Jessica Greenbaum 12/01/2015
A Yellow Leaf Ariana Reines 11/30/2015
I Am a Little World Made Cunningly (Holy Sonnet V) John Donne 11/29/2015
Heavy Threads Hazel Hall 11/28/2015
Paris Winter Howard Altmann 11/27/2015

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