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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Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year.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
I Can Afford Neither the Rain Holly Iglesias 01/03/2011
To Think of Time Walt Whitman 01/02/2011
The Thread of Life Christina Rossetti 01/01/2011
As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [Blow, blow, thou winter wind] William Shakespeare 12/30/2010
Snow-Bound [The sun that brief December day] John Greenleaf Whittier 12/29/2010
The Snow Storm Ralph Waldo Emerson 12/28/2010
Snow-Flakes Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 12/27/2010
Christmas Bells Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 12/25/2010
When I Am in the Kitchen Jeanne Marie Beaumont 12/23/2010
The Anxiety of Coincidence Mark Bibbins 12/22/2010

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