Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

Little sister, come away,
And let us in the garden play,
For it is a pleasant day.

On the grass-plat let us sit,
Or, if you please, we'll play a bit,
And run about all over it.

But the fruit we will not pick,
For that would be a naughty trick,
And very likely make us sick.

Nor will we pluck the pretty flowers
That grow about the beds and bowers,
Because you know they are not ours.

We'll take the daisies, white and red,
Because mamma has often said
That we may gather then instead.

And much I hope we always may
Our very dear mamma obey,
And mind whatever she may say.
...

In the pond in the park
all things are doubled:
Long buildings hang and
wriggle gently. Chimneys
are bent legs bouncing
on clouds below. A flag
wags like a fishhook
down there in the sky.

The arched stone bridge

...

you've always assumed you knew
everything there is to know
about me.
you assume adulthood means i
no longer have emotions worth
listening to.

i've always had my needs met but
my thoughts never heard.
i've always tried to keep my

...

He's as high as a georgia pine, my father'd say, half laughing. southern trees
as measure, metaphor. highways lined with kudzu-covered southern trees.

fuchsia, lavender, white, light pink, purple : crape myrtle bouquets burst
open on sturdy branches of skin-smooth bark : my favorite southern trees.

one hundred degrees in the shade : we settle into still pools of humidity, moss-
dark, beneath live oaks. southern heat makes us grateful for southern trees.

the maples in our front yard flew in spring on helicopter wings. in fall, we
splashed in colored leaves, but never sought sap from these southern trees.

frankly, my dear, that's a magnolia, i tell her, fingering the deep green, nearly
plastic leaves, amazed how little a northern girl knows about southern trees.

i've never forgotten the charred bitter fruit of holiday's poplars, nor will i :
it's part of what makes me evie : i grew up in the shadow of southern trees.
...

As if chiseled, a fruit-laden branch
Hangs in my garden, asleep - so low...
The trees sleep - and dream? - in moonlight;
And the mystery of their life is near, near...

Even if we cannot grasp it,
The mute language is still intelligible:
They use our beauty to express
How we are one amidst rays and spots of light.


...

When I was 5 I saw this light
Then at the height of my childhood there was this fight
See what I love is to read and write
As the words moved and pushed around n my mind
The kind that strays the heart from being right
Thoughts and imaginations run wild
Now about this fight that I did not like
It happened so often that I became so blind
Frightened to not be able to take flight
This light that I saw when I was 5

...

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body.
...

BURYING friends is not a pomp,
Not, indeed, Roman:
Lacking the monument,
Heroic stone;
Nor is it an obscuring parasol,
The pad of customary gloves and cries
And a black leather mourning-carriage
Hung between death and the beholder's eyes.
This little bin of cancelled flesh
Strode the earth once,

...

When the world is in chaos, my eyes seek only you.
Run to me, and I will embrace you with warmth,
shielding you from the storm that rages beyond us.
No matter how loud the world becomes,
your voice is the only sound I wish to hear.

Amidst the wreckage, you are my anchor, my refuge.
I long to rise with you, to walk hand in hand into the unknown, to carve a future, where our hearts beat as one.
With you, fear fades and dreams take flight.


...