The Cure of Troy by Seamus HeaneyHuman beings suffer. They torture one another. They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured. History says, Don’t hope On the side of the grave,’ But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea- change On the far side of revenge. Believe that a further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles. And cures and healing wells. Call miracle self-healing, The utter self revealing Double-take of feeling. If there’s fire on the mountain And lightening and storm And a god speaks from the sky That means someone is hearing The outcry and the birth-cryOf new life at its term. It means once in a lifetimeThat justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme. 

“I Am Not I”BY JUAN RAMÓN JIMÉNEZI am not I.                   I am this onewalking beside me whom I do not see,whom at times I manage to visit,and whom at other times I forget;who remains calm and silent while I talk,and forgives, gently, when I hate,who walks where I am not,who will remain standing when I die.Contact me via email:   [email protected] or message me on Facebook.

I want to age like sea glassBy Bernadette NollI want to age like sea glass. Smoothed by tides, not broken. I want the currents of life to toss me around, shake me up and leave me feeling washed clean. I want my hard edges to soften as the years pass—made not weak but supple. I want to ride the waves, go with the flow, feel the impact of the surging tides rolling in and out.When I am thrown against the shore and caught between the rocks and a hard place, I want to rest there until I can find the strength to do what is next. Not stuck—just waiting, pondering, feeling what it feels like to pause. And when I am ready, I will catch a wave and let it carry me along to the next place that I am supposed to be.I want to be picked up on occasion by an unsuspected soul and carried along—just for the connection, just for the sake of appreciation and wonder. And with each encounter, new possibilities of collaboration are presented, and new ideas are born.I want to age like sea glass so that when people see the old woman I’ll become, they’ll embrace all that I am. They’ll marvel at my exquisite nature, hold me gently in their hands and be awed by my well-earned patina. Neither flashy nor dull, just a perfect luster. And they’ll wonder, if just for a second, what it is exactly I am made of and how I got to this very here and now. And we’ll both feel lucky to be in that perfectly right place at that profoundly right time.I want to age like sea glass. I want to enjoy the journey and let my preciousness be, not in spite of the impacts of life, but because of them.

For a Dead Kitten      by Sara Henderson HayPut the rubber mouse away,Pick the spools up from the floor,What was velvet shod, and gay,Will not want them, any more.What was warm, is strangely cold.Whence dissolved the little breath?How could this small body holdSo immense a thing as Death?

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer BY WALT WHITMANWhen I heard the learn’d astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

The Mad Gardener’s Songby Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898)He thought he saw an ElephantThat practised on a fife:He looked again, and found it wasA letter from his wife."At length I realise," he said,"The bitterness of Life!"He thought he saw a BuffaloUpon the chimney-piece:He looked again, and found it wasHis Sister's Husband's Niece."Unless you leave this house," he said,"I'll send for the Police!"He thought he saw a RattlesnakeThat questioned him in Greek:He looked again, and found it wasThe Middle of Next Week."The one thing I regret," he said,"Is that it cannot speak!"He thought he saw a Banker's ClerkDescending from the bus:He looked again, and found it wasA Hippopotamus."If this should stay to dine," he said,"There won't be much for us!"He thought he saw a KangarooThat worked a coffee-mill:He looked again, and found it wasA Vegetable-Pill."Were I to swallow this," he said,"I should be very ill!"He thought he saw a Coach-and-FourThat stood beside his bed:He looked again, and found it wasA Bear without a Head."Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing!It's waiting to be fed!"He thought he saw an AlbatrossThat fluttered round the lamp:He looked again, and found it wasA Penny-Postage-Stamp."You'd best be getting home," he said,"The nights are very damp!"He thought he saw a Garden-DoorThat opened with a key:He looked again, and found it wasA Double Rule of Three:"And all its mystery," he said,"Is clear as day to me!"He thought he saw an ArgumentThat proved he was the Pope:He looked again, and found it wasA Bar of Mottled Soap."A fact so dread," he faintly said,"Extinguishes all hope!"

What I Learned From My MotherBY JULIA KASDORFI learned from my mother how to lovethe living, to have plenty of vases on handin case you have to rush to the hospitalwith peonies cut from the lawn, black antsstill stuck to the buds. I learned to save jarslarge enough to hold fruit salad for a wholegrieving household, to cube home-canned pearsand peaches, to slice through maroon grape skinsand flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t knowthe deceased, to press the moist handsof the living, to look in their eyes and offersympathy, as though I understood loss even then.I learned that whatever we say means nothing,what anyone will remember is that we came.I learned to believe I had the power to easeawful pains materially like an angel.Like a doctor, I learned to createfrom another’s suffering my own usefulness, and onceyou know how to do this, you can never refuse.To every house you enter, you must offerhealing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48491/what-i-learned-from-my-mother

Song of the Open Road" by Walt Whitman(excerpts)1.Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,Strong and content I travel the open road.The earth, that is sufficient,I do not want the constellations any nearer,I know they are very well where they are,I know they suffice for those who belong to them.(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)6. Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me,Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear'd it would notastonish me.Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.Here a great personal deed has room,(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks allauthority and all argument against it.)Here is the test of wisdom,Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it,Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and theexcellence of things;Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokesit out of the soul.Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under thespacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.Here is realization,Here is a man tallied–he realizes here what he has in him,The past, the future, majesty, love–if they are vacant of you, youare vacant of them.Only the kernel of every object nourishes;Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion'd, it is apropos;Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers?Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?

Those Winter Sundays             BY ROBERT HAYDENSundays too my father got up earlyand put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.When the rooms were warm, he’d call,and slowly I would rise and dress,fearing the chronic angers of that house,Speaking indifferently to him,who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I knowof love’s austere and lonely offices?==================[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]BY E. E. CUMMINGSi carry your heart with me(i carry it inmy heart)i am never without it(anywherei go you go,my dear;and whatever is doneby only me is your doing,my darling)                                                      i fearno fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i wantno world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meantand whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

"Dust"BY DORIANNE LAUXSomeone spoke to me last night,told me the truth. Just a few words,but I recognized it.I knew I should make myself get up,write it down, but it was late,and I was exhausted from workingall day in the garden, moving rocks.Now, I remember only the flavor —not like food, sweet or sharp.More like a fine powder, like dust.And I wasn’t elated or frightened,but simply rapt, aware.That’s how it is sometimes —God comes to your window,all bright light and black wings,and you’re just too tired to open it.