The Poetry Playground

Summer Dusk

You’ve been the love of my life,
Light lingering in the sky
At the close of a long day
Over the roofs of some city
Like New York or Rome,
As streets empty in the heat,
And shadows lengthen
And darken every room,
Occupied or still vacant,
Where some turn on the lamp
And others step to a window
To savor this fleeting moment
When everything stops
As if stunned by its own beauty.

~ Charles Simic

Shadow

Some people feel lost inside their days.
Always waiting for worse to happen.
They make bets with destiny.
My funniest uncle gave up cursing bad words
inside his head. He says he succeeded
one whole hour. He tried to subscribe to
the universe made by people. He slept outside
by himself on top of the hill.

When Facebook says I have “followers” –
I hope they know I need their help.
Subscribe to plants, animals, stars,
music, the baby who can’t walk yet but
stands up holding on to the sides of things,
tables, chairs, and takes a few clumsy steps,
then sits down hard. This is how we live.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Harlem Night Song

 
Come,
Let us roam the night together
Singing.

I love you.

Across
The Harlem roof-tops
Moon is shining.
Night sky is blue.
Stars are great drops
Of golden dew.

Down the street
A band is playing.

I love you.

Come,
Let us roam the night together
Singing.

~ Langston Hughes

Look

The moon thumbs through the night’s book.
Finds a lake where nothing is printed.
Draws a straight line. That’s all
it can. That’s enough.
Thick line. Straight toward you.
–Look.

~ Rolf Jacobsen

(translated from the Norwegian by Olave Grinde)

Days

Each one is a gift, no doubt,
mysteriously placed in you waking hand
or set upon your forehead
moments before you open your eyes.

Today begins cold and bright,
the ground heavy with snow
and the thick masonry of ice,
the sun glinting off the turrets of clouds.

Through the calm eye of the window
everything is in its place
but so precariously
this day might be resting somehow

on the one before it,
all the days of the past stacked high
like the impossible tower of dishes
entertainers used to build on stage.

No wonder you find yourself
perched on the top of a tall ladder
hoping to add one more.
Just another Wednesday,

you whisper,
then holding your breath,
place this cup on yesterday’s saucer
without the slightest clink.

~ Billy Collins

Emergence

It’s midsummer night. The light is skinny;
a thin skirt of desire skims the earth.
Dogs bark at the musk of other dogs
and the urge to go wild.
I am lingering on the edge
of a broken heart, striking relentlessly
against the flint of hard will.
It’s coming apart.
And everyone knows it.
So do squash erupting in flowers
the color of the sun.
So does the momentum of grace
gathering allies
in the partying mob.
The heart knows everything.
I remember when there was no urge
to cut the land or each other into pieces,
when we knew how to think
in beautiful.
There is no world like the one surfacing.
I can smell it as I pace in my square room,
the neighbor’s television
entering my house by waves of sound
makes me think about buying
a new car; another kind of cigarette
when I don’t need another car
and I don’t smoke cigarettes.
A human mind is small when thinking
of small things.
It is large when embracing the maker
of walking, thinking, and flying.
If I can locate the sense beyond desire,
I will not eat or drink
until I stagger into the earth
with grief.
I will locate the point of dawning
and awaken
with the longest day in the world.

~ Joy Harjo

A Portable Paradise

And if I speak of Paradise,
then I’m speaking of my grandmother
who told me to carry it always
on my person, concealed, so
no one else would know but me.
That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.
And if life puts you under pressure,
trace its ridges in your pocket,
smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,
hum its anthem under your breath.
And if your stresses are sustained and daily,
get yourself an empty room – be it hotel,
hostel or hovel – find a lamp
and empty your paradise onto a desk:
your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.
Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope
of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.

~ Roger Robinson

You Can’t

They will fall in the end,
those who say you can’t.
It’ll be age or boredom that overtakes them,
or lack of imagination.
Sooner or later, all leaves fall to the ground.
You can be the last leaf.
You can convince the universe
that you pose no threat
to the tree’s life.

~ Maya Abu Al-Hayyat
(translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah)

Midnight

 
The spirits are not fooled
by my faked sleep, my regular breathing;
the magic animations
do not take place. I wait
for the window to tear off its bandages,
cured of its blindness,
the tape recorder to fall in love
with its new blue voice,
the leggy shadows on the floor
to pick each other up and start dancing.
But only the photographs in my head
relent: tonight it is
my grandfather’s small-boned figure
with its white mustache
standing on a boardwalk
in Europe, calling me back.
He waves as if it were easy,
as if it were now or never
that the sea between us
would part for my long walk home.

~ Lisel Mueller