Category Archives: Daily Offerings
The Poet Compares Human Nature to the Ocean From Which We Came ~ Oliver
The Poet Compares Human Nature to the Ocean From Which We Came The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing or toss havoc shoreward, it can give gifts or withhold all; … Continue reading
Summer Rain ~ Lowell
Summer Rain All night our room was outer-walled with rain. Drops fell and flattened on the tin roof, And rang like little disks of metal. Ping! — Ping! — and there was not a pin-point of silence between them. … Continue reading
Holding the Light ~ Kestenbaum
Holding the Light for Kait Rhoads Gather up whatever is glittering in the gutter, whatever has tumbled in the waves or fallen in flames out of the sky, for it’s not only our hearts that are broken, but the heart … Continue reading
When Will I Be Home ~ Li Shang-Yin
When Will I Be Home? When will I be home? I don’t know. In the mountains, in the rainy night, The Autumn lake is flooded. Someday we will be back together again. We will sit in the candlelight by … Continue reading
For Keeps ~ Harjo
For Keeps Sun makes the day new. Tiny green plants emerge from earth. Birds are singing the sky into place. There is nowhere else I want to be but here. I lean into the rhythm of your heart to … Continue reading
Reading the Obituary Page ~ Pastan
Reading the Obituary Page In starched dresses with ribbons in miniature jackets and tiny ties we would circle the chairs at birthday parties and when the music stopped, lunge to be seated. One by one we were welcomed to hard ground … Continue reading
Sentimental Moment ~ Hershon
Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road? Don’t fill up on bread I say absent-mindedly The servings here are huge My son, whose hair may be receding a bit, says Did you really just say that to … Continue reading
Poem after Bouncing … ~ Rafferty
Poem after Bouncing the Rent Check and Waking with a Hangover, while Searching for My Car Keys Twenty Minutes before a Very Important Interview A sudden jolt. And the Ferris wheel rolls free of its axle —- a blackened screaming circle … Continue reading
Inventory ~ Parker
Inventory Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I’d been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, … Continue reading
Male Beauty ~ Hofmann
Male Beauty I bought a bag of hard green pears today. I came home and sat in our room listening to music for hours, solo piano, things from France, from the beginning of the century. When we were very young, … Continue reading