Poems For Ma

A ROSE

Did I dream of a flower

last night or the night

before? That I saw as

if the answer to

the question I'd asked, which

I can't remember. But

in my dream, this

morning, I decided it

was a rose, and it

rematerialized, or rather,

I hel... more

THE PANTHER

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,

has grown so weary that it cannot hold

anything else. It seems to him there are

a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,

the mov... more

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the ... more

DON'T HESITATE

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life ... more

THE SINGING

There’s a bird crying outside, or maybe calling, anyway it goes on and on

without stopping, so I begin to think it’s my bird, my insistent

I, I, I that today is so trapped by some nameless but still relentless longing

that I can’t ge... more

TO A POOR OLD WOMAN

munching a plum on

the street a paper bag

of them in her hand

They taste good to her

They taste good

to her. They taste

good to her

You can see it by

the way she gives herself

to the one half

sucked out in her han... more

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell ... more

Talking about what this is about.