One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
-Elizabeth Bishop
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Listen to a beautiful musical version of this poem by my friend, Gregory Paul:
http://www.myspace.com/gregpaulsound
Auguries of Innocence
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.
A dog starv’d at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm’d for fight
Does the rising sun affright.
Every wolf’s and lion’s howl
Raises from hell a human soul.
The wild deer, wand’ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus’d breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won’t believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov’d by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov’d
Shall never be by woman lov’d.
The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider’s enmity.
He who torments the chafer’s sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.
He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The gnat that sings his summer’s song
Poison gets from slander’s tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy’s foot.
The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist’s jealousy.
The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags
Are toadstools on the miser’s bags.
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro’ the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;
This is caught by females bright,
And return’d to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven’s shore.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar’s rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.
The soldier, arm’d with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer’s sun.
The poor man’s farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric’s shore.
One mite wrung from the lab’rer’s hands
Shall buy and sell the miser’s lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.
He who mocks the infant’s faith
Shall be mock’d in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.
He who respects the infant’s faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.
The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar’s laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour’s iron brace.
When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket’s cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.
The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne’er believe, do what you please.
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They’d immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation’s fate.
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet.
The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,
Dance before dead England’s hearse.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro’ the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
-William Blake
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Father’s Song
Yesterday, against admonishment,
my daughter balanced on the couch back,
fell and cut her mouth.
Because I saw it happen I knew
she was not hurt, and yet
a child’s blood so red
it stops a father’s heart.
-Gregory Orr
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If you live in the Philadelphia area, here are some events going on:
Raymond Luczak
Assembly Required: Notes from a Deaf Gay Life
In Assembly Required, essayist, poet, and playwright Raymond Luczak meditates on what it means to be a gay man living between the deaf and hearing worlds.
Transbluesency collects many of poet, playwright, and political activist Amiri Baraka’s poems into a single volume, combining “the personal and political in highly charged ways” (Publishers Weekly). 
Former United States Poet Laureate Daniel Hoffman recently received the Arthur Anse Prize for “a distinctive poet” from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 
Inspired by the blues and the history of Black America, Kevin Young’s poems appear in the New Yorker and the Paris Review, and Publisher’s Weekly calls him “perhaps the most prominent African American poet of his generation.”
National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Susan Stewart explores the changing cycles of life in her new poetry collection, beginning with the fall of man and lofting into praise for the green and turning world. More info>>
Jen Bryant is the author of more than a dozen books for children and young adults, including The Trial, Pieces of Georgia, and Ringside 1925: Views from the Scopes Trial, an Oprah’s Book Club Kid’s Reading List pick. Her children’s biography, A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, artfully captures the life of the poet and was named one of the New York Times Book Review’s Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2008. A former French and German teacher, Bryant currently teaches children’s literature at West Chester University.Festival events are free and open to the public. Seating begins 15 minutes prior to event start times.
Seating is first come, first seated. Space is limited in some venues. Signings with the authors and performers take place after most events.Visit us online at www.freelibrary.org/festival!
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from MACBETH Act. 5, Scene 5
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-William Shakespeare
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After A While
After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises.
And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans, and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. .
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to leave you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure;
You really are strong, you really do have worth.
And you learn, and you learn
With every goodbye you learn.
-Veronica Shoftsall
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Sonnet
I can’t sleep in case a few things you said
no longer apply. The matter’s endless,
but definitions alter what’s ahead
and you and words are like a hare and tortoise.
(continue)
-Alice Oswald
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Whose Mouth Do I Speak With
I can remember my father bringing home spruce gum.
He worked in the woods and filled his pockets
with golden chunks of pitch.
For his children
he provided this special sacrament
and we’d gather at this feet, around his legs,
bumping his lunchbox, and his empty thermos rattled inside.
-Suzanne Rancourt
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Fare thee well
Fare thee well
Old friend of mine
My comrade all these years
Who stood by me in happy times
And shared my lonely tears
As we part
Remember not
The sadness of this day
Think not my friend
Of this as the end
But
The beginning of a new way
Remember
The summers and the springs
The winters and the falls
Take heed my friend
It is the wind
Her voice gently calls
Fare thee well
Old friend of mine
Remember only the mirth
Go my friend among the clouds
As I return to the earth
This poem was written by a man named Michael, who I met during a time of personal turmoil on an airplane from Philadelphia to Atlanta. Like an angel, he coached me-a complete stranger- through a very deep struggle.
Mike wrote this poem when he was 15 years old growing up in rural Alabama. This is what he says about it:
“For me it represents the separating of the body and the spirit at the moment of death. The body is saying goodbye to its closest friend after sharing a mortal lifetime of experiences. The body has come to realize that even though it would love to have its friend in its presence forever; it is time to experience the next chapter of their being.”
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Poem of the Month 