#25 - "The Summer Day" Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

#24 - "Quarantine" by Franny Choi

Because I did not have to smell the cow’s fear,
because I did not have to pin the man, watch his eyes
go feral, because I did not have to drag the stones
that formed in the child’s body, because I did not sheathe
my hands in dank soil, or skirt the machine’s battering, the needles
knitting my lower back, because when the factory collapsed
I smelled no smoke, and no one made me kneel at the cop’s boots
and count the pulse slowing beside me as every sound
soured, because my hands have never had to resist being comforted
by the warmth of blood, because the plastic-
wrapped meat and the mousetraps, because my job
was to stay clean and thankful and mostly imaginary, I have been

          stealing
what little I can:
                              onions.  sandpaper.  handfuls of skin.
the dumpster’s metal groan.  hurried breath.  hot knives.

------------

This poem is about capitalism and the numbness and distance it creates between our senses.

#23 - Night on the Island - Pablo Neruda

Night on the Island 

Pablo Neruda

All night I have slept with you

next to the sea, on the island.

Wild and sweet you were between pleasure and sleep,

between fire and water. Perhaps very late

our dreams joined

at the top or at the bottom,

Up above like branches moved by a common wind,

down below like red roots that touch.

 

Perhaps your dream

drifted from mine

and through the dark sea

was seeking me

as before,

when you did not yet exist,

when without sighting you

I sailed by your side,

and your eyes sought

what now--

bread, wine, love, and anger--

I heap upon you

because you are the cup

that was waiting for the gifts of my life.

 

I have slept with you

all night long while

the dark earth spins

with the living and the dead,

and on waking suddenly

in the midst of the shadow

my arm encircled your waist.

 

Neither night nor sleep

could separate us.

 

I have slept with you

and on waking, your mouth,

come from your dream,

gave me the taste of earth,

of sea water, of seaweed,

of the depths of your life,

and I received your kiss

moistened by the dawn

as if it came to me

from the sea that surrounds us.

#22 I Don't Miss It - Tracy K. Smith

I Don't Miss It

Tracy K. Smith

But sometimes I forget where I am,

Imagine myself inside that life again.

 

Recalcitrant mornings. Sun perhaps,

Or more likely colorless light

 

Filtering its way through shapeless cloud.

 

And when I begin to believe I haven’t left,

The rest comes back. Our couch. My smoke

 

Climbing the walls while the hours fall.

Straining against the noise of traffic, music,

 

Anything alive, to catch your key in the door.

And that scamper of feeling in my chest,

 

As if the day, the night, wherever it is

I am by then, has been only a whir

 

Of something other than waiting.

 

We hear so much about what love feels like.

Right now, today, with the rain outside,

 

And leaves that want as much as I do to believe

In May, in seasons that come when called,

 

It’s impossible not to want

To walk into the next room and let you

 

Run your hands down the sides of my legs,

Knowing perfectly well what they know.

#21 Oh Yes - Charles Bukowski

Oh Yes
Charles Bukowski

there are worse things than 
being alone 
but it often takes decades 
to realize this 
and most often 
when you do 
it's too late 
and there's nothing worse 
than 
too late.

#20 The Hurt - Nayyirah Waheed

The Hurt
Nayyirah Waheed

you
not wanting me
was
the beginning of me
wanting myself
thank you

#19 And The Days Are Not Long Enough - Ezra Pound

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
      Not shaking the grass.