Excerpt from Ellen Bass, "Pray for Peace":

"When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else’s legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm."

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/02/ellen-bass-pray-for-peace.html

#poetry #poem #poems #TodaysPoem #PoemADay #PoetryOfPresence #peace #EllenBass

"Poetry is the marriage
of thought and feeling."
Ellen Bass

#Poetry #EllenBass

"I like cutting the cucumber, the knife slicing the darkness
into almost-transparent moons, each
with its own thin rim of night. I like smashing
the garlic with the flat of steel
and peeling the sticky, papery skin from the clove.
Tell me what to do. I’m free of will."

-- Excerpt from "Sous Chef" by Ellen Bass

Full poem is here, including a video of Bass reading the text.

https://www.ellenbass.com/books/indigo/sous-chef/

#TodaysPoem #Poetry #EllenBass

Excerpt from Ellen Bass, "Pray for Peace", which isn't a bike poem and yet is, along with many other things:

"And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm."

#TodaysPoem #PoemADay #poetry #poem #poems #EllenBass #peace #BikePoem #BikeTooter

Excerpt from Ellen Bass, "Pray for Peace"

"And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm."

https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2015/02/ellen-bass-pray-for-peace.html

#poetry #TodaysPoem #PoemADay #poem #poems #EllenBass #peace #prayer

The baby’s dragged the sheets to the kitchen

Laundry
Ellen Bass

#Poetry #EllenBass #TheNewYorker #Laundry #Literature

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/06/laundry-ellen-bass-poem

Today's poem:

You’re the Top
- by Ellen Bass

https://www.tumblr.com/ukdamo/744734493170171904/youre-the-top?source=share

#song #poetry #lyric #life #celebration #joy #child #love #trust #EllenBass

"to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,"

#EllenBass (2002) #poetry #poem

Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

To Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

https://www.ellenbass.com/books/the-human-line/pray-for-peace/

Ellen Bass
Pray for Peace

#TodaysPoem #Poetry #Poem #NewYear #NewYearsEve #EllenBass