"Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings..."

-- Wordworth, "Tintern Abbey"

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45527/lines-composed-a-few-miles-above-tintern-abbey-on-revisiting-the-banks-of-the-wye-during-a-tour-july-13-1798

#PoetryNotes #poetry #TodaysPoem

"The Painted Lady" by Margaret Danner

The Painted Lady is a small African
Butterfly gayly toned deep tan and peach
That seems as tremulous and delicately sheer

As the objects I treasure, yet this cosmopolitan
Can cross the sea at the icy time of the year
In the trail of the big boats, to France.

Mischance is as wide and grey as the lake here
In Chicago. Is there strength enough in my
Peach paper rose or lavender sea-laced fan?

---

Read it, along with Danner's "Best Loved of Africa," here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=27120

#TodaysPoem #Poetry #PoetryNotes #MargaretDanner

"SONNET" by Helen Neville
Grim, and surrendered to their purposes,
their tangibilities of pulp or stone,
the houses, chairs and tables rise again—
the mute inflexible realities
that never died. Although our lightest touch
or smallest word had pared them paper-thin,
or seared them to a smudge of scenery,
their massive life endured beneath our much-
ados. And now, compact and free
of us who might have felled them where they stood,
they rear the monuments death cannot hide,
being no more than their immensities—
no more, within the darkness of their clutch,
than these sad ultimates of stone or grain.

(Paris Review, 1956)

#TodaysPoem #PoetryNotes #Poetry #HelenNeville

Bob Kaufman - "Unhistorical Events"

"APOLLINAIRE
NEVER MET CINDER BOTTOM BLUE, /
FAT SAXOPHONE PLAYER WHO LAUGHED /
WHILE PLAYING AND HAD STEEL TEETH"

Full poem in the pics. A few comments/random thoughts in this thread.

Listen to #TerranceHayes read the poem here:

https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/263/3384

#TodaysPoem #BobKaufman #PoemsOnHistory #PoetryNotes