Lily pads ripple in summer breeze,
as if they bloomed for me,
revelation-white clouds float
through a divine blue sky.
No human voices break
the stillness of this hilltop pond
where I come to forget
the foolishness of homo sapiens—
where a trout leaps from the lake,
splashes shining down,
opening a glimpse into
the world below the surface.
My dog, wet from her swim
between the visible and the hidden,
shakes dots of sparkling light
from her dark coat,
forming a watery aura.
What sunlight does to water,
stillness does to us.
~~ 'What Stillness' by Laura Foley from 'The Wonder of Small Things'

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Moon marked and touched by sun
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.
I seek no favor
untouched by blood
unrelenting as the curse of love
permanent as my errors
or my pride
I do not mix
love with pity
nor hate with scorn
and if you would know me
look into the entrails of Uranus
where the restless oceans pound.

I do not dwell
within my birth nor my divinities
who am ageless and half-grown
and still seeking
my sisters
witches in Dahomey
wear me inside their coiled cloths
as our mother did
mourning.

I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon's new fury
with all your wide futures
promised
I am
woman
and not white.
~~ 'A Woman Speaks' by Audre Lorde from 'The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde'

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When ball
moss falls
we feel
most at
a loss
to explain
why this
soft bomb
of sticks
and fine
jade colored
fronds loud
with naught
drops to
us: does
the tree
let the
moss go
or does
the tree
ask us
to hold
the moss?
~~'Epiphyte Interlude' by Cecily Parks from 'The Seeds'

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To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
~~ 'Eagle Poem' by Joy Harjo from 'The Gift of Animals'

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We are children of our age,
it’s a political age.

All day long, all through the night,
all affairs—yours, ours, theirs—
are political affairs.

Whether you like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin, a political cast,
your eyes, a political slant.

Whatever you say reverberates,
whatever you don’t say speaks for itself.
So either way you’re talking politics.

Even when you take to the woods,
you’re taking political steps
on political grounds.

Apolitical poems are also political,
and above us shines a moon
no longer purely lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
And though it troubles the digestion
it’s a question, as always, of politics.

To acquire a political meaning
you don’t even have to be human.
Raw material will do,
or protein feed, or crude oil,

or a conference table whose shape
was quarreled over for months:
Should we arbitrate life and death
at a round table or a square one?

Meanwhile, people perished,
animals died,
houses burned,
and the fields ran wild
just as in times immemorial
and less political.
~~ 'Children of Our Age' by Wisława Szymborska from 'Map', trans. Clare Cavanagh, Stanisław Barańczak

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O commemorate me where there is water,
Canal water, preferably, so stilly
Greeny at the heart of summer. Brother
Commemorate me thus beautifully
Where by a lock Niagarously roars
The falls for those who sit in the tremendous silence
Of mid-July. No one will speak in prose
Who finds his way to these Parnassian islands.
A swan goes by head low with many apologies,
Fantastic light looks through the eyes of bridges--
And look! a barge comes bringing from Athy
And other far-flung towns mythologies.
O commemorate me with no hero-courageous
Tomb--just a canal-bank seat for the passer-by.
~~ 'Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin' by Patrick Kavanagh

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'The Way the Sky Might Taste'

The bite of a softened cardamom pod
in a spoonful of Tikka Masala.
Tang of copper, caperberry
other berries, too:
a rasp, a blue, a lingon, elder
lit with lemon, thin slice of moon.
The breath of a first kiss
sweet and deeply surprising.
Dirt on the youngest tongue, the red
flesh of a torn fig eaten
straight from the tree,
the constellation of wings
as champagne leaves the flute.
~~ by Ellen Rowland from 'The Wonder of Small Things'

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New Poem!

"shatter" by Olga Gonzalez Latapi

https://letolgatellyouastory.tumblr.com/post/700580808653783040/shatter

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