The old man
must have stopped our car
two dozen times to climb out
and gather into his hands
the small toads blinded
by our lights and leaping,
live drops of rain.

The rain was falling,
a mist about his white hair
and I kept saying
you can’t save them all
accept it, get back in,
we’ve got places to go.

But, leathery hands full
of wet brown life
knee deep in the summer
roadside grass
he just smiled and said
they have places to go
too.
~~'Birdfoot's Grampa' by Joseph Bruchac

#FridayPoem #TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry

I love a wild daffodil,
the one that grows
where she’s planted—
along a wooded highway
left to her own abandon,
but not abandoned.
Her big yellow head
leaning toward or away
from the sun. Not excluded
but exclusive, her trumpet
heralds no one, not even
the Canada geese—
their long-necked honks
announcing their journey.
She’ll be here less
than a season, grace us
with green slender stems,
strong enough to withstand
rain and spring’s early chill.
And when she goes,
what remains she’ll bury
deep inside the bulb of her,
take a part of me with her
until she returns.
~~ 'For Ella' by January Gill O'Neil from 'The Wonder of Small Things'

#FridayPoem #TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry

You're the kind who looks at a painting
and wonders what's happening beyond

the stretched canvas, where it wraps
around the wood frame, as if
it were a detail from a larger work

or, like a photograph, one small scene
inside a wider one, curated by the eye.

You wonder what's beyond
the bowl of fruit, beyond the gray sea
with its meal of wrecked ships,

beyond the mother holding her burning,
red-cheeked child. You're the kind

who thinks there must be more
than this, more than what you see.
The kitchen might be filling with bees,

drawn buzzing to the bowl of red
and yellow apples. And the waves,

the waves might be ruffling white
and folding over on themselves--
breaking, breaking like a fever.

---
-- Maggie Smith, "Detail" from her new volume, *A Suit or a Suitcase*

#TodaysPoem #MaggieSmith #Poetry