Truly. Thanks for sharing.

Very lovely, indeed.

The one about her father, below it, gave me goosebumps.

The one about her father, below it, gave me goosebumps

Yes, that is a beautiful poem. Very moving. Tear producing.

Thanks occhiblu. The first poem is lovely.

Thanks for sharing, occhiblu I agree that was a very nice one.

That is a good message and a lovely poem.

Here's one I heard on the Writer's Almanac a couple weeks ago, and it made me tear up something fierce.

"Family Reunion"
by Maxine Kumin


The week in August you come home,
adult, professional, aloof,
we roast and carve the fatted calf
—in our case home-grown pig, the chine
garlicked and crisped, the applesauce
hand-pressed.
Hand-pressed the greengage wine.

Nothing is cost-effective here.
The peas, the beets, the lettuces,
hand sown, are raised to stand apart.
The electric fence ticks like the slow heart
of something we fed and bedded for a year,
then killed with kindness's one bullet
and paid Jake Mott to do the butchering.

In winter we lure the birds with suet,
thaw lungs and kidneys for the cat.
Darlings, it's all a circle from the ring
of wire that keeps the raccoons from the corn
to the gouged pine table that we lounge around,
distressed before any of you was born.

Benign and dozy from our gluttonies,
the candles down to stubs, defenses down,
love leaking out unguarded the way
juice dribbles from the fence when grounded
by grass stalks or a forgotten hoe,
how eloquent, how beautiful you seem!

Wearing our gestures, how wise you grow,
ballooning to overfill our space,
the almost-parents of your parents now.
So briefly having you back to measure us
is harder than having let you go.

That is a lovely poem and will be going in my notebook of favorite poems. It reminds me a bit of another one of my favorites:

How To Like It
by
Stephen Dobyns

These are the first days of fall. The wind
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
A man and a dog descend their front steps.
The dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk.
Let’s tip over all the trash cans we can find.
This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
But in his sense of the season, the man is struck
by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
until it seems he can see remembered faces
caught up among the dark places in the trees.
The dog says, Let’s pick up some girls and just
rip off their clothes. Let’s dig holes everywhere.
Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
he says to himself, a movie about a person
leaving on a journey. He looks down the street
to the hills outside of town and finds the cut
where the road heads north. He thinks of driving
on that road and the dusty smell of the car
heater, which hasn’t been used since last winter.
The dog says, Let’s go down to the diner and sniff
people’s legs. Let’s stuff ourselves on burgers.
In the man’s mind, the road is empty and dark.
Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
shine like small cautions against the night.
Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
The dog says, Let’s go to sleep. Let’s lie down
by the fire and put our tails over our noses.
But the man wants to drive all night, crossing
one state line after another, and never stop
until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
Then he’ll pull over and rest awhile before
starting again, and at dusk he’ll crest a hill
and there, filling a valley, will be the lights
of a city entirely new to him.
But the dog says, Let’s just go back inside.
Let’s not do anything tonight. So they
walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing. The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
Let’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
And that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept-
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.

oh, triggerfinger - that is a real gem. Very sensory, and very timely, too. I was just thinking yesterday about how hard it is to put fall-feeling into words, but there it is every year, familiarly poignant and full of longing and satisfaction at the same time.

May I say I wholeheartedly approve of "hey, here's a wicked good poem or three" threads.

Yes, thank you all.

Thank you for sharing these poems, bunnies.

occiblu, I'm not a big poetry person, but I sent this on to six selected people today and I've already heard back enthusiastically from four of them. HIT! (One was even all like, "Oh thank you! And I love Mary Oliver", so that confirms my belief in her as a superior being and stuff, like you.)

so that confirms my belief in her as a superior being and stuff, like you.

Ha! Thanks. I like poetry, but I don't go out of my way to seek it out (despite frequent resolutions to the contrary). This one was linked from Kate Harding's site, and it was really such a perfect poem, I felt like it punched me in the stomach and opened up my head all at the same time.

My Fav, without a shadow of a doubt is..


XLIII. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)


How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.