A Daily Dose of Poetry

A Hundred Falling Veils

• Until We’re All Away from the Edge June 6, 2020
    for Jennifer Unterberg     In the picture on the news, the little black girl holds a sign that says, I’m your next president. And in the grocery store, the clerk smiles at me from behind her mask and compliments my dress. Consumed as I’ve been with a sorrow so great it swallowed our […]
  Rosemerry
• One More Layer June 5, 2020
        the more I wear this story of myself, the more it grows thin, ravels, a sweater filled with holes— I fall through them
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• Oh This Anger June 4, 2020
      On the hill, the lilacs bloom each spring, a fleeting purple offering.   Why do I walk to them with a question about anger?   Their perfume pulls me closer, bids me step in, bids me breathe more deeply,   and I do. For a while, I forget my seething, forget everything except […]
  Rosemerry
• New Starting Point June 3, 2020
    I invite you to fall down. Fall down to the earth. —Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “Darkness is Asking to Be Loved,” Lion’s Roar     Today, I am fallen tree. I am deadwood. Surrender. I am don’t-try-to-rise.   Today is a day to know what it is to fall, to be felled, to stay fallen. […]
  Rosemerry
• Dignity June 2, 2020
        After the frost, the snapdragons remain standing. They didn’t change colors the way the basil did.   Didn’t shrivel and flag like the beans. They met the cold affront with beauty,   and a week later, they still stand, erect, blossoms only slightly faded.   What an astonishing way to meet an […]
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• Thirsty June 1, 2020
        At last, the rain, a furious rain, that turned into tiny fists of hail, shredding leaves and pummeling everything it met,   it rained as if one day, charged with intensity, might change a hundred days of drought—   and, oh, the world after, bruised and shining, still thirsty.       […]
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• More Love, More Love May 31, 2020
      Sorrow is how we learn to love. —Rita Mae Brown, Riding Shotgun     If sorrow is how we learn to love, then let us learn. Already enough sorrow’s been sown for whole continents to erupt into astonishing tenderness. Let us learn. Let compassion grow rampant, like sunflowers along the highway. Let each […]
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• Stolen Hour May 30, 2020
    for Danny, Wendy & Art     The breeze was warm and the day was hot and the shade on the porch was generous. It was nothing magic. It was total magic— each moment, each word a spell. We spoke of news and poetry, we spoke of healing and loss. It was forgettable. I […]
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• Once Upon A May 29, 2020
      Because you are the porch, I am the rocking chair.   Because you are the pen, I am the unfinished poem.   In the conversation of what happens next, I am always the pause.   I am always the pause and you the verb.   And if there should be a run on […]
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• Flourish May 28, 2020
        Whatever it is inside the larkspur that says grow, grow, grow, I want to know it, too. Want to obey the voice that urges me on, even in frost, even in rain. I want to rise out of my own dried debris, want to know how it is to die and return, […]
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