Look It Over

Look It Over  
by  Wendell Berry  

I leave behind even
 my walking stick. My knife
 is in my pocket, but that
 I have forgot. I bring
 no car, no cell phone,
 no computer, no camera,
 no CD player, no fax, no
 TV, not even a book. I go
 into the woods. I sit on
 a log provided at no cost.

 It is the earth I’ve come to,
 the earth itself, sadly
 abused by the stupidity
 only humans are capable of
 but, as ever, itself. Free.
 A bargain! Get it while it lasts.

 "Look It Over" by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint Press, 2012. 

Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes 
by Anne Higgins

Suddenly it is August again, so hot,
breathless heat.
I sit on the ground
in the garden of Carmel,
picking ripe cherry tomatoes

and eating them.
They are so ripe that the skin is split,
so warm and sweet
from the attentions of the sun,
the juice bursts in my mouth,
an ecstatic taste,
and I feel that I am in the mouth of summer,
sloshing in the saliva of August.
Hummingbirds halo me there,
in the great green silence,
and my own bursting heart
splits me with life.


"Cherry Tomatoes" by Anne Higgins from At the Year's Elbow. © Mellen Poetry Press, 2000. 

Sky

Sky

by Charles Deemer

I miss the butterflies

that used to visit

our butterfly bush

every summer

I miss the deer

that used to wander

into the abandoned orchard

next to us for apples

Most of all, I miss

a night sky blazing

with stars, so many more

than this smattering 

of token urban stars

--stars far beyond numbers

breath-taking, awe-inspiring

argument and proof

of human smallness

a nightly jolt of humility

which somehow our ancestors

under skies before industry

starry, starry nights

saw in an opposite way

looking up not with humility

but into unbridled opportunity

a powerful calling 

to destiny and empire

which would be realized

the success of greed

destroying the sky

Tin Ear

Tin Ear 
by Peter Schmitt 

We stood at attention as she moved
with a kind of Groucho shuffle
down our line, her trained music
teacher’s ear passing by
our ten- and eleven-year-old mouths
open to some song now forgotten.
And as she held her momentary
pause in front of me, I peered
from the comer of my eye
to hers, and knew the truth
I had suspected.
In the following days,
as certain of our peers
disappeared at appointed hours
for the Chorus, something in me
was already closing shop.
Indeed, to this day
I still clam up
for the national anthem
in crowded stadiums, draw
disapproving alumni stares
as I smile the length of school songs,
and even hum and clap
through “Happy Birthday,” creating
a diversion-all lest I send
the collective pitch
careening headlong into dissonance.
It’s only in the choice acoustics
of shower and sealed car
that I can finally give voice

to that heart deep within me
that is pure, tonally perfect, music.
But when the water stops running
and the radio’s off, I can remember
that day in class,
when I knew for the first time
that mine would be a world of words
without melody, where refrain
means do not join,
where I’m ready to sing
in a key no one has ever heard.


"Tin Ear" by Peter Schmitt from Country Airport. © Copper Beech Press, 1989.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Planetoid

Twinkle, Twinkle, Planetoid
by Paul VerNooy

Twinkle, twinkle, planetoid
Out so far in inky void
Rocky core with ice encloaked
Your planethood has been revoked
The I.A.U. struck a blow
To the cosmic status quo
They’re not quite sure of your fate
But it leaves us only eight
Was it that your orbit’s tilted
Why you were so rudely jilted?
Could it be your little tryst
With Neptune that’s got them pissed?
Despite the fact you have a moon

Your reputation they impugn.
But take some comfort in their crime–
They’ll all be dead in one year’s time!*
Twinkle, twinkle, far from sun
So long for now, it’s been fun

*One year on Pluto is 248 Earth years

Paul VerNooy wrote this poem when Pluto lost its planethood in 2006.

This sad, sweet, tragic, Fourth of July world

Imagine This 
by Freya Manfred 

When you’re young, and in good health,
you can imagine living in New York City,
or Nepal, or in a tree beyond the moon,
and who knows who you’ll marry: a millionaire,
a monkey, a sea captain, a clown.

But the best imaginers are the old and wounded,
who swim through ever narrowing choices,
dedicating their hearts to peace, a stray cat,
a bowl of homemade vegetable soup,
or red Mountain Ash berries in the snow.

Imagine this: only one leg and lucky to have it,
a jig-jagged jaunt with a cane along the shore,
leaning on a walker to get from grocery to car,

smoothing down the sidewalk on a magic moving chair,
teaching every child you meet the true story

of this sad, sweet, tragic, Fourth of July world.


"Imagine This" by Freya Manfred from Speak, Mother. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2015.

What We Might Be, What We Are

What We Might Be, What We Are 
by X. J. Kennedy

If you were a scoop of vanilla
And I were the cone where you sat,
If you were a slowly pitched baseball
And I were the swing of a bat,

If you were a shiny new fishhook
And I were a bucket of worms,
If we were a pin and a pincushion,
We might be on intimate terms.

If you were a plate of spaghetti
And I were your piping-hot sauce,
We’d not even need to write letters
To put our affection across,

But you’re just a piece of red ribbon
In the beard of a Balinese goat
And I’m a New Jersey mosquito.
I guess we’ll stay slightly remote.


"What We Might Be, What We Are" by X.J. Kennedy from Exploding Gravity. © Little Brown, 1992.