A Measuring Worm

This yellow striped green
Caterpillar, climbing up
The steep window screen,

Constantly (for lack
Of a full set of legs) keeps
Humping up his back.

It’s as if he sent
By a sort of semaphore
Dark omegas meant

To warn of Last Things.
Although he doesn’t know it,
He will soon have wings,

And I, too, don’t know
Toward what undreamt condition
Inch by inch I go.

 

Richard Wilbur, The New Yorker February 11, 2008

Thank-You Notes

           . . . let me paint a thank-you on my palm . . .
                                                           Anne Sexton

This May morning as sunrise
turns my kitchen window to stained glass,
I paint thank-yous
on the palm of my hand,

thanks for the tulip that opened
red cups to receive sun and rain,
and for violets I transplanted from Grandmother's,
now blooming in my yard,

gratitude that I don't have to rise
like Grandfather did on cool mornings
to stoke dying ashes in a coal furnace
to resurrect the fire that heated the house,

and for the spin cycle on the washer
that saves me from the task
of wringing water from skirts,
shirts, shorts, towels and sheets.

I paint thank-yous on my palm
for the mother I saw at Panera yesterday
breaking bread, giving more than half to her son,
reminding me of my mother's generosity,

for the tune my husband whistled
as he came down the stairs,
his hugs, and for the "Pickles" cartoon
in the paper that makes us laugh.

All day, keep me from taking things for granted:
spring flowers, running water, indoor plumbing,
vacuum sweepers, phone calls from my daughters.
Keep me painting thank-yous on my palm.

Wilda Morris, yourdailypoem.com

Toward the End of August

Toward the end of August I begin to dream about fall, how
this place will empty of people, the air will get cold and
leaves begin to turn. Everything will quiet down, everything
will become a skeleton of its summer self. Toward

the end of August I get nostalgic for what’s to come, for
that quiet time, time alone, peace and stillness, calm, all
those things the summer doesn’t have. The woodshed is
already full, the kindling’s in, the last of the garden soon

will be harvested, and then there will be nothing left to do
but watch fall play itself out, the earth freeze, winter come.

 

David Budbill, Tumbling Toward the End (Copper Canyon Press, 2017)

The Family Doctor

I’ve tried the high-toned specialists, who doctor folks today;
I’ve heard the throat man whisper low “Come on now let us pray”;
I’ve sat in fancy offices and waited long my turn,
And paid for fifteen minutes what it took a week to earn;
But while these scientific men are kindly, one and all,
I miss the good old doctor that my mother used to call.
The old-time family doctor! Oh, I am sorry that he’s gone,
He ushered us into the world and knew us every one;
He didn’t have to ask a lot of questions, for he knew
Our histories from birth and all the ailments we’d been through.
And though as children small we feared the medicines he’d send,
The old-time family doctor grew to be our dearest friend.
No hour too late, no night too rough for him to heed our call;
He knew exactly where to hang his coat up in the hall;
He knew exactly where to go, which room upstairs to find
The patient he’d been called to see, and saying: “Never mind,
I’ll run up there myself and see what’s causing all the fuss.”
It seems we grew to look and lean on him as one of us.
He had a big and kindly heart, a fine and tender way,
And more than once I’ve wished that I could call him in today.
The specialists are clever men and busy men, I know,
And haven’t time to doctor as they did long years ago;
But someday he may come again, the friend that we can call,
The good old family doctor who will love us one and all.

 

Edgar A. Guest, pickmeuppoetry.org April 12, 2022

Lucky

All my life I’ve been lucky. Not that I made money,
or had a beautiful house or cars. But lucky to have
had good friends, a wife who loves me, and a good
son. Lucky that war and famine or disease did not
come to my doorstep. Lucky that all the wrong
turns I made, even if they did turn out well, at least
were not complete disasters. I still have some of my
original teeth. All that could change, I know, in the
wink of an eye. And what an eye it is, bright blue
contrasting with her dark skin and black hair. And
oh, what long eyelashes! She turns and with a slight
smile gives me a long slow wink, a wink that says,
“Come on over here, you lucky boy.”

 

Louis Jenkins, In the Sun Out of the Wind (Will of the Wisp Books, 2017)

For What Binds Us

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest-

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.

 

Jane Hirshfield, Gravity and Angels (Wesleyan University Press, 1998)

We're All in the Telephone Book

We’re all in the telephone book,
Folks from everywhere on earth–
Anderson to Zabowski,
It’s a record of America’s worth.

We’re all in the telephone book,
There’s no priority–
A millionaire like Rockefeller
Is likely to be behind me.

For generations men have dreamed
Of nations united as one.
Just look in your telephone book
To see where that dream’s begun.

When Washington crossed the Deleware
And the pillars of tyranny shook,
He started the list of democracy
That’s America’s telephone book.

 

Langston Hughes, 125 Poems that Celebrate the American Experience, Carmela Ciuraru, ed. (Scribner Poetry, 2002)