Immigrant Picnic ~ By Gregory Djanikian It’s the Fourth of July, the flags are painting the town, the plastic forks and knives are laid out like a parade. And I’m grilling, I’ve got my apron, I’ve got potato salad, macaroni, relish, I’ve got a hat shaped like the state of Pennsylvania. I ask my father …Read More
Category: Poem
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
The Night Has A Thousand Eyes ~ by Francis William Bourdillon The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one: Yet the light of a whole life dies When love …Read More
After the Fire ~ Ada Limón
Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. In her recent interview “To Be Made Whole” with On Being by Krista Tippett, Ada Limón creates laughter in the very same moment that she launches us into serious contemplation. As she reads her poetry, she is at once genuine and humorous, holy and …Read More
How Do I Love Thee?
How Do I Love Thee? ~ 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 …Read More
A Friend’s Greeting ~ Edgar A. Guest
To my friends out there. May these words greet you on this Christmas Day and everyday. A Friend’s Greeting ~ by Edgar A. Guest I’d like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me; I’d like to be the help that you’ve been always glad to be; I’d like to mean …Read More
The Cremation of Sam McGee ~ Robert W. Service
Long, long ago in a land called Texas, unemployed soldiers from the recent War Between the States rounded up herds of wild cattle and trailed them north to feed a hungry nation. Evenings along the way, as the sun set romantically in the west, the boys gathered and, accompanied by a crackling fire and the …Read More
Small Kindnesses ~ Danusha Laméris
Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from …Read More
The Sacred Dance for Life ~ Hafiz
The Sacred Dance for Life by Hafiz I sometimes forget that I was created for joy My mind is too busy My heart is too heavy Heavy for me to remember that I have been called to dance the sacred dance for life I was created to smile to love to be lifted up and …Read More
A Psalm of Life ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was …Read More
Drinking Alone In The Moonlight ~ Li Po
Li Po has been called the god of poetry, but he called himself the god of wine. Born in 701, more than one thousand years ago, during the great cultural flowering of China’s T’ang Dynasty, he wandered across nature’s landscapes and found the spirit of the immortal in his poetry. With more than a thousand …Read More