Thank You

BY ROSS GRAY

If you find yourself half naked

and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,

again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says

you are the air of the now and gone, that says

all you love will turn to dust,

and will meet you there, do not

raise your fist. Do not raise

your small voice against it. And do not

take cover. Instead, curl your toes

into the grass, watch the cloud

ascending from your lips. Walk

through the garden's dormant splendor.

Say only, thank you.

Thank you.

Dogs are Shakespearean, Children are strangers

BY DELMORE SCHWARTZ

Dogs are Shakespearean, children are strangers.

Let Freud and Wordsworth discuss the child,

Angels and Platonists shall judge the dog,

The running dog, who paused, distending nostrils,

Then barked and wailed; the boy who pinched his sister,   

The little girl who sang the song from Twelfth Night,   

As if she understood the wind and rain,

The dog who moaned, hearing the violins in concert.   

—O I am sad when I see dogs or children!

For they are strangers, they are Shakespearean.

Tell us, Freud, can it be that lovely children   

Have merely ugly dreams of natural functions?   

And you, too, Wordsworth, are children truly   

Clouded with glory, learned in dark Nature?   

The dog in humble inquiry along the ground,   

The child who credits dreams and fears the dark,   

Know more and less than you: they know full well   

Nor dream nor childhood answer questions well:   

You too are strangers, children are Shakespearean.

Regard the child, regard the animal,   

Welcome strangers, but study daily things,   

Knowing that heaven and hell surround us,   

But this, this which we say before we’re sorry,   

This which we live behind our unseen faces,   

Is neither dream, nor childhood, neither   

Myth, nor landscape, final, nor finished,   

For we are incomplete and know no future,   

And we are howling or dancing out our souls   

In beating syllables before the curtain:   

We are Shakespearean, we are strangers.

If-

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

The Tyger

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 

On what wings dare he aspire? 

What the hand, dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art, 

Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 

And when thy heart began to beat, 

What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain? 

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see? 

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Voyage

BY CARMEN TAFOLLA

I was the fourth ship.

Behind Niña, Pinta, Santa María,

Lost at sea while watching a seagull,

Following the wind and sunset skies,

While the others set their charts.

I was the fourth ship.

Breathing in salt and flying with clouds,

Sailing moonbreezes and starvision nights,

Rolling into the wave and savoring its lull,

While the others pointed their prows.

I was the fourth ship.

Playfully in love with the sea,

Eternally entwined with the sky,

Forever vowed to my voyage,

While the others shouted "Land."

Special Meeting

BY PAUL COLALUCA

He sat. 
Small and quiet. 
While they talked about him...

The meeting was important. 
He could tell. 
Their voices were serious...

He listened to the words. 
And tried to understand.  
But didn't...

"Reading" was said. 
Then "math" and "spelling". 
He didn't have enough "selfa-steam"...

They wrote on white paper. 
And everyone signed them. 
Except him...

He wondered what was wrong. 
Was it terrible?  
Would it hurt...

He looked outside. 
Mashed potato clouds drifted by. 
And a tree waited for climbing...

Did they know he liked school? 
Especially the frogs. 
And recess...

They all began to nod. 
And smile at him. 
It was finally over...

He touched the marble in his pocket. 
And thought of his friends.  
Playing somewhere...

The game was always fun. 
No one ever lost their "shooter". 
Or worried about winning.

The Swan

BY RAINER MARIA RILKE (translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows)

This laboring of ours with all that remains undone,
as if still bound to it,
is like the lumbering gait of the swan.

And then our dying—releasing ourselves
from the very ground on which we stood—
is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself

into the water. It gently receives him,
and, gladly yielding, flows back beneath him,
as wave follows wave,
while he, now wholly serene and sure,
with regal composure,
allows himself to glide.

The Pulley

BY GEORGE HERBERT
 

When God at first made man, 
Having a glass of blessings standing by, 
“Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can. 
Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie, 
Contract into a span.” 

So strength first made a way; 
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure. 
When almost all was out, God made a stay, 
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, 
Rest in the bottom lay. 

“For if I should,” said he, 
“Bestow this jewel also on my creature, 
He would adore my gifts instead of me, 
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature; 
So both should losers be. 

“Yet let him keep the rest, 
But keep them with repining restlessness; 
Let him be rich and weary, that at least, 
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.” 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.