​The sound of a bell
Still reverberating,
or a blackbird calling
from a corner of the field,
asking you to wake
into this life,
or inviting you deeper
into the one that waits.

Either way
takes courage,
either way wants you
to be nothing
but that self that
is no self at all,
wants you to walk
to the place
where you find
you already know
how to give
every last thing
away.

The approach
that is also
the meeting
itself,
without any
meeting
at all.

That radiance
you have always
carried with you
as you walk
both alone
and completely
accompanied
in friendship
by every corner
of the world
crying
Allelujah.

    - David Whyte

What if we enter each day
so silently, so seamlessly
the birds don't sound alarms and dart away,
our minds so well released from fits of thought
we are kin to all that breathes,
like grazing deer
hidden in dapples of green

O how we would walk then
light hoofed and elfin eyed, even on crowded days,
each trembling leaf a welcome
Silky beating wings
would cool our errant fevers of mind
would keep us filled with awe
and kind

​    - Cynthia Poten

​I acknowledge my status as a stranger:   
Inappropriate clothes, odd habits   
Out of sync with wasp and wren.   
I admit I don’t know how   
To sit still or move without purpose.   
I prefer books to moonlight, statuary to trees.   

But this lawn has been leveled for looking,   
So I kick off my sandals and walk its cool green.   
Who claims we’re mere muscle and fluids?   
My feet are the primitives here.   
As for the rest—ah, the air now   
Is a tonic of absence, bearing nothing   
But news of a breeze.

​    - Rita Dove

"Never," said my father,
"Never cut a pomegranate
through the heart.  It will weep blood.
Treat it delicately, with respect.

Just slit the upper skin across four quarters.
This is a magic fruit,
so when you split it open, be prepared
for the jewels of the world to tumble out,
more precious than garnets,
more lustrous than rubies,
lit as if from inside.
Each jewel contains a living seed.
Separate one crystal.
Hold it up to catch the light.
Inside is a whole universe.
No common jewel can give you this."

Afterwards, I tried to make necklaces
of pomegranate seeds.
The juice spurted out, bright crimson,
and stained my fingers, then my mouth.
I didn't mind.  The juice tasted of gardens
I had never seen, voluptuous
with myrtle, lemon, jasmine
and alive with parrots' wings.

The pomegranate reminded me
that somewhere I had another home.

    - Imtiaz Dharker

Lie back, daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's-float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

    - Philip Booth

​Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal--

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain--
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

    - Tony Hoagland

​I hear other names for You – The Inviolable One,
God, Allah, Wakantanka, Higher Power,
The Ineffable. But why bother,
when You call to me by no name at all and I come.

Neither of us have a word for each other
save Us.
And even that is nobody’s business
​but Ours.

So let’s forget such partitions as names
and discuss this April day within,
which captures birds in flight
and all their eggs and songs
in one straight deed of liberation.

The mighty have fallen around this peace.
But let’s not get into that, when every moment
is roses, and the scent You give off tastes
in my nose like Now.
Like Forever. Like Now.

​All I want from You is nothing.
Peace is a dance, after all.
Peace moves. Peace laughs.
And Peace’s discussion is boughs of trees,
light, carriages, actors at their bent,
bravery in and out of action,
for after all, what, what, what
in this world is possibly not roses?

    - Bruce Moody

​If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

    - Billy Collins

​—after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color’s green. I’m spring.

--for Walter Aikens

    - by Ross Gay

​for Luna

It was late afternoon and we were standing
on the deck overlooking the gray swath
of the Pacific, when my friends’ daughter,
then four, turned to me and pointed at the hawks
flying in the distance. I can call them if I want,
she said, tilting back her head to let out a long,
fierce caw, which floated up over the marsh
and above the trees. At first, nothing. Then--
a slash in the distance. And in the next moment
there it was—nearly above us, wings spread wide,
the color of rust. And then, another, the two floating
in silent circles while she sounded her cries.
The primal cry of the human, raw and plain.
The call to prayer, the weeping at the wall,
the singer’s highest, most broken, note.
Whatever it is we send up into oblivion, waiting.
Haven’t I, too, called out? Haven’t I beseeched
something winged to do my bidding?
And here she was, calling, and here they came,
in answer, this hinged assembly, hovering
toward us on the wind. Ten? Twenty?
Enough to darken the heavens above
where we stood, weighted in place, pinned
by a cover of raptors. Bone swallowers,
snake eaters, sharp-sighted angels of prey,
their scaled feet clutching the empty sky.

​    - Danusha Lameris