​I’m listening
But I don’t know
If what I hear is silence
Or God.

I’m listening
But I can’t tell
If I hear the plane of emptiness echoing
Or a keen consciousness
That at the ends of the universe
Deciphers and watches me.

I only know that I walk like someone
Who is beheld,
Beloved,
And known.

And because of this
I put into my every moment

Solemnity and risk.

    - Sophia de Mello-Breyner

​I feel as if we opened a book about great ocean voyages
and found ourselves on a great ocean voyage:
sailing through December, around the horn of Christmas
and into the January Sea, and sailing on and on

in a novel without a moral but one in which
all the characters who died in the middle chapters
make the sunsets near the book's end more beautiful.

—And someone is spreading a map upon a table,
and someone is hanging a lantern from the stern,
and someone else says, "I'm only sorry
that I forgot my blue parka; It's turning cold."

Sunset like a burning wagon train
Sunrise like a dish of cantaloupe
Clouds like two armies clashing in the sky;
Icebergs and tropical storms,
That's the kind of thing that happens on our ocean voyage--

And in one of the chapters I was blinded by love
And in another, anger made us sick like swallowed glass
& I lay in my bunk and slept for so long,

I forgot about the ocean,
Which all the time was going by, right there, outside my cabin window.

And the sides of the ship were green as money,
             and the water made a sound like memory when we sailed.

Then it was summer. Under the constellation of the swan,
under the constellation of the horse.

At night we consoled ourselves
By discussing the meaning of homesickness.
But there was no home to go home to.
There was no getting around the ocean.
We had to go on finding out the story
                                                        by pushing into it--

The sea was no longer a metaphor.
The book was no longer a book.
That was the plot.
That was our marvelous punishment.

    - Tony Hoagland

​The door swings open,
you look in.
It’s dark in there,
most likely spiders:
nothing you want.
You feel scared.
The door swings closed. 

The full moon shines,
it’s full of delicious juice;
you buy a purse,
the dance is nice.
The door opens
And swings closed so quickly
you don’t notice.

The sun comes out,
you have swift breakfasts
with your husband, who is still thin;
you wash the dishes,
you love your children,
you read a book,
you go to the movies.
It rains moderately. 

The door swings open,
you look in:
why does this keep happening now?
Is there a secret?
The door swings closed. 

The snow falls,
you clear the walk while breathing heavily;
it’s not as easy as once.
Your children telephone sometimes.
The roof needs fixing.
You keep yourself busy.
The spring arrives.

The door swings open:
it’s dark in there,
with many steps going down.
But what is that shining?
Is it water?
The door swings closed.

The dog has died.
This happened before.
You got another; not this time though.
Where is your husband?
You gave up the garden.
It became too much.
At night there are blankets;
nonetheless you are wakeful.

The door swings open:
O god of hinges,
god of long voyages,
you have kept faith.
It’s dark in there.
You confide yourself to the darkness
You step in.
The door swings closed.

​    - Margaret Atwood

A gentler world begins
in the way you touch your heart.
Be soft with the light inside you.
Caress your body with this breath.
God is nothing else
but the place where the sun comes up
in your chest.
You are the glimmering destination.
You are the golden honey daubed
on the bread of the ordinary.
Whatever is perfect,
whatever is heavenly,
begins here.

​    - Alfred LaMotte

​Because one must be naked to get clean,
my dad shrugs out of his pajama shirt,
steps from his boxers and into the tub
as I brace him, whose long illness
has made him shed modesty too.
Seated on the plastic bench, he holds
the soap like a caught fish in his lap,
waiting for me to test the water’s heat
on my wrist before turning the nozzle
toward his pale skin. He leans over
to be doused, then hands me the soap
so I might scrub his shoulders and neck,
suds sluicing from spine to buttock cleft.
Like a child he wants a washcloth
to cover his eyes while I lather
a palmful of pearlescent shampoo
into his craniotomy-scarred scalp
and then rinse clear whatever soft hair
is left. Our voices echo in the spray
and steam of this room where once,
long ago, he knelt at the tub’s edge
to pour cups of bathwater over my head.
He reminds me to wash behind his ears,
and when he judges himself to be clean,
I turn off the tap. He grips the safety bar,
steadies himself, and stands. Turning to me,
his body is dripping and frail and pink.
And although I am nearly forty,
he has this one last thing to teach me.
I hold open the towel to receive him.

​    - Amy Fleury

​I used to think the land
had something to say to us,
back when wildflowers
would come right up to your hand
as if they were tame.

Sooner or later, I thought,
the wind would begin to make sense
if I listened hard
and took notes religiously.
That was spring.

Now I’m not so sure:
the cloudless sky has a flat affect
and the fields plowed down after harvest
seem so expressionless,
keeping their own counsel.

This afternoon, nut tree leaves
blow across them
as if autumn had written us a long letter,
changed its mind,
and tore it into little scraps.

​    - Don Thompson

When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed
papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.
​
​    - Joyce Sutphen

Is the question from the back of the room; I cannot
Quite see the student asking it, but it’s deep-voiced
And challenging and I assume it’s a guy. Because I
Want to rub music and language together and gawk
At the flames, I say. Because poetry, if it takes fire,
Cracks people’s masks, and assaults arrogance, and
Sucks you beneath the surface of words towards why
We use them. Because we have been singing before
There ‘were’ words and it’s healthy to remember that.
Because the great poems are about you and me both
And there is damned little we will be able to discuss
In the normal flow of the river and it’s good for both
Of us to stand together quietly for a while in a poem.
Because why the hell not ? What is it exactly that we
Should count as time better spent ? You cannot spare
Two minutes for a poem ? Sure, it might be pompous
Arty muck, and you demand your two minutes back,
But what if it isn’t ? What if it shivers you, or startles
You awake, or makes you weep remembering a time
When you sang all day too, and everything was made
Of music and light and colors and slabs of shimmer ?
‘What if’, brother – that’s my answer to your question.

    - Brian Doyle