by Gary Snyder One afternoon the last week in April Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet One-half turn and it sticks in a stump. He recalls the hatchet-head Without a handle, in the shop And go gets it, and wants it for his own. A broken-off axe handle behind the door Is long enough for a hatchet, We cut…
“To balance there, again, in the early dark,
three rungs up on the old stepladder,”
“On the fire escape, one
stupid petunia still blooms,
purple trumpet blowing”
Last night, right before I was heading to bed, I happened to see this on Twitter. Imagine my surprise when someone mentioned they had read an old poem of mine – and for a high school class, no less!
“Every day I peruse the box scores for hours
Sometimes I wonder why I do it
Since I am not going to take a test on it
And no one is going to give me money”
“I could tell they were father and son,
the air between them slack, as though
they hardly noticed one another.”
“For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord”
“We don’t lack people here on the Northern coast,
But they are people one meets, not people one cares for.”
“I pass a woman on the beach.
We both wear graying hair,
feel sand between our toes,
hear surf, and see blue sky.”
“The first warm day,
and by mid-afternoon
the snow is no more
than a washing
strewn over the yards”
“First day of February,
and in the far corner of the yard
the Adirondack chair,
blown over by the wind at Christmas,
is still on its back,”
“Take the fly, angel
of the ordinary house, laying its bright
eggs on the trash, pressing each jewel out
delicately along a crust of buttered toast.”
“There is big excitement in C block today.
On the window sill,
in a plastic ice cream cup
a little plant is growing.”
“we all went to town one day
went to a store”
“Confess: it’s my profession
that alarms you.
This is why few people ask me to dinner,
though Lord knows I don’t go out of my way to be scary.”