I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)

Sometimes I think all the best poems
have been written already,
and no one has time to read them,
so why try to write more?

At other times though,
I remember how one flower
in a meadow already full of flowers
somehow adds to the general fireworks effect

as you get to the top of a hill
in Colorado, say, in high summer
and just look down at all that brimming color.
I also try to convince myself

that the smallest note of the smallest
instrument in the band,
the triangle for instance,
is important to the conductor

who stands there, pointing his finger
in the direction of the percussions,
demanding that one silvery ping.
And I decide not to stop trying,

at least not for a while, though in truth
I'd rather just sit here reading
how someone else has been acquainted
with the night already, and perfectly.
 
~ from Queen of a Rainy Country (W.W. Norton and Co, 2008)

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves.

~ from How to Carry Water, Selected Poem  
(BOA Editions Ltd, 2021)

AUTUMN				

gold of amber
red of ember
brown of umber
all September
 
~ excerpt from Six Quatrains, from So Far So Good: Poems 2014-2018 
(Copper Canyon Press  2018)

these are my people & I find them on the street & shadow through any wild all wild my people my people a dance of strangers in my blood the old woman’s sari dissolving to wind bindi a new moon on her forehead I claim her my kin & sew the star of her to my breast the toddler dangling from stroller hair a fountain of dandelion seed at the bakery I claim them too the Sikh uncle at the airport who apologizes for the pat down the Muslim man who abandons his car at the traffic light drops to his knees at the call of the Azan & the Muslim man who drinks good whiskey at the start of maghrib the lone khala at the park pairing her kurta with crocs my people my people I can’t be lost when I see you my compass is brown & gold & blood my compass a Muslim teenager snapback & high-tops gracing the subway platform Mashallah I claim them all my country is made in my people’s image if they come for you they come for me too in the dead of winter a flock of aunties step out on the sand their dupattas turn to ocean a colony of uncles grind their palms & a thousand jasmines bell the air my people I follow you like constellations we hear glass smashing the street & the nights opening dark our names this country’s wood for the fire my people my people the long years we’ve survived the long years yet to come I see you map my sky the light your lantern long ahead & I follow I follow ~ from If They Come For Us (Random House, 2018)

Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you?  Are the corners
sharper or rounded off?  Did you
live with death?  Make decisions
that quieted?  Find one clear word
that fit?  At the sun's midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible?  What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again?  Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?
 
~ from The Light of Invisible Bodies (Daniel and Daniel Publishers, 2015)

Then the flowers became very wild
because it was early September
and they had nothing to lose
they tossed their colors every
which way over the garden wall
splattering the lawn shoving their 
wild orange red rain-disheveled faces
into my window without shame

~ from Begin Again: Collected Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014)

I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)From the charm of radiant faces, From the days we took to dream, From the joy of open spaces, From the mountain and the stream, Bronzed of sunlight, nerves a-tingle, Keen of limb and clear of head, Speed we back again to mingle In the battle for our bread. Now again the stern commanding Of the chosen task is heard, And the tyrant, care, is standing Arbiter of deed and word. But the radiance is not ended, And the joy, whate’er the cost, Which those fleeting days attended Never can be wholly lost. For we bring to waiting duty, To the labor and the strife, Something of the sense of beauty, And a fairer view of life. ~in the public domain (originally published in Wings of Oppression, The Stratford Co., 1921) ~ from @MosabAbuToha

Time to rest now; you have had
enough excitement for the time being.

Twilight, then early evening. Fireflies
in the room, flickering here and there, here and there,
and summer's deep sweetness filling the open window.

Don't think of these things anymore.
Listen to my breathing, your own breathing
like the fireflies, each small breath
a flare in which the world appears.

I've sung to you long enough in the summer night.
I'll win you over in the end; the world can't give you
this sustained vision.

You must be taught to love me. Human beings must be
   taught to love
silence and darkness.

~ from The Wild Iris (Eccobooks, 1992)

I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)Jesse never felt smarter than at age six the only first grader in a fifth-grade poetry workshop— when they wrote about their neighborhood his poem by far the best in the room and he the first volunteer to stand and read it. The big kids clapped for him and cheered. He remembered this at twenty-one when we crossed paths on Commerce Street. Hey, hey! Could I ever feel like that again? It was my Best Day! Now working two jobs two kids to support Yes I think so Do you read to your kids? Do you have a library card? Do you use it? No No No Start there, Jesse! You knew the truth when you were six that your street was magical and full of mountains though it was utterly flat. You wrote about the rooster’s songs and the dog’s barkingful wonder. You wrote Who do you think I am am am? And knew instinctively it was more powerful to say “am” three times than one— You are still that person. ~ from Voices in the Air (Greenwillow Books, 2018)

They keep to themselves,
no soft breath on our necks,
no shadowy form by a window.

Sometimes they hide in our dreams
like a face deep in a foggy mirror
or a faded watercolour.

A butterfly in the kitchen,
a robin by the back door,
grief makes us desperate.

We pluck weeds from their graves,
humped from our weighty backpacks
of ‘could haves’ and ‘should haves’,

while above our heads
starlight comes tumbling
through the vast indifference of eternity.

~ in The Irish Times, July 2021

I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)I stalked her in the grocery store: her crown of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip, her erect bearing, radiating tenderness, watching the way she placed yogurt and avocados in her basket, beaming peace like the North Star. I wanted to ask, "What aisle did you find your serenity in, do you know how to be married for fifty years or how to live alone, excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to possess some knowledge that makes the earth turn and burn on its axis—" But we don’t request such things from strangers nowadays. So I said, "I love your hair." ~ This poem was displayed on transit buses in Portland, Oregon, as part of that city’s "Poetry in Motion" program

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs 
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, 
The night above the dingle starry, 
Time let me hail and climb 
Golden in the heydays of his eyes, 
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns 
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves 
Trail with daisies and barley 
Down the rivers of the windfall light. 

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns 
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, 
In the sun that is young once only, 
Time let me play and be 
Golden in the mercy of his means, 
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves 
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly 
In the pebbles of the holy streams. 

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay 
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery 
And fire green as grass. 
And nightly under the simple stars 
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away, 
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses 
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white 
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all 
Shining, it was Adam and maiden, 
The sky gathered again 
And the sun grew round that very day. 
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light 
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable 
On to the fields of praise. 

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house 
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, 
In the sun born over and over, 
I ran my heedless ways, 
My wishes raced through the house high hay 
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows 
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs 
Before the children green and golden 
Follow him out of grace. 

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, 
In the moon that is always rising, 
Nor that riding to sleep 
I should hear him fly with the high fields 
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. 
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, 
Time held me green and dying 
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

~from The Poems of Dylan Thomas (New Directions 1938- 1971)

Guilt is a bag someone has carried 
up the hill from the pub.  A brown bag
the size of a good catch, or
darkish, and bigger than that:
duffel over the shoulder.

Guilt is a pool with ladders 
rising in every direction.
We climb and fall back and climb again.
Who can make the connection between 
what snaps underfoot and what drenches us?

We are not taught how to do nothing.
We’re dragged from our busy infancy 
and distracted for years till our
balloon of competence shreds.
There are secrets you know, 

there is what happens when
what you haven’t imagined occurs.
Pain or its absence.  Wind 
bares the back of a sparrow’s head
underneath its buffer of down.

I believe in birds, the smallness of them, 
their potential for flight, the way
they acknowledge this, even so

nodding and feeding in front of us.

~ from Double Somersaults (Brick Books, 1999)

My grandfather was a bird. Underneath his white hair he wore crayon-coloured feathers. They were of broiling gold and of burning red and of drowning blue. One was green the colour of a single blade of grass. When he walked ahead of me I could see from his stride how he flew in the branches of trees. When his hand curled in my hair I could feel him perching around me. When he worked on the end of a shovel I found how his arms spread wide in a turn. And when he stood over a bed full of flowers I saw that his eyes gathered what shone on the ground for his nest. When he was gone I remember him sitting in a tree in a garden which he had planted. And all the cries of morning were around him. ~ From The Art of Walking Upright (Steele Roberts Ltd, 1999)

I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)I went out of the schoolhouse fast and through the gardens and to the woods, and spent all summer forgetting what I’d been taught— two times two, and diligence, and so forth, how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth, machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth. By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back to the chalky rooms and the desk, to sit and remember the way the river kept rolling its pebbles, the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank, the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light. ~ from Devotions (Penguin Books 2020)

I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the sea: Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year, And worship’st at the Temple’s inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not. ~ in the public domain

I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)Remember how we used to do it— weaving through the crowd, brushing shoulders, fingers touching a sleeve, adjusting a lapel—first an old friend here, then turn to banter with a stranger, finding odd connections—“You’re from where?...You know her!”—going deeper into story there, leaning back in wonder, bending close to whisper, secrets hidden in the hubbub, as if in the middle of this melee you have found a room and lit a lamp… then the roar of the crowd comes back, someone singing out a name, another bowing with a shriek of laughter, slap on the back, bear hug void of fear? Imagine! Just imagine. ~ from Singer Come From Afar (Red Hen Press 2021)

I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)Why does this written doe bound through these written woods? For a drink of written water from a spring whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle? Why does she lift her head; does she hear something? Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth, she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips. Silence - this word also rustles across the page and parts the boughs that have sprouted from the word "woods." Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page, are letters up to no good, clutches of clauses so subordinate they'll never let her get away. Each drop of ink contains a fair supply of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights, prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment, surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns. They forget that what's here isn't life. Other laws, black on white, obtain. The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say, and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities, full of bullets stopped in mid-flight. Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so. Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall, not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop. Is there then a world where I rule absolutely on fate? A time I bind with chains of signs? An existence become endless at my bidding? The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand. ~ from Poems New and Collected (Mariner Books, 2001) Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

I want to get up early one more morning,

before sunrise. Before the birds, even.

I want to throw cold water on my face

and be at my work table

when the sky lightens and smoke

begins to rise from the chimneys

of the other houses.

I want to see the waves break

on this rocky beach, not just hear them

break as I did all night in my sleep.

I want to see again the ships

that pass through the Strait from every

seafaring country in the world—

old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,

and the swift new cargo vessels

painted every color under the sun

that cut the water as they pass.

I want to keep an eye out for them.

And for the little boat that plies

the water between the ships

and the pilot station near the lighthouse.

I want to see them take a man off the ship

and put another up on board.

I want to spend the day watching this happen

and reach my own conclusions.

I hate to seem greedy—have so much

to be thankful for already.

But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.

And go to my place with some coffee and wait.

Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

~ from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

(Random House, 1985)i often daydream about the woman i’ll be when i leave the rush of my insecure twenties and pick up self-assurance on the way i can’t wait to make my eighteen-year-old self jealous of the hell i raise roaring into my thirty and forties my soul becoming more potent with age at fifty i’ll sit with my wrinkles and silver hair laughing about the adventures we’ve had together talking about the countless more in the decades ahead what a privilege it is to grow into the finest version of myself ~ from home body (Simon & Schuster, 2020)