Dinesh's photos with the keyword: Poetess

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean— the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? —Mary Oliver ~ "The Summer Day"

Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes. We Diet on water, On crumbs of shadow, Bland-mannered, asking Little or nothing. So many of us! So many of us! We are shelves, we are Tables, we are meek, We are edible, Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves. Our kind multiplies: We shall by morning Inherit the earth. Our foot's in the door. ~Syliva Plath

I know not how it falls on me, This summer evening, hushed and lone; Yet the faint wind comes soothingly With something of an olden tone … Emily Bronte

. . . . . . . . Though I go in pride and strength, I’ll come back to bed at length. Though I walk in blinded woe, Back to bed I’m bound to go. High my heart, or bowed my head, All my days but lead to bed. Up, and out, and on; and then Ever back to bed again, Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall–– I’m a fool to rise at all! ~ "Bedroom" Dorthy Parker

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things. ~ Mary Oliver

…………………………………………… …………………………………………………. And even when it dies, to pass In odors so divine, As lowly spices gone to sleep, Or amulets of pine. And then to dwell in sovereign barns, And dream the days away, — The grass so little has to do, I wish I were the hay! ~ Emily Dickinson

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMCinTCAl7s www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQBnE-PopsA

There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Nor any Courses like a Page Of prancing Poetry -- This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll -- How frugal is the Chariot That bears the Human Soul ~ Emily Dickinson

www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/155506/my-rock I sit on my desert rock, listen to the world’s hum. Crows and ravens caw, finches and sparrows chirp. A dog barks. Can I face the halls of judgments? . . . . . ~ Pat Mora

There comes the strangest moment in your life when everything you thought before breaks free; what you relied upon as ground-rule and as rite looks upside-down from how it used to be. Skin’s gone pale, your brain is shedding cells; you question every tenet you set down; Obedient thoughts have turned to infidels, and every verb desires to be a noun. I want--my want. I love--my love. I’ll stay with you. I thought transitions were the best, but I want what’s here to never go away. I’ll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast… Your heart’s in retrograde. You simply have no choice. Things people told you turn out to be true. You have to hold that body, hear that voice. You’d have sworn no one knew you more than you. How many people thought you’d never change? But here you have. It’s beautiful. It’s strange. "There comes the strangest moment" ~ Kate Light

. . . . . . . Unclasp it like jewels, the gold still hot from your body. Empty your basket of figs. Spill your wine. That hard nugget of pain, I would suck it, cradling it on my tongue like the slick seed of pomegranate. I would lift it tenderly, as a great animal might carry a small one in the private cave of the mouth. Excerpt: Basket of Figs ~ Ellen Bass poets.org/poem/basket-figs

can be enough to make you look up at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree, the few that survived the rains and frost, shot with late afternoon sun. They glow a deep orange-gold against a blue so sheer, a single bird would rip it like silk. You may have to break your heart, but it isn’t nothing to know even one moment alive. The sound of an oar in an oarlock or a ruminant animal tearing grass. The smell of grated ginger. The ruby neon of the liquor store sign. Warm socks. You remember your mother, her precision a ceremony, as she gathered the white cotton, slipped it over your toes, drew up the heel, turned the cuff. A breath can uncoil as you walk across your own muddy yard, the big dipper pouring night down over you, and everything you dread, all you can’t bear, dissolves and, like a needle slipped into your vein— that sudden rush of the world. Ellen Bass poets.org/poem/any-common-desolation

Standing outside staring at a tree gentles our eyes We cheer to see fireflies winking again Where have our friends been all the long hours? Minds stretching beyond the field become their own skies Windows doors grow more important Look through a word swing that sentence wide open Kneeling outside to find sturdy green glistening blossoms under the breeze that carries us silently …….. ~ NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring, And all the flowers that in the springtime grow, And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing The summer through, and each departing wing, And all the nests that the bared branches show, And all winds that in any weather blow, And all the storms that the four seasons bring. You go no more on your exultant feet Up paths that only mist and morning knew, Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat Of a bird’s wings too high in air to view,— But you were something more than young and sweet And fair,—and the long year remembers you. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

What’s the use of something as unstable and diffuse as hope— the almost-twin of making do, the isotope of going on: what isn’t in the envelope just before it isn’t: the always tabled righting of the present. ~ "Hope" ~ Kay Ryan persimmontree.org/summer-2011/sixteen-poems

There are high places that don't invite us, sharp shapes, glacier- scraped faces, whole ranges whose given names slip off. Any such relation as we try to make refuses to take. Some high lakes are not for us, some slick escarpments. I'm giddy with thinking where thinking can't stick.” Kay Rayan

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange - The size of if made us all laugh. I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave - They got quarters and I had half. And that orange, it made me so happy, As ordinary things often do Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park. This is peace and contentment. It's new. The rest of the day was quiet easy. I did all the jobs on my list And enjoyed them and had some time over. I love you. I'm glad I exist. "The Orange" - Windy Cope