by Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer ( Read more... )

How to Be Alone  A poem performed with music, video, and animation.  Lovely.

I think I'll go take a bath now.

The bud ( Read more... )

 by Marge Piercy

Long ago on a night of danger and vigil
a friend said, Why are you happy?
He explained (we lay together
on a hard cold floor) what prison
meant because he had done
time, and I talked of the death
of friends. Why are you happy
then, he asked, close to
angry.

I said, I like my life. If I
have to give it back, if they
take it from me, let me ( Read more... )

by Ellie Schoenfeld

My country is this dirt
that gathers under my fingernails
when I am in the garden.
The quiet bacteria and fungi,
all the little insects and bugs
are my compatriots. They are
idealistic, always working together
for the common good.
I kneel on the earth
and pledge my allegiance
to all the dirt of the world,
to all of that soil which grows
( Read more... )

Come out of the dark earth
Here where the minerals
Glow in their stone cells
Deeper than seed or birth.

Come under the strong wave
Here where the tug goes
As the tide turns and flows
Below that architrave.

Come into the pure air
Above all heaviness
Of storm and cloud to this
Light-possessed atmosphere.

Come into, out of, under
The earth, the wave, the air.
Love ( Read more... )

by Martin Espada

Never pretend
to be a unicorn
by sticking a plunger on your head

I've been reading about human-caused extinctions, and mourning.  This poem came to mind:

Watching a Documentary about Polar Bears Trying to Survive on the Melting Ice Floes

That God had a plan, I do not doubt.
But what if His plan was, that we would do better.

 A summer Taos sunset in your hand.
The weight of a small child's fist,
a girl, resisting sleep
as she sleeps.
The shape of a chicken angel's egg.
Eros's lovely clefted backside
in velvet.  Fleshy
as a horse's lazy, lower lip.
A faraway fragrance:
juniper in gin, that slow gin
kiss.
What God saw on the eighth day, and ate, and said of it - 
way good. 
The woody ( Read more... )