The Art of Disappearing - Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you? say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply. If they say we should get together.
say why? It's not that you don't love them any more.
You're trying to remember something too important to forget.
Trees.
The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished. When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second. Then decide what to do
with your time.

Danse Russe - William Carlos Williams

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

This is Just to Say - William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

The Red Wheelbarrow - William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

The Way a Crow by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree.

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And save some part
Of a day I had rued.

The Pasture - Robert Frost

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young
It totters when she licks it with her tongue
I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.

Rainer Maria Rilke - a quote

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that needs our love.

February Penseroso by Kosta Demos

Hard to leave bed, waking to snow
again.

Another season seems improbable when slathered
by this inexhaustible brush of gray
accompanied by the percussion of arthritic tree limbs
in the wind, or viewing yesterday's hope
- a lone bluet on the hillside
hard by my porch that fingered bravely through the slush
at noon, only to wither and curl like a lover
rebuffed by an unkind word at dusk.

Still, there persist hints of a warmer state
unswathed of wool and snot and endless variants
of cabbage. To whit: my daughter, unrestrained,
racing naked, heedless
through the frigid parlour, chortling
at the very notion of clothes, to raise high her hands
to the dawn, a universal letter Y, insistent
as new grass clutching for the sun.

Get This by Jan Heller Levi

I did not get this from any book...

I got this on trust and betrayal, I got this on trust
I got this on trust funds
on loan
with interest
I got this from inhale inhale inhale
exhale exhale exhale

I did not get this from blood, blood
means nothing, I did not get this from nature
or nurture...

I got this from mind that muscles
outmuscles heart...

I did not get this from any book come into my library
said the spider to the fly
open any book
it will tell you that I did not get this from it
even if I burn it I will have this
even if I burn it
even if I burn.