A Wolf...

A wolf 
I considered myself
but
the owls are hooting
and
the night I fear.

                  ​—From the Osage tribes, North America



accidentally
broke a tea cup — 
reminds me
how good it feels
to break things

                  —Ishikawa Takuboku




Which

Which of the horses
we passed yesterday whinned
all night in my dreams?  
            I want that one.
​
                 —William Stafford



My Father's Eyes

I have looked into
my father's eyes and seen
an African sunset.

                 —Sonia Sanchez



My Horse, Fly Like a Bird

My horse, fly like a bird
To carry me far
From the arrows of my enemies,
And I will tie red ribbons
To your streaming hair.

                 —Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve
                      (based on a Lakota song)



I Have Ten Legs

When I run
I laugh with my legs.
When I run
I swallow the world with my legs.
When I run
I have ten legs.
All my legs
Shout.
I exist 
only when running.

                —Anna Swir, Poland
            translated by Czeslaw Milosz & Leonard Nathan



High Stick

Bobby Orr’s
head, hard and blue
as the ice he skates
his face,
the penalty of stitches.

                —Billy Collins
     
  

Despertar

Con voz arpónica me despierta mamá;
brillante y coleando me descama,
me cocina, me alhaja de cuadernos
y me avienta a los dientes numerados
de las Matemáticas.

                   —Alberto Forcada

       Waking

       With a harpoon voice my mother wakes me:
       she scales me, shimmering and twitching my tail,
       she cooks me and garnishes me with notebooks,
       then casts me out to the numbered teeth
       of mathematics.

                (translated by Judith Infante)



First Came L.E. Phant’s Letter

Dear Noah: Please save me a spot
Exposed to the sun, where the Mice are not;
But if I must share my chamber, the Ant
is the one I should welcome.  Yours,  
                                                                 L. E. Phant.

                —Countee Cullen


Sparrow

Year we worked
My mother got sick
Year we ate
My mother, cured!
This year, mother is sick
That year, mother is cured
Shall we eat, or shall we save the seeds?
Shall we eat, or shall we save the seeds?

                —Ewondo-Beti, Cameroon (traditional folk poem)
          English version by Judith Gleason



To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee — 
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

                ​—Emily Dickinson



My Natural Mama

my natural mama
is gingerbread
all brown and
spicy sweet.
Some mamas are rye
or white or
golden wheat
but my natural mama
is gingerbread,
brown and spicy sweet.

                —Lucille Clifton

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the heart of peace to you.

                  —Celtic blessing



In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.

                  —Ezra Pound



The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thy eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
            .           .           .

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

                  —William Blake



Neighbors

Pigeon and sparrow,
Perched together
On that
Telephone line,
Do you ever
Talk to
Each other,
I wonder?
Or are you
Just strangers,
Like two people
Sitting
On a bus?

                  —Yoshiko Uchida



Counting-Out Rhyme

Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
            Twig of willow.

Stripe of green in moosewood maple,
Color seen in leaf of apple,
            Bark of popple.

Wood of popple pale as moonbeam,
Wood of oak for yoke and barn-beam,
            Wood of hornbeam.

Silver bark of beech and hollow
Stem of elder, tall and yellow
            Twig of willow.

                  —Edna St. Vincent Millay



Buffalo Dusk

The buffaloes are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and
      how they pawed the prairie sod into dust
      with their hoofs, their great heads down
      pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.

                  —Carl Sandburg



Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

                  —Robert Frost



Salamander

A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily
moves his delicate feet
and long tail.  I hold
my hand open for him to go.

                  —Denise Levertov


Mosquitoes

They are born in the swamps of sleeplessness.
They are a viscous blackness which sings about.
Little frail vampires,
miniature dragonflies,
small picadors
with the devil’s own sting.

                  —José Emilio Pacheco
                translated by Alastair Reed



Cold

Cold, a character I used to know
in Wyoming, raps every night
at doors of lonely farms. moans
all night around the barn, and cracks
his knuckles, late, late
at the bedroom window.

                  —William Stafford



Voice and Wings

Water said to Clouds: I once was clouds myself,
with huge wings like yours.
Clouds said to Water: I once was water myself,
with a clear singing voice like yours.

                  —Kinoshita Yuji, Japan
                      translated by James Kirkup



A Word

A word is dead
When it is said
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

                  ​—Emily Dickinson