Reading Archive (Poetry)
Keeping Quiet
Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still for once on the face of the earth, let’s not speak in any language;...
When Death Comes
When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps...
What to Remember When Waking
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake, coming back to this life from the other more secret, moveable and frighteningly...
To Have Without Holding
Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard...
Call Me by My True Names
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive. Look deeply: I arrive in every second to be a bud on a...
Before You Know What Kindness Really Is
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth....
My Work is Loving the World
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast;...
For the Traveler
Every time you leave home, Another road takes you Into a world you were never in. New strangers on other paths await. New...
Everything Is Waiting For You
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no...
Pablo Neruda's Greatest Lesson from Childhood
Playing in the lot behind the house one day when he was still a little boy, Neruda discovered a hole in a fence board. "I looked...
Small Kindnesses
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers...
Can You Love The One Who...
There’s one in you who’s sweet. There’s one in you who’s mean. Can you love them both? Can you let them...
The Root Of The Root Of Your Self
Don’t go away, come near. Don’t be faithless, be faithful. Find the antidote in the venom. Come to the root of the root of...
Remember
Remember the sky that you were born under,...
When Someone Deeply Listens To You
When someone deeply listens to you it is like holding out a dented cup you've had since childhood and watching it fill up with...
The Call
I have heard it all my life, A voice calling a name I recognized as my own. Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper....
The Tavern
All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is...
What You Missed That Day You Were Absent From Fourth Grade
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas, how peeling potatoes can be a...
Now I Become Myself
Now I become myself. It's taken Time, many years and places; I have been dissolved and shaken, Worn other people's faces, Run...
Beauty Harmonizes Law and Liberty
A great poem, when analyzed, is a set of detached sounds. The reader who finds out the meaning, which is the inner medium that connects...