A poem by Bill Coyle, called “Hindsight.”

I like this kind of thing, though I wish I had a better grasp of it.

SLEEP sleep old Sun, thou canst not have repast

As yet, the wound thou took’st on friday last;

Sleepe then, and rest; The world may beare thy stay,

A better Sun rose before thee to day

from “Resurrection, imperfect” by John Donne

from James H. Cousins’ poem, “A Curse on a Closed Gate”

“BE THIS the fate

Of the man who would shut his gate

On the stranger, gentle or simple, early or late.

When his mouth with a day’s long hunger and thirst would wish

For the savour of salted fish,

Let him sit and eat his fill of an empty dish.”

There’s a project on Americans reading their favorite poems. I found the one with Rev. Michael Haynes reading Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” edifying.

I’m not very good at picking favorites, but apart from Psalms 23 and 139, one of my favorites is Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and gazed down one as far as I could to where it turned in the undergrowth.”

What’s your favorite poem?

Tags: favorite poem, poems, Longfellow, Frost

Sherry is celebrating poetry month, beginning with compressed poetry. Here’s a portion of one for today, from “Winter Is Coming” by Waverley Turner Carmichael.

De frost is fallin’ on de gras’

An’ seem to say “Dis is yo’ las’”—

De air is blowin’ mighty cold

Like it done in days of old.

Or like it done in Minnesota

and then again in Chattanooga.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,

As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,

And then again I dissolve it in rain,

And laugh as I pass in thunder.

From “The Cloud” by Percy Bysshe Shelley