"Gratitude"
Barbara Crooker

This week, the news of the world is bleak, another war
grinding on, and all these friends down with cancer,
or worse, a little something long term that they won’t die of
for twenty or thirty miserable years—
And here I live in a house of weathered brick, where a man
with silver hair still thinks I’m beautiful. How many times
have I forgotten to give thanks? The late day sun shines
through the pink wisteria with its green and white leaves
as if it were stained glass, there’s an old cherry tree
that one lucky Sunday bloomed with a rainbow:
cardinals, orioles, goldfinches, blue jays, indigo buntings,
and my garden has tiny lettuces just coming up,
so perfect they could make you cry: Green Towers,
Red Sails, Oak Leaf. For this is May, and the whole world
sings, gleams, as if it were basted in butter, and the air’s
sweet enough to send a diabetic into shock—
And at least today, all the parts of my body are working,
the sky’s clear as a china bowl, leaves murmur their leafy chatter,
finches percolate along. I’m doodling around this page,
know sorrow’s somewhere beyond the horizon, but still, I’m riffing
on the warm air, the wingbeats of my lungs that can take this all in,
flush the heart’s red peony, then send it back without effort or thought.
And the trees breathe in what we exhale, clap their green hands
in gratitude, bend to the sky.

---

On this day in...
2011: "It Is In the Leaving" by Nicole Blackman
2010: "I'm in Love" by Charles Bukowski
2009: "The Applicant" by Sylvia Plath
2008: Weekend, no poem

who told you that this or that would last forever?/did no one ever tell you that you will never/in the world/feel at home in the world?

"Credo"
Donna Hilbert

I believe in the Tuesdays
and Wednesdays of life,
the tuna sandwich lunches
and TV after dinner.
I believe in coffee with hot milk
and peanut butter toast,
Rose wine in summer
and Burgundy in winter.

I am not in love with holidays,
birthdays—nothing special—
and weekends are just days
numbered six and seven,
though my love
dozing over TV golf
while I work the Sunday puzzle
might be all I need of life
and all I ask of heaven.

---

On this day in...
2011: "Where I Wander" by Levi Yitzchak
2010: "Lovers Fall Like Stones Back Onto the Ground" by Cyril Wong
2009: Weekend, no poem
2008: Weekend, no poem

We will never be/remembered for the time we attempted/the waltz on the balcony, as the stars/blinked drowsily, the moon like a frozen yawn.

"I almost went to bed..."
Leonard Cohen

I almost went to bed
without remembering
the four white violets
I put in the button-hole
of your green sweater
and how i kissed you then
and you kissed me
shy as though I'd
never been your lover

---

On this day in...
2011: "To My Retired Friend Wei" by Du Fu
2010: Weekend, no poem
2009: "Slow Dancing on the Highway: the Trip North" by Elizabeth Hobbs
2008: "Millennium Map of the Universe by the National Geographic Society" by Pattiann Rogers

because I knew that after twenty years/you'd bring the plants inside for winter

"Tuesday"
Richard Allen Taylor

is grossly underrated, glad to be here, eager to get going.
Unlike Monday, it doesn’t care that the weekend is over

or that it was not designated a national holiday.
Tuesday is morning news and handy tool, the good dog

that comes when you call, the horse saddled
and ready to ride. It’s different from Wednesday,

which wants to be Friday, or Thursday, already dreaming
about the weekend. It’s the second pot of coffee,

fresher than the first, the ball already rolling. It’s not at all
like Friday, watching the clock, making dinner reservations.

You seldom find Tuesday hanging out in bars, unless it’s on a business trip
and has nothing better to do. If it stays out late, it knows

Wednesday will complain. Tuesday is a go-getter,
the kind of day everyone wants on their team. It almost never

gets invited to weddings or parties (except Mardi Gras) but more
than its share of funerals and insurance seminars. Tuesday works

more but has less time off than almost any other day. Even when
it goes on vacation, it has to tag along with Saturday

and Sunday and the rest of the family, who have already planned
the trip and scheduled the activities, usually without asking

Tuesday’s opinion. Tuesday is bells ringing, whistles blowing,
the fire engine leaving the station, not the most popular

day of the week, but the kind you might pick
as a business partner, the day most likely to succeed.

---

On this day in...
2011: Weekend, no poem
2010: "Marie Curie Gives Advice to her Daughter Irene Before her Wedding" by Julianna Baggott
2009: "Sympathy" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar
2008: "How Many, How Much" by Shel Silverstein

Outside in the graveyard we sit on a frozen branch.//That stick in your hand is tracing/Mansions in the snow in which we will always be together.

"Miriam"
Amy Gerstler

"And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him." - Exodus 2:4

She watches her brother float slowly downriver.
The water glows in spots like polished copper.
Moses sleeps in a reed basket, sealed with duck
grease and pitch. King of his own woven island,
he bobs gently away. She can't see his soft
mussed hair that never quite dries, his raw pink
upper lip. She absolutely refuses to bid him
goodbye. Sunrise makes her scalp prickle.
Dawn's her favorite time of day. The sky's
turning lavender five degrees at a time. This baby
loves daybreak, too. She reads him so easily.
His spirit, its weird infant flickerings, makes perfect
sense to her. She writes the baby's name on the river's
surface, breaking its skin with practiced finger flicks.
Should she whisk her brother off to a cave and raise
him there? How dangerous can a baby be?
Sickly at first, his raspy cough made it tricky
to keep him hidden. He, too, loves donkey
bells, the burbling of doves. His face
crumples with joy when he catches a glimpse
of her. No one else has ever seemed that happy
to see her. The riverbank's oozy. Muck fills
her sandals. Her shift's clingy and smudged.
Thick foam, like cream on beer, collects around
clumped cattails. When she left on her mission
this morning, in utter darkness, her father hid
his head and wouldn't speak. Adults are such idiots.
No sane person sets an infant adrift. She winds
her braids so tightly around one hand her fingers
buzz. Bugs skim the river. Frogs burp. She yanks
off her filthy dress and drapes it over a patch
of reeds. She'll wade in and save him. When
he's older, she'll teach him to repeat: I have
the prettiest sister in this village. Hip deep in cloudy
water she sees a small crowd approaching.
Dressed in white, they're bearing someone
on a curtained litter, waving green palm fans.
So this is the future. You relinquish what you love,
offer it up, an unwilling gift. Her thoughts sputter.
Separate. Unite. Separate. Unite. Death is an interim
state. A dead bough is a snake if that's what god
wants. She feels light-headed and queasy. Who is
that baby in the water I thought was my brother?
A voice in and outside her, like jackals laughing,
or the horrible sucking of famished water
answers. He is rash and tongueless. He is dust.
He is nothing. He is entry and exit, a radiant red
sky, a great vacancy, beloved and indestructible.

---

On this day in...
2011: Weekend, no poem
2010: "Spring and Fall, to a Young Child" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
2009: "Gestalt Prayer" by Fritz Perls
2008: "For Heidi With Blue Hair" by Fleur Adcock

and if by chance we find each other,/it's beautiful.

"The Good News"
Thich Nhat Hanh

They don’t publish
the good news.
The good news is published
by us.
We have a special edition every moment,
and we need you to read it.
The good news is that you are alive,
and the linden tree is still there,
standing firm in the harsh Winter.
The good news is that you have wonderful eyes
to touch the blue sky.
The good news is that your child is there before you,
and your arms are available:
hugging is possible.
They only print what is wrong.
Look at each of our special editions.
We always offer the things that are not wrong.
We want you to benefit from them
and help protect them.
The dandelion is there by the sidewalk,
smiling its wondrous smile,
singing the song of eternity.
Listen! You have ears that can hear it.
Bow your head.
Listen to it.
Leave behind the world of sorrow
and preoccupation
and get free.
The latest good news
is that you can do it.

---

On this day in...
2011: "Poem of Absence" by Frances Horovitz
2010: "First Recital" by Frances Driscoll
2009: "Abschieds Symphony" by Dorianne Laux
2008: Weekend, no poem

it was your voice woke me/and the absent touch of your hand

"Na wszystko za późno, na nic za wcześnie"
Tadeusz Dąbrowski

Znowu niespodziewanie spotkamy się po latach,
będziemy z premedytacją mieszać piwo i wino
z wódką, by w środku nocy jeździć rowerami
po osiedlu, niespodziewanie uderzając w wysokie

krawężniki, tratując klomby, tnąc policzki
o wyrosłe niespodziewanie gałęzie, by się nie-
spodziewanie potem wywrócić, i prowadząc
zwichrowane rowery, przyjść do mnie, by opatrzyć

rany, a potem położyć się spać, by rano
kopulować niespodziewanie jak zwierzęta, ze
strachu, że powróci niespodziewanie coś,

co czuliśmy przed laty, kopulując jak ludzie.

Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

"Too late for anything, too early for nothing"
Tadeusz Dąbrowski

Unexpectedly we’ll meet again years later,
quite on purpose we’ll mix beer and wine
with vodka, to ride bicycles in the middle of the night
around the estate, unexpectedly bumping into the high

kerbstones, trampling flowerbeds, cutting our cheeks
on branches that have sprung up unexpectedly, then un-
expectedly to fall over, and pushing our
warped bicycles, come to my place, to dress

our wounds, and then lie down to sleep, in the morning
to copulate unexpectedly like animals, out
of fear that something will unexpectedly return

that we felt years ago, copulating like people.

---

On this day in...
2011: "Goodbye, New York (song from the wrong side of the Hudson)" by Deborah Garrison
2010: ""when faces called flowers float out of the ground..." by e.e. cummings
2009: "Bird-Understander" by Craig Arnold
2008: Weekend, no poem

Of many reasons I love you here is one

"Lending Out Books"
Hal Sirowitz

You're always giving, my therapist said.
You have to learn how to take. Whenever
you meet a woman, the first thing you do
is lend her your books. You think she'll
have to see you again in order to return them.
But what happens is, she doesn't have the time
to read them, & she's afraid if she sees you again
you'll expect her to talk about them, & will
want to lend her even more. So she
cancels the date. You end up losing
a lot of books. You should borrow hers.

---

On this day in...
2011: "Happiness" by Gian Lao
2010: Weekend, no poem
2009: "Girls" by Nicole Blackman
2008: "Genius Child" by Langston Hughes

Why not just/settle for love? Why not just/settle for love instead?

"For the Life of Him and Her"
Reed Whittemore

For the life of her she couldn't decide what to wear to the
party.
All those clothes in the closet and not a thing to wear.
Nothing to wear, nothing wearable to a party,
Nothing at all in the closet for a girl to wear.

For the life of him he couldn't imagine what she was doing
up there.
She had been messing around in that closet for at least an
hour,
Trying on this, trying on that, trying on all those clothes
up there,
So that they were already late for the party by at least an
hour.

If only he wouldn't stand around down in the hall,
She could get herself dressed for the party, she knew she
could somehow,
But he made her so nervous, he was so nervous there in the
hall
That she didn't think they would get to the party anyhow.

He didn't want to go to the party anyhow,
And he didn't want to stand and stand in the hall,
But he didn't want to tell her he didn't want to go anyhow.
He just didn't want to, that's all.

---

On this day in...
2011: Weekend, no poem
2010: Weekend, no poem
2009: "in the middle of a room" by e.e. cummings
2008: "One Star Fell and Another" by Conrad Aiken

These are the days when Birds come back

"Thirst"
Mary Oliver

Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.

---

On this day in...
2011: "La Migra" by Pat Mora
2010: "Spin" by Alison Townsend
2009: "Patty's Charcoal Drive-In" by Barbara Crooker and ""You Asked How (formerly Even Now She Is Turning, Saying Everything I Always Wanted Her to Say)" by Nick Flynn
2008: "The Discovery of Sex" by Debra Spencer

and forever wasn't forever but a long time/which is different from forever although/even a long time today would be/good