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Song Against Natural Selection -- Edward Hirsch

(Poem #27)Song Against Natural Selection
 The weak survive!
 A man with a damaged arm,
 a house missing a single brick, one step
 torn away from the other steps
 the way I was once torn away
 from you; this hurts us, it

 isn't what we'd imagined, what
 we'd hoped for when we were young
 and still hoping for, still imagining things,
 but we manage, we survive.  Sure,
 losing is hard work, one limb severed
 at a time makes it that much harder

 to get around the city, another word
 dropped from our vocabularies
 and the remaining words are that much heavier
 on our tongues, that much further
 from ourselves, and yet people
 go on talking, speech survives.

 It isn't easy giving up limbs,
 trying to manage with that much
 less to eat each week, that much more
 money we know we'll never make,
 things we not only can't buy, but
 can't afford to look at in the stores;

 this hurts us, and yet we manage, we survive
 so that losing itself becomes a kind
 of song, our song, our only witness
 to the way we die, one day at a time;
 a leg severed, a word buried: this
 is how we recognize ourselves, and why.
-- Edward Hirsch

Against Entropy -- John M Ford

(Poem #26)Against Entropy
 The worm drives helically through the wood
 And does not know the dust left in the bore
 Once made the table integral and good;
 And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
 Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
 A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
 The names of lovers, light of other days
 Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
 The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
 But memory is everything to lose;
 Although some of the colors have to fade,
 Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.
 Regret, by definition, comes too late;
 Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.
-- John M Ford

The Wild Geese -- Wendell Berry

(Poem #25)The Wild Geese
 Horseback on Sunday morning,
 harvest over, we taste persimmon
 and wild grape, sharp sweet
 of summer's end. In time's maze 
 over fall fields, we name names
 that went west from here, names
 that rest on graves. We open
 a persimmon seed to find the tree
 that stands in promise,
 pale, in the seed's marrow.
 Geese appear high over us,
 pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
 as in love or sleep, holds
 them to their way, clear,
 in the ancient faith: what we need
 is here. And we pray, not
 for new earth or heaven, but to be
 quiet in heart, and in eye
 clear. What we need is here.
-- Wendell Berry

I Love You Sweatheart -- Thomas Lux

(Poem #24)I Love You Sweatheart
 A man risked his life to write the words.
 A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
 holding his legs?) with spray paint
 to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
 a highway. And his beloved,
 the next morning driving to work...?
 His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
 Does she recognize his handwriting?
 Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before
 of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?
 And did he call her at work
 expecting her to faint with delight
 at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?
 She will know I love her now,
 the world will know my love for her!
 A man risked his life to write the words.
 Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love
 is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb
 and dangerous, ignited, blessed -- always,
 regardless, no exceptions,
 always in blazing matters like these: blessed.
-- Thomas Lux

Casabianca -- Elizabeth Bishop

(Poem #23)Casabianca
 Love's the boy stood on the burning deck
 trying to recite "The boy stood on
 the burning deck". Love's the son
   stood stammering elocution
   while the poor ship in flames went down.

 Love's the obstinate boy, the ship,
 even the swimming sailors, who
 would like a schoolroom platform, too
   or an excuse to stay
   on deck. And love's the burning boy.
-- Elizabeth Bishop

Acquainted with the Night -- Robert Frost

(Poem #22)Acquainted with the Night
 I have been one acquainted with the night.
 I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
 I have outwalked the furthest city light.

 I have looked down the saddest city lane.
 I have passed by the watchman on his beat
 And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

 I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
 When far away an interrupted cry
 Came over houses from another street,

 But not to call me back or say good-bye;
 And further still at an unearthly height,
 O luminary clock against the sky

 Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
 I have been one acquainted with the night.
-- Robert Frost

It Isn't Time That's Passing -- Ruskin Bond

(Poem #21)It Isn't Time That's Passing
 Remember the long ago when we lay together
 In a pain of tenderness and counted
 Our dreams: long summer afternoons
 When the whistling-thrush released
 A deep sweet secret on the trembling air;
 Blackbird on the wing, bird of the forest shadows,
 Black rose in the long ago summer,
 This was your song:
 It isn't time that's passing by,
 It is you and I.
-- Ruskin Bond

Where We Are -- Stephen Dobyns

(Poem #20)Where We Are
 A man tears a chunk of bread off the brown loaf, 
 then wipes the gravy from his plate. Around him
 at the long table, friends fill their mouths
 with duck and roast pork, fill their cups from 
 pitchers of wine. Hearing a high twittering, the man
 
 looks to see a bird— black with a white patch
 beneath its beak— flying the length of the hall, 
 having flown in by a window over the door. As straight
 as a taut string, the bird flies beneath the roofbeams,
 as firelight flings its shadow against the ceiling. 
 
 The man pauses— one hand holds the bread, the other
 rests upon the table— and watches the bird, perhaps
 a swift, fly toward the window at the far end of the room. 
 He begins to point it out to his friends, but one is
 telling hunting stories, as another describes the best way
 
 to butcher a pig. The man shoves the bread in his mouth, 
 then slaps his hand down hard on the thigh of the woman
 seated beside him, squeezes his fingers to feel the firm
 muscles and tendons beneath the fabric of her dress. 
 A huge dog snores on the stone hearth by the fire. 
 
 From the window comes the clicking of pine needles
 blown against it by an October wind. A half moon
 hurries along behind scattered clouds, while the forest
 of black spruce and bare maple and birch surrounds
 the long hall the way a single rock can be surrounded
 
 by a river. This is where we are in history— to think
 the table will remain full; to think the forest will
 remain where we have pushed it; to think our bubble of 
 good fortune will save us from the night— a bird flies in
 from the dark, flits across a lighted hall and disappears.
-- Stephen Dobyns