Verseful

All day on all my days,

the lives I am not to process wash in;

anxieties lullaby on

and quite like to be gotten among;

but now-- and now-- one old,

abundant flower just screws up the room.

No idle gold-- since this fine sun, my friend,

Is no mean miser, but doth freely spend.

No precious stones-- since these green mornings show,

Without a charge, their pearls, wherever I go.

No lifeless books-- since birds with their sweet tongues

Will read aloud to me their happier songs.

No painted scenes-- since clouds can change their skies

A hundred times a day to please my eyes.

No headstrong wine-- since when I drink, the spring

Into my eager ears will softly sing.

No surplus clothes-- since every single beast

Can teach me to be happy with the least.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

No classes here! Why, that is idle talk.

The village beau sneers at the country boor;

The importuning mendicants who walk

Our cities’ streets despise the parish poor.

The daily toiler at some noisy loom

Holds back her garments from the kitchen aid.

Meanwhile the latter leans upon her broom,

Unconscious of the bow the laundress made.

The grocer’s daughter eyes the farmer’s lass

With haughty glances; and the lawyer’s wife

Would pay no visits to the trading class,

If policy were not her creed in life.

The merchant’s son nods coldly at the clerk;

The proud possessor of a pedigree

Ignores the youth whose father rose by work;

The title-seeking maiden scorns all three.

The aristocracy of blood looks down

Upon the “nouveau riche”; and in disdain,

The lovers of the intellectual frown

On both, and worship at the shrine of brain.

“No classes here,” the clergyman has said;

“We are one family.” Yet see his rage

And horror when his favorite son would wed

Some pure and pretty player on the stage.

It is the vain but natural way

Of vaunting our weak selves, our pride, our worth!

Not till the long delayed millennial day

Shall we behold “no classes” on God’s earth.

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich-- yes richer, than a king--

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

My Words to You

by Jean Valentine

My words to you are stitches in scarf

I don't want to finish

maybe it will come to be a blanket

to hold you here.

love not gone anywhere

Smelling the Wind

by Audre Lorde

Rushing headlong

into new silence

your face

dips on my horizon

the name

of a cherished dream

riding my anchor

one sweet season

to cast off

on another voyage

No reckoning allowed

save the marvelous arithmetics

of distance

I want to use this episode to set the tone for how discussions about poetry, about the verses of our lives, should ensue in this space. This introduction is merely an example of how I traced the contours of a poem's feelings.