Poetry Friday: "Revival" by Luci Shaw

"What makes a poet a poet? 

The slender antenna of awareness 

combing the air for messages." 

— Luci Shaw

In "Revival" Luci Shaw anticipates spring and, like Shaw, I'm here for it. 

Revival
by Luci Shaw

March. I am beginning
to anticipate a thaw. Early mornings
the earth, old unbeliever, is still crusted with frost
where the moles have nosed up their
cold castings, and the ground cover
in shadow under the cedars hasn't softened
for months, fogs layering their slow, complicated ice
around foliage and stem
night by night,

....

(Read the rest here.) 

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Rose Cappelli has the Poetry Friday round-up at Imagine the Possibilities. 

Photo courtesy of Don White at Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: "Emily Dickinson's To-Do List" by Andrea Carlisle

I've shared this one before but I have such affection for it that I felt compelled to share it again. Because who doesn't want to speculate about Emily's deliciously original brain? 

What will you wear, bake, or hide today? (Oooh, I sense a poetry prompt here.)

Emily Dickinson's To-Do List
by Andrea Carlisle

Monday
Figure out what to wear—white dress?
Put hair in bun
Bake gingerbread for Sue
Peer out window at passersby
Write poem
Hide poem


Tuesday
White dress? Off-white dress?
....

(Read the rest here, and find out more about Andrea Carlisle here.) 

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Be sure to visit Laura Purdie Salas for this week's Poetry Friday round-up. 

Poetry Friday: Jane Hirshfield's "Mathematics"

Jane Hirshfield asks intriguing questions: 

Does a poem enlarge the world, 

or only our idea of the world? 

Mathematics
by Jane Hirshfield

I have envied those
who make something
useful, sturdy—
a chair, a pair of boots.

Even a soup,
rich with potatoes and cream.

Or those who fix, perhaps,
a leaking window:
strip out the old cracked putty,
lay down cleanly the line of the new.

You could learn,

....

(Read the rest here, at the Poetry Foundation.) 

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Heidi Mordhorst is hosting the Poetry Friday roundup this week 

at My Juicy Little Universe. 

Poetry Friday: "Days" by Billy Collins

Just a bit of poignant beauty from Billy Collins today. 

Days

by Billy Collins 

Each one is a gift, no doubt, 

mysteriously placed in your waking hand 

or set upon your forehead 

moments before you open your eyes. 

Today begins cold and bright, 

the ground heavy with snow 

and the thick masonry of ice, 

the sun glinting off the turrets of clouds. 

Through the calm eye of the window 

everything is in its place 

but so precariously 

this day might be resting somehow 

on the one before it, 

....

(Read the rest here, at the Poetry Foundation.) 

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by the inimitable Tanita Davis. 

Photo courtesy of Nico Becker at Pexels.