POEMS
From the poem Luke
by Mary Oliver
Kane
I had a dog
who loved flowers.
Briskly he went
through the fields,
yet paused
for the honeysuckle
or the rose,
his dark head
and his wet nose
touching
the face
of every one
with its petals
of silk,
with its fragrance
rising
into the air
where the bees,
their bodies
heavy with pollen,
hovered—
and easily
he adored
every blossom,
not in the serious,
careful way
that we choose
this blossom or that blossom—
the way we praise or don’t praise—
the way we love
or don’t love—
but the way
we long to be—
that happy
in the heaven of earth—
that wild, that loving.
Ocean.
By James Murphy
I look inside to understand Me
hoping to find a crystal clear and happy bubbling brook
where you can see the bottom
and count the multicolored pebbles.
But, Alas!
I find instead an ocean
deep and churning and full of mystery.
Will I never fathom its depths?
And you, my timid sailor,
are so often unable to see below my surface.
And, Alas!
You’re too often pounded by my waves.
But, please, my sailor,
stay upon this sea.