Learning to Go Alone

Related poetry:

1. Learning by Doing They’re taking down a tree at the front door, The power saw is snarling at some nerves, Whining at others. Now and then it grunts, And sawdust falls like snow or a drift of seeds. Rotten, they tell us, at the fork, and one Big wind would bring it down. So what they do They […]...
2. Sympathy If I were only a little puppy, not your baby, mother dear, would You say “No” to me if I tried to eat from your dish? Would you drive me off, saying to me, “Get away, you naughty Little puppy?” Then go, mother, go! I will never come to you when you call Me, and […]...
3. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
4. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
5. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
6. Learning the Trees Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn The language of the trees. That’s done indoors, Out of a book, which now you think of it Is one of the transformations of a tree. The words themselves are a delight to learn, You might be in a foreign land of terms Like samara, […]...
7. Epitaph for Maria Wentworth And here the precious dust is laid; Whose purely-temper’d clay was made So fine that it the guest betray’d. Else the soul grew so fast within, It broke the outward shell of sin, And so was hatch’d a cherubin. In height, it soar’d to God above; In depth, it did to knowledge move, And spread […]...
8. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
9. Sea horn within the shell swim all the sea’s fish Our ears too are compendiums of sound The big bang exploded – such a long wish Waves and warps towards the present ground Shell to ear – each breeds the other’s cry Infinity in slices sluiced in words Haunting the future in us till we die And […]...
10. Anchor Song Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again! Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on the pawl. Loose all sail, and brace your yards back and full Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all! Well, ah fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my love […]...
11. Sea Shell Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing me a song, O Please! A song of ships, and sailor men, And parrots, and tropical trees, Of islands lost in the Spanish Main Which no man ever may find again, Of fishes and corals under the waves, And seahorses stabled in great green caves. Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing […]...
12. Flight Of Stairs Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers Before they close them. They curiously investigate […]...
13. Jack – beyond the digits so here we are at last at the ten-boy Never to be the single-figure-aged-again boy And all the trailing clouds that cling to the not-big child Can be blown away – you’re up in your own sky now Clear-blue on some days (if on others windy and wild) Now you’ll have to see yourself as […]...
14. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
15. Paul McNeely Dear Jane! dear winsome Jane! How you stole in the room (where I lay so ill) In your nurse’s cap and linen cuffs, And took my hand and said with a smile: “You are not so ill you’ll soon be well.” And how the liquid thought of your eyes Sank in my eyes like dew […]...
16. The Things that never can come back, are several The Things that never can come back, are several Childhood some forms of Hope the Dead Though Joys like Men may sometimes make a Journey And still abide We do not mourn for Traveler, or Sailor, Their Routes are fair But think enlarged of all that they will tell us Returning here “Here!” There are […]...
17. To My Mother Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of “Mother,” Therefore by that dear name I long have called you- You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death […]...
18. The Forsaken Holy Mother of God, Merciful Mary. Hear Me! I am very weary. I have come From a village miles away, all day I have been coming, and I ache For such Far roaming. I cannot walk as light as I used, and my Thoughts grow confused. I am heavier than I was. Mary Mother, you […]...
19. Corona Autunm eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends. From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk: Then time returns to the shell. In the mirror it’s Sunday, In dream there is room for sleeping, Our mouths speak the truth. My eye moves down to the sex of my […]...
20. The humming top The top it hummeth a sweet, sweet song To my dear little boy at play – Merrily singeth all day long, As it spinneth and spinneth away. And my dear little boy He laugheth with joy When he heareth the monotone Of that busy thing That loveth to sing The song that is all its […]...
21. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
22. At play Play that you are mother dear, And play that papa is your beau; Play that we sit in the corner here, Just as we used to, long ago. Playing so, we lovers two Are just as happy as we can be, And I’ll say “I love you” to you, And you say “I love you” […]...
23. Stand Fast! Stand fast, Great Britain! Together England, Scotland, Ireland stand One in the faith that makes a mighty land, True to the bond you gave and will not break And fearless in the fight for conscience’ sake! Against the Giant Robber clad in steel, With blood of trampled Belgium on his heel, Striding through France to […]...
24. A True Story Little Ann and her mother were walking one day Through London’s wide city so fair, And business obliged them to go by the way That led them through Cavendish Square. And as they pass’d by the great house of a Lord, A beautiful chariot there came, To take some most elegant ladies abroad, Who straightway […]...
25. A Minor Poet I am a shell. From me you shall not hear The splendid tramplings of insistent drums, The orbed gold of the viol’s voice that comes, Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear. Yet, if you hold me close against the ear, A dim, far whisper rises clamorously, The thunderous beat and passion of the sea, The […]...
26. At Bay Wife Reach out your arms, and hold me close and fast. Tell me there are no memories of your past That mar this love of ours, so great, so vast. Husband Some truths are cheapened when too oft averred. Does not the deed speak louder than the word? (dear God, that old dream woke again […]...
27. Man Child All day he lay upon the sand When summer sun was bright, And let the grains sift through his hand With infantile delight; Just like a child, so soft and fair, Though he was twenty-five – An innocent, my mother – care Had kept so long alive. Oh it is hard to bear a cross […]...
28. Cripples And Other Stories My doctor, the comedian I called you every time And made you laugh yourself When I wrote this silly rhyme… Each time I give lectures or gather in the grants you send me off to boarding school in training pants. God damn it, father-doctor, I’m really thirty-six. I see dead rats in the toilet. I’m […]...
29. A Young Child And His Pregnant Mother At four years Nature is mountainous, Mysterious, and submarine. Even A city child knows this, hearing the subway’s Rumor underground. Between the grate, Dropping his penny, he learned out all loss, The irretrievable cent of fate, And now this newest of the mysteries, Confronts his honest and his studious eyes His mother much too fat […]...
30. Baby's Way If baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment. It is not for nothing that he does not leave us. He loves to rest his head on mother’s bosom, and cannot ever Bear to lose sight of her. Baby know all manner of wise words, though few on earth can Understand […]...
31. The Egg-Shell The wind took off with the sunset The fog came up with the tide, When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell With a little Blue Devil inside. “Sink,” she said, “or swim,” she said, “It’s all you will bet from me. And that is the finish of him!” she said And the Egg-shell […]...
32. Minnie and Winnie Minnie and Winnie Slept in a shell. Sleep, little ladies! And they slept well. Pink was the shell within, Silver without; Sounds of the great sea Wander’d about. Sleep, little ladies! Wake not soon! Echo on echo Dies to the moon. Two bright stars Peep’d into the shell. “What are you dreaming of? Who can […]...
33. The Bridge In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones. Before crossing he writes a letter to his mother: Dear mother, Guess what? the ape accidentally bit off one of his hands while Eating a banana. Just now I am at the foot of a bone bridge. I Shall be crossing it shortly. […]...
34. My Vision Wherever my feet may wander Wherever I chance to be, There comes, with the coming of even’ time A vision sweet to me. I see my mother sitting In the old familiar place, And she rocks to the tune her needles sing, And thinks of an absent face. I can hear the roar of the […]...
35. The British Church I joy, dear mother, when I view Thy perfect lineaments, and hue Both sweet and bright. Beauty in thee takes up her place, And dates her letters from thy face, When she doth write. A fine aspect in fit array, Neither too mean nor yet too gay, Shows who is best. Outlandish looks may not […]...
36. Departure It’s little I care what path I take, And where it leads it’s little I care; But out of this house, lest my heart break, I must go, and off somewhere. It’s little I know what’s in my heart, What’s in my mind it’s little I know, But there’s that in me must up and […]...
37. Dreaming The Breasts Mother, Strange goddess face Above my milk home, That delicate asylum, I ate you up. All my need took You down like a meal. What you gave I remember in a dream: The freckled arms binding me, The laugh somewhere over my woolly hat, The blood fingers tying my shoe, The breasts hanging like two […]...
38. Our Hills Dear Mother-Earth Of Titan birth, Yon hills are your large breasts, and often I Have climbed to their top-nipples, fain and dry To drink my mother’s-milk so near the sky. O ye hill-stains, Red, for all rains! The blood that made you has all bled for us, The hearts that paid you are all dead […]...
39. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
40. Independence I never did, I never did, I never did like “Now take care, dear!” I never did, I never did, I never did want “Hold-my-hand”; I never did, I never did, I never did think much of “Not up there, dear!” It’s no good saying it. They don’t understand....