One of These Is Not a Poem (#763 in a series)

A Quoi Bon Dire
by Charlotte Mew

Seventeen years ago you said
Something that sounded like Good-bye;
And everybody thinks that you are dead,
But I.

So I, as I grow stiff and cold
To this and that say Good-bye too;
And everybody sees that I am old
But you.

And one fine morning in a sunny lane
Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear
That nobody can love their way again
While over there
You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair.

 

Janet Waking
by John Crowe Ransom

Beautifully Janet slept
Till it was deeply morning. She woke then
And thought about her dainty-feathered hen,
To see how it had kept.

One kiss she gave her mother,
Only a small one gave she to her daddy
Who would have kissed each curl of his shining baby;
No kiss at all for her brother.

“Old Chucky, Old Chucky!” she cried,
Running across the world upon the grass
To Chucky’s house, and listening. But alas,
Her Chucky had died.

It was a transmogrifying bee
Came droning down on Chucky’s old bald head
And sat and put the poison. It scarcely bled,
But how exceedingly

And purply did the knot
Swell with the venom and communicate
Its rigour! Now the poor comb stood up straight
But Chucky did not.

So there was Janet
Kneeling on the wet grass, crying her brown hen
(Translated far beyond the daughters of men)
To rise and walk upon it.

And weeping fast as she had breath
Janet implored us, “Wake her from her sleep!”
And would not be instructed in how deep
Was the forgetful kingdom of death.

The Room
by Vladimir Nabokov

The room a dying poet took
At nightfall in a dead hotel
Had both directories – the Book
Of Heaven and the book of Bell.

It had a mirror and a chair,
It had a window and a bed,
Its ribs let in the darkness where
Rain glistened and a shop sign bled.

Nor tears, nor terror, but a blend
Of anonymity and doom.
It seemed, that room, to condescend
To imitate a normal room.

Whenever some automobile
Subliminally slit the night,
The walls and ceiling would reveal
A wheeling skeleton of light.

Soon afterwards the room was mine.
The similar striped cageling, I
Groped for the lamp and found the line
“Alone, unknown, unloved, I die” –

in pencil, just above the bed.
It had a false quotation air.
Was it a she – wild-eyed, well-read,
Or a fat man with thinning hair?

I asked a gentle Negro maid,
I asked a captain and his crew.
I asked a night clerk. Undismayed,
I asked a drunk. Nobody knew.

Perhaps when he had found the switch,
He saw the picture on the wall
And cursed the red eruption which
Tried to be maples in the fall?

Artistically in the style
Of Mr. Churchill at his best,
Those maples marched in double file
From Glen Lake to Restricted Rest.

Perhaps my text is incomplete.
A poet’s death is after all
A question of technique, a neat
Enjambment, a melodic fall.

And here a life had come apart
In darkness, and the room had grown
A ghostly thorax, with a heart
Unknown, unloved – but not alone.

Adlestrop
by Edward Thomas

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

The Hill We Climb
by Amanda Gorman

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace.
In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice.
And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow, we do it.
Somehow, we’ve weathered
and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time
where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president,
only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished.
Far from pristine.
But that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose,
to compose a country committed to all cultures,
colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so, we lift our gazes not to what stands between us,
but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know,
to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped;
that even as we tired, we tried;
that we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat,
but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree,
and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time,
then victory won’t lie in the blade,
but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade,
the hill we climb if only we dare it.
Because being American is more than a pride we inherit;
it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a forest that would shatter our nation
rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth,
in this faith we trust.
For while we have our eyes on the future,
history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour,
but within it, we found the power
to author a new chapter.
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
Wo, while once we asked,
“How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?”
Now we assert, “
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?”
We will not march back to what was,
but move to what shall be:
a country that is bruised, but whole;
benevolent, but bold; fierce and free.
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation,
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain,
if we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy,
and change our children’s birthright.
So, let us leave behind a country
better than one we were left.
With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold-limned hills of the West.
We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
in every known nook of our nation,
in every corner called our country
our people diverse and beautiful
will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade
aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.