"...a heron still as a hieroglyph..."

Out on the Flats

by Leonard Nathan

Out on the flats, a heron still
as a hieroglyph carved
on the soft gray face of morning.

You asked, when I seemed far away,
what it meant but were gone
when I turned to you with an answer.

Nothing mysterious—hunger,
a taste for salt tides,
distance, and a gift of flight.

"Out on the Flats" by Leonard Nathan, from The Potato Eaters. © Orchises Press, 1998.  (buy now)

From "The Writer's Almanac"

"I know I must be old (how age deceives!) ..."

Photo by Brent Winter Sleep by Edith Matilda Thomas   I know it must be winter (though I sleep)-- I know it must be winter, for I dream  I dip my bare feet in the running stream,  And flowers are many, and the grass grows deep.    I know I must be old (how age deceives!)  I know I must be old, for, all unseen,  My heart grows young, as autumn fields grow green  When late rains patter on the falling sheaves.    I know I must be tired (and tired souls err)--  I know I must be tired, for all my soul  To deeds of daring beats a glad, faint roll,  As storms the riven pine to music stir.    I know I must be dying (Death draws near)--  I know I must be dying, for I crave  Life--life, strong life, and think not of the grave,  And turf-bound silence, in the frosty year.      Today's poem is in the public domain.

"Winter Sleep" by Edith Matilda Thomas was published in A Winter Swallow, With Other Verse (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896). Thomas acknowledged that her work was greatly influenced by the American poet Helen Hunt Jackson.

There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free."... A Poem For MLK Day

Lynching in Marion, Indiana
August 1930

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

 

Let America be America again. 

Let it be the dream it used to be. 

Let it be the pioneer on the plain 

Seeking a home where he himself is free. 

 

(America never was America to me.) 

 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- 

Let it be that great strong land of love 

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme 

That any man be crushed by one above. 

 

(It never was America to me.) 

 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty 

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, 

But opportunity is real, and life is free, 

Equality is in the air we breathe. 

 

(There's never been equality for me, 

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") 

 

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? 

 

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, 

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. 

I am the red man driven from the land, 

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- 

And finding only the same old stupid plan 

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. 

 

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, 

Tangled in that ancient endless chain 

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! 

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! 

Of work the men! Of take the pay! 

Of owning everything for one's own greed! 

 

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. 

I am the worker sold to the machine. 

I am the Negro, servant to you all. 

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- 

Hungry yet today despite the dream. 

Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! 

I am the man who never got ahead, 

The poorest worker bartered through the years. 

 

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream 

In the Old World while still a serf of kings, 

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, 

That even yet its mighty daring sings 

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned 

That's made America the land it has become. 

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas 

In search of what I meant to be my home-- 

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, 

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, 

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came 

To build a "homeland of the free." 

 

The free? 

 

Who said the free? Not me? 

Surely not me? The millions on relief today? 

The millions shot down when we strike? 

The millions who have nothing for our pay? 

For all the dreams we've dreamed 

And all the songs we've sung 

And all the hopes we've held 

And all the flags we've hung, 

The millions who have nothing for our pay-- 

Except the dream that's almost dead today. 

 

O, let America be America again-- 

The land that never has been yet--

And yet must be--the land where every man is free. 

The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--

Who made America, 

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, 

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, 

Must bring back our mighty dream again. 

 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- 

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, 

We must take back our land again, 

America! 

 

O, yes, 

I say it plain, 

America never was America to me, 

And yet I swear this oath-- 

America will be! 

 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, 

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, 

We, the people, must redeem 

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. 

The mountains and the endless plain-- 

All, all the stretch of these great green states-- 

And make America again!

 

 

 

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. 

Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He wrote numerous books of poetry and prose, as well as eleven plays before his death in 1967. Hughes is known for his portrayals of black life from the twenties through the sixties. 

Love -- The Irresistible Idea

"Jesus's idea is irresistible and irreversible.  Even unbelievers must live within it.  For love does't stand alone, nor can it, but trails like a blazing comet, bringing with it other shining goods -- forgiveness, kindness, tolerance, fairness, companionability and friendship, all bound to the love which is at the heart of Jesus's message.

-- from Ian McEwan's novel "Sweet Tooth"

"Everyday I see or hear something that ... kills me with delight"

Today's Out the Window Delight
(by Brent)

Mindful

by Mary Oliver

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

"Mindful" by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early. © Beacon Press, 2005.  (buy now)

From "The Writer's Almanac"