Poems for August
I know August will end in a few hours, but there's still time!
These poems reflect August for me in that they are much less structured and categorized than July's collection. There is no theme for this group, they're just a group of beautiful pieces I'm excited to share!
The first poem is one that most people have heard before but is always worth a re-reading, especially in August. William Carlos Williams, I am forever in your debt for this one.
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
The next poem is one of many beautiful poems by Mary Oliver. Her ability to notice and direct her attention to the minutiae of everyday life in nature made her a prolific writer.
Mary Oliver
The Pond
August of another summer, and once again
I am drinking the sun
and the lilies again are spread across the water.
I know now what they want is to touch each other.
I have not been here for many years
during which time I kept living my life.
Like the heron, who can only croak, who wishes he
could sing,
I wish I could sing.
A little thanks from every throat would be appropriate.
This is how it has been, and this is how it is:
All my life I have been able to feel happiness,
except whatever was not happiness,
which I also remember.
Each of us wears a shadow.
But just now it is summer again
and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,
then slide on the wind and the tug of desire,
close, close to one another,
Soon now, I’ll turn and start for home.
And who knows, maybe I’ll be singing.
This poem is by Derek Walcott, and really shines in its use of color and vivid, precise imagery.
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
Dark August
So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky
of this black August. My sister, the sun,
broods in her yellow room and won't come out.
Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume
like a kettle, rivers overrun; still,
she will not rise and turn off the rain.
She is in her room, fondling old things,
my poems, turning her album. Even if thunder falls
like a crash of plates from the sky,
she does not come out.
Don't you know I love you but am hopeless
at fixing the rain ? But I am learning slowly
to love the dark days, the steaming hills,
the air with gossiping mosquitoes,
and to sip the medicine of bitterness,
so that when you emerge, my sister,
parting the beads of the rain,
with your forehead of flowers and eyes of forgiveness,
all with not be as it was, but it will be true
(you see they will not let me love
as I want), because, my sister, then
I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones,
The black rain, the white hills, when once
I loved only my happiness and you.
While this next poem by Alberto Ríos would be better suited for the December email, I love it too much to wait that long.
The morning is clouded and the birds are hunched,
More cold than hungry, more numb than loud,
This crisp, Arizona shore, where desert meets
The coming edge of the winter world.
It is a cold news in stark announcement,
The myriad stars making bright the black,
As if the sky itself had been snowed upon.
But the stars—all those stars,
Where does the sure noise of their hard work go?
These plugs sparking the motor of an otherwise quiet sky,
Their flickering work everywhere in a white vastness:
We should hear the stars as a great roar
Gathered from the moving of their billion parts, this great
Hot rod skid of the Milky Way across the asphalt night,
The assembled, moving glints and far-floating embers
Risen from the hearth-fires of so many other worlds.
Where does the noise of it all go
If not into the ears, then hearts of the birds all around us,
Their hearts beating so fast and their equally fast
Wings and high songs,
And the bees, too, with their lumbering hum,
And the wasps and moths, the bats, and the dragonflies—
None of them sure if any of this is going to work,
This universe—we humans oblivious,
Drinking coffee, not quite awake, calm and moving
Into the slippers of our Monday mornings,
Shivering because, we think,
It’s a little cold out there.
This next poem by Federico García Lorca was originally written in Spanish, so I will provide both the original Spanish and my favorite English translation by William B. Logan below. Both are beautiful.
La Luna Asoma
Cuando sale la luna
se pierden las campanas
y aparecen las sendas
impenetrables.
Cuando sale la luna,
el mar cubre la tierra
y el corazón se siente
isla en el infinito.
Nadie come naranjas
bajo la luna llena.
Es preciso comer
fruta verde y helada.
Cuando sale la luna
de cién rostros iguales,
la moneda de plata
solloza en el bolsillo.
The Moon Rises
When the moon comes up
the bells are lost
and there appear
impenetrable paths.
When the moon comes up
the sea blankets the earth
and the heart feels
like an island in infinity.
No one eats oranges
under the full moon.
One must eat
cold green fruit.
When the moon comes up
with a hundred equal faces
silver money
sobs in the pocket.
Thank you for reading! If you have thoughts on any of these poems or a poem you'd like to see in one of these emails, please reach out to me! I'd love to know what you think. I hope you had a wonderful August, and I'm wishing you an even better September.
Best,
Ari