The Poetry Playground

Shadow-Bride

There was a man who dwelt alone,
as day and night went past
he sat as still as carven stone,
and yet no shadow cast.
The white owls perched upon his head
beneath the winter moon;
they wiped their beaks and thought him dead
under the stars of June.

There came a lady clad in grey
in the twilight shining:
one moment she would stand and stay,
her hair with flowers entwining.
He woke, as had he sprung of stone,
and broke the spell that bound him;
he clasped her fast, both flesh and bone,
and wrapped her shadow round him.

There never more she walks her ways
by sun or moon or star;
she dwells belowwhere neither days
nor any nights there are.
But once a year when caverns yawn
and hidden things awake,
they dance together then till dawn
and a single shadow make.

~ J.R.R. Tolkien

The Chameleon

I caught a chameleon lizard
in my backyard,
and to please myself
I moved him from a green leaf
to a tree’s brown bark,
then to my yellow porch
where he froze in my hand,
his eyes fixed on me
as if waiting for me to change.

But I stayed the same.

I stayed the same,
and kept him behind a screen
until he had given me
all his colors.

Then I opened the door,
but he wouldn’t move.
He just kept his eyes on me –
as if waiting for me to change.

~ Judith Ortiz Cofer

The Wisdom of the Geese

The geese are displeased.
They want to invent the snow.

Each has swallowed
a whole pitcher of light.

Stuffed with brightness,
they can hardly move.

As they waddle through tall grass
they drop feathers, quaint clues,

like the arch humor of ferns.
Something wakes the pond, wrinkling it.

It’s bad luck to look back.
They step off into dark water.

~ Nancy Willard

Too Young to Know

One day, my father chopped down
The old apricot tree
Which used to live in my parents backyard.
My father deflected my anger at him
With a look I heard Muddy Waters sing:
Y’all too young to know.

When I went to my mother
For the truth,
I only heard
What he must have told her:
A vague story about roots
and basement pipes,
A vague story about branches
and kitchen windows,
Punctuated by a shrug which meant:
He just does what he does.

The blues don’t know nothing about trees
Unless, of course,
It’s enlisted the moon
To drag some shadows around,
Unless, of course,
Something jumps up
Out of a hollow log,
A worry you didn’t need
To cross your path.

My father’s gone,
The tree’s a stump,
And I’m still too young to know
If one day, I’ll glance
out my window
At the sycamore,
And cluck my teeth.

~ Cornelius Eady

Wish

In my dream, my car is an aquarium.
I’m on the hood, prone, looking in,
wondering how I could ever drive again.

It’s evening, my interior lit with tropical fish
& desire for a new life. I didn’t know
I was this tired. I place my forehead

against the windshield, close my eyes, & wish
for you know what. In the beginning, friend,
every word was a dreaming plant or animal

until our traffic changed everything, but something
seems to be happening for the better, now,
if only it’s not too late. I fall asleep

against this glass until I wake, a few
guppies & angels convulsing in the drying soul
of the world until our ecstasy, &/or our end.

~ William Heyen

The New Moon

Hold on to me.
We will slip carefully carefully
don’t tip it over
into this canoe
pale as birch bark

and with the stars
over our shoulders
paddle
down the dark river
of the sky.

Do not delay.
By next week
the canoe will be bulging with cargo,
there will be no room
inside for us.

Tonight is the time.
Step carefully.
Hold on to me.

~ Eve Merriam

Family Portrait

Before the picture man comes
Mama and I spend the morning
cleaning the family room. She hums
Motown, doles out chores, a warning –

He has no legs, she says. Don’t stare.
I’m the first to the door when he rings.
My father and uncle lift his chair
onto the porch, arrange his things

near the place his feet would be.
He poses our only portrait – my father
sitting, Mama beside him, and me
in between. I watch him bother

the space for knees, shins, scratching air
as – years later – I’d itch for what’s not there.

~ Natasha Trethewey

A Meeting

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead or changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: “How you been?”
He grins and looks at me.
“I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.”

~ Wendell Berry