Monthly Archives: May 2016

The Bigness of Small Poems – # 16 in a Series – Li-Young Lee

One Heart  Look at the birds. Even flying is born out of nothing. The first sky is inside you, open at either end of day. The work of wings was always freedom, fastening one heart to every falling thing. Li-Young Lee (1957 – ) from Book Of My Nights, BOA Editions, 2001 As I collect […]

The Bigness of Small Poems – # 15 in a Series – Advice from Rukeyser: Burst Into Flower

THE POWER OF SUICIDE The potflower on the windowsill says to me In words that are green-edged red leaves : Flower     flower     flower     flower Today for the sake of all the dead     Burst into flower. Muriel Rukeyser, from The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser, McGraw- Hill, 1982 Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) is […]

The Bigness of Small Poems – # 14 in a Series – May 15th, The Death Day of Emily D.

I Reason, Earth is Short #403 (Franklin Edition) I reason, Earth is short – And Anguish – absolute – And many hurt, But, what of that? I reason, we could die – The best Vitality Cannot excel Decay, But, what of that? I reason, that in Heaven – Somehow, it will be even – Some […]

The Bigness of Small Poems – # 13 in a Series – The Double S in Sue Sinclair!

Belief The floorboards creak overhead, heavy with stars. The sound makes you think of the dead, as though they’re closer than you knew: like the doubled s in essence, an extra consonant slipped into the word for the very truth of you. Sue Sinclair from Heaven’s Thieves, Brick Books, 2016 It isn’t often I open […]

The Bigness of Small Poems – #12 in a Series – Gregory Orr (Again)

Sorrow is good; Tears are good. But too much Grief erodes. What if all The soft soil Washes away And only hard Furrows remain? Then what? Then what can grow in us? Gregory Orr from The River Inside the River, W.W. Norton & Company, 2013 It seems as if the small poems I chose for […]

The Bigness of Small Poems – # 11 in a Series – Denise Levertov

  Suspended I had grasped God’s garment in the void But my hand slipped On the rich silk of it. The ‘everlasting arms’ my sister loved to remember Must have upheld my leaden weight From falling, even so, For though I claw at empty air and feel Nothing, no embrace, I have not plummeted. Denise […]