What are your favorite poems?

[forrest]

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

[Taurus]

Disiderata
by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and
remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good
terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and
clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and
ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud
and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the
spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you
may become vain or bitter, for always there will be
greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy
your achievements as well as your plans. Keep
iinterested in your own career, however humble; it is
a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the
world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to
what virtue there is; many persons strive for high
ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be
yourself. Expecially do not feign affection. Neither
be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity
and idsenchantment, it is as perennial as the
grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture
strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome disicipline, be gentle with
yourself. You are a child of the universe no less
than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be
here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no
doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you
conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors
and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep
peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery
and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be
cheerful. Strive to be happy.

[forrest]

Peace

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies, --
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.

~Sara Teasdale

[forrest]

I Was Again Beside Thee in a Dream
by Mathilde Blind


I WAS again beside thee in a dream:
Earth was so beautiful, the moon was shining;
The muffled voice of many a cataract stream
Came like a love-song, as, with arms entwining,
Our hearts were mixed in unison supreme.

The wind lay spell-bound in each pillared pine,
The tasselled larches had no sound or motion,
As my whole life was sinking into thine--
Sinking into a deep, unfathomed ocean
Of infinite love--uncircumscribed, divine.

Night held her breath, it seemed, with all her stars:
Eternal eyes that watched in mute compassion
Our little lives o'erleap their mortal bars,
Fused in the fulness of immortal passion,
A passion as immortal as the stars.

There was no longer any thee or me;
No sense of self, no wish or incompleteness
The moment, rounded to Eternity,
Annihilated time's destructive fleetness:
For all but love itself had ceased to be.

[Heathen]

The Dead Woman
Pablo Neruda

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall live on.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall live on.

For where a man has no voice,
there shall be my voice.

Where blacks are flogged and beaten,
I cannot be dead.
When my brothers go to prison
I shall go with them.

When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory
comes,
even if I am dumb I must speak;
I shall see it coming even if I am blind.

No, forgive me.
If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you
have died,
all the leaves will fall on my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,

I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping,
but
I shall stay alive,
because above all things you wanted me
indomitable,
and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man
but all mankind.

[forrest]

The Story of a Million Years

How do you write
The story of a million years?
How do you write
The story of a river of tears?
How do you write
The story of eternity?
How do you write
The mystery of you and me?

The whole world's agroaning and travailing in agony
Aweeping and afearing as it shuffles towards its destiny.
How do you write
The story of this tragic throng?
How do you write?
How do you write?
How can you right what's wrong?

by Barry Long