Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.
--Ross Gay from Split This Rock's 'The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database'
When all's said, and done,
if civilisation drowns
the last colour to go
will be gold -
the light on a glass,
the prow of a gondola,
the name of a rosewood piano
as silence engulfs it.
And first to return
to a waterlogged world,
the rivers slipping out to sea,
the cities steaming,
will be gold,
one dip from Bellini's brush,
feathers of angels, Cinquecente nativities,
and all that follows.
--Gillian Clarke
pastel June roses
afternoon picnic baskets
hiking a mountain meadow
the wanderlust thirst
as open as the ocean
beneath a fair freckled sky
drunk on sunshine wine
sunburns and blistered noses sticky glazed humidity
crowds of rowdy kids
traffic congested beaches
August comes, longing for fall
--Michelle Faulkner
Reading days tatter down
to dust in the library,
summer heat writing itself
as beads of sweat across
your body, dampening
all you touch.
I soothe your bronzed back in the evening
with a cold shower,
my tongue a brush
on canvas, painting myself
onto your taut, muscular chest.
Writing you into a poem.
--András Gerevich (tr.Andrew Fentham)
There's blue, and then there's blue.
A number, not a hue, this blue
is not the undertone of any one
but there it is, primary.
I held the bouquet
in shock and cut the stems at a deadly angle.
I opened the toxic sachet of flower food
with my canine and rinsed my mouth.
I used to wash my hands and daydream.
I dreamed of myself and washed
my hands of everything. Easy math.
Now I can't get their procedure
at the florist off my mind.
The white flowers arrived! They overnighted
in a chemical bath
and now they have a fake laugh
that catches like a match
that starts the kind of kitchen fire
that is fanned by water.
They won't even look at me.
Happy Anniversary.
-- Robyn Schiff
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
-- Langston Hughes