Before we are done with April, which is National Poetry Month, let me take advantage of the letter V to share a few sweet and silly verses:
The Cornfield
E.B. White
Up to the cornfield, old and curly,
I took Joe, who rises early.
Joe, my yearling, on my shoulder,
Observed the old corn growing older.
And I could feel the simple awe
He felt at seeing what he saw.
Yellow light and cool day
And cornstalks stretching far away.
My son, too young and wise to speak,
Clung with one hand to my cheek,
While in his head were slowly born
Important mysteries of the corn.
And being present at the birth
Of my child's wonderment of earth,
I felt my own life stir again
By the still graveyard of the grain.
My Papa's Waltz
Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
White Apples
Donald Hall
when my father had been dead a week
I woke
with his voice in my ear
I sat up in bed
and held my breath
and stared at the pale closed door
white apples and the taste of stone
if he called again
I would put on my coat and galoshes.
I Forgive You
Stevie Smith
I forgive you, Maria,
Things can never be the same,
But I forgive you, Maria,
Though I think you were to blame.
I forgive you, Maria,
I can never forget,
But I forgive you, Maria,
Kindly remember that.
Aunt Louise
Rod McKuen
When Aunt Louise fell off the boat
And couldn't swim, and wouldn't float,
And young Miranda sat and smiled,
I almost could have slapped the child.
cindyricksgers 