Fame by Emily Dickinson

Fame is a bee.

It has a song—

It has a sting—

Ah, too, it has a wing.

 

Spider by Andrea Gibson

All of my pain is a spider 

I’ve learned not to crush 
with the heel of my shoe 

but to guide with a page 
of my journal 
into an empty glass. 

I ask questions about 
its life, its purpose

 
as I walk careful 
out to the garden and rest 
it down on the earth. 

My pain—how happy 

it is to leave me 
whenever I treat it 
kind.

I Have Found Such Joy by Grace Noll Crowell

I have found such joy in simple things;

A plain clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,

A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,

The shelter of a roof above my head,

And in a leaf-laced square along a floor,

Where yellow sunlight glimmers through a door.

I have found such joy in things that fill

My quiet days; a curtain's blowing grace,

A potted plant upon my window sill,

A rose fresh-cut and placed within a vase,

A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,

And books I long have loved beside me there.

The Veteran by Dorothy Parker

When I was young and bold and strong,
Oh, right was right, and wrong was wrong!
My plume on high, my flag unfurled,
I rode away to right the world. 
“Come out, you dogs, and fight!” said I, 
And wept there was but once to die.

But I am old; and good and bad
Are woven in a crazy plaid.
I sit and stay, “The world is so;
And he is wise who lets it go.
A battle lost, a battle won—
The difference is small, my son.”

Inertia rides and riddles me;
The which is called Philosophy.

Zoo by Harry Graham

For years I led a dreary life!

The days passed slowly, one by one;

I fed the ducks, reproved my wife,

Played Handel's Largo on the fife,

Or gave the dog a run.

I neither realised nor knew

The pleasures of a private Zoo.

I never loved a dear gazelle,

To glad me with its soft black eye,

Nor ever to my lot it fell

To know a penguin really well,

Till, early last July,

I bought a small menagerie,

And oh! the difference to me!

Now, when my spouse, perverse or cold,

Induces an attack of dumps,

I feel encouraged and consoled

When in their manege I behold

My camels' greater humps;

I fly from dear mama-in-law

To Kate, my talkative macaw.

When statesmen's speeches are disgraced

By vulgar insults which denote

A lamentable lack of taste,

I seek my monkey-house in haste

To find an antidote;

I turn for manners to the lair

Of Bosco, my performing bear.

Those " lions " whom we fête and feed,

Heroes of sword or brush or pen,

Are they more dignified, indeed,

Than creatures of that nobler breed

Which decorate my den?

The more my fellow-men I view,

The more I love my private Zoo!

In the Morning, Before Anything Bad Happens by Molly Brodak

 

The sky is open
all the way.

Workers upright on the line
like spokes.

I know there is a river somewhere,
lit, fragrant, golden mist, all that,

whose irrepressible birds
can’t believe their luck this morning
and every morning.

I let them riot
in my mind a few minutes more
before the news comes.

How to Not Be a Perfectionist by Molly Brodak

People are vivid
and small
and don’t live
very long—