These Poems are Necessary

Because every month really is National Poetry Month, let's keep the party going just a little longer. Enjoy these two poems, including one from a recurring poet in our midst.


Touch Me

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.

by Stanley Kunitz
from Staying Alive, Real Poems for Unreal Times. © Miramax Books, 2003.



And, because I can't stop giving you poems, here is one of the bathroom poems:

I Have My Own

I have my own
They share

Mine is mine
Theirs is theirs

Mine has a clean sink
Theirs does not

My toothbrush is in my cabinet
Theirs are not

My shower is new
Theirs is not

I don’t share mine
Only in dire emergencies

I don’t go into theirs
Only in dire emergencies

I am happy with my own
They are not

by Maryclare Maslyn

Don't worry, there's more to come!