The Exposed Nest • National Poetry Month

The Exposed Nest


You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But ‘twas no make-believe with you to-day,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover.
‘Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasting flesh)
And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once—could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might our meddling make her more afraid.
That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven’t any memory—have you?—
Of ever coming to the place again
To see if the birds lived the first night through,
And so at last to learn to use their wings.


by Robert Frost
Courtesy poets.org

Fannie Lou Hamer • National Poetry Month

Fannie Lou Hamer 

                        “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired!”

She sat across the desk from me, squirming.

It was stifling. My suite runs hot

but most days it is bearable.

This student has turned in nothing,

rarely comes to class. When she does,

her eyes bore into me with a disdain

born long before either of us.

She doesn’t trust anything I say.

She can’t respect my station,

the words coming out of these lips,

this face. My breathing

is an affront. It’s me, she says.

I never was this student’s professor—

her immediate reaction

seeing me at the smart board.

But I have a calling to complete

& she has to finish college,

return to a town where

she doesn’t have to look at,

listen to or respect anyone

like me—forever tall, large

& brown in her dagger eyes,

though it’s clear she looks down

on me. She can return—

if not to her hometown, another

enclave, so many others, where

she can brush a dog’s golden coat,

be vegan & call herself

a good person.

Are you having difficulty with your other classes?

No.

Go, I say, tenderly.

Loaded as a cop’s gun,

she blurts point-blank

that she’s afraid of me. Twice.

My soft syllables rattle something

planted deep,

so I tell her to go where

she’d feel more comfortable

as if she were my niece or

godchild, even wish her

a good day.

If she stays, the ways

this could backfire!

Where is my Kevlar shield

from her shame?

There’s no way to tell

when these breasts will evoke

solace or terror. I hate

that she surprises me, that I lull

myself to think her ilk

is gone despite knowing

so much more, and better.

I can’t proselytize my worth

all semester, exhaust us

for the greater good.

I can’t let her make me

a monster to myself—

I’m running out of time & pity

the extent of her impoverished

heart. She’s from New

England, I’m from the Mid-South.

Far from elderly, someone

just raised her like this

with love.

I have essays to grade

but words warp

on the white page, dart

just out of reach. I blink

two hours away, find it hard

to lift my legs, my voice,

my head precious to my parents

now being held

in my own hands.

How did they survive

so much worse, the millions

with all of their scars!

What would these rivers be

without their weeping,

these streets without

their faith & sweat?

Fannie Lou Hamer

thundered what they felt,

we feel, into DNC microphones

on black and white TV

years before

I was a notion.

She doesn’t know who

Fannie Lou Hamer is,

and never has to.

by Kamilah Aisha Moon

courtesy of poets.org
Click here to listen to the poet read her poem

Puberty Contract • National Poetry Month

Poetry happens at any age. Just ask Luz Miranda and her son Lin.

Courtesy Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter

Lot's Wife • National Poetry Month

Lot’s Wife

And the just man trailed God’s shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
“It’s not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed.”

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.


by Anna Akhmatova

[in Just-] • National Poetry Month

Thanks to Sharon for this excellent suggestion!

[in Just-]

in Just- 

spring          when the world is mud- 

luscious the little 

lame balloonman 

whistles          far          and wee 

and eddieandbill come 

running from marbles and 

piracies and it's 

spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful 

the queer 

old balloonman whistles 

far          and             wee 

and bettyandisbel come dancing 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 

it's 

spring 

and 

         the 

                  goat-footed 

balloonMan          whistles 

far 

and 

wee

by e.e. cummings

Courtesy Poetry Foundation

Don't You Wonder, Sometimes? • National Poetry Month

Don't You Wonder, Sometimes?

          1.

After dark, stars glisten like ice, and the distance they span

Hides something elemental. Not God, exactly. More like

Some thin-hipped glittering Bowie-being—a Starman

Or cosmic ace hovering, swaying, aching to make us see.

And what would we do, you and I, if we could know for sure

That someone was there squinting through the dust,

Saying nothing is lost, that everything lives on waiting only

To be wanted back badly enough? Would you go then,

Even for a few nights, into that other life where you

And that first she loved, blind to the future once, and happy?

Would I put on my coat and return to the kitchen where my

Mother and father sit waiting, dinner keeping warm on the stove?

Bowie will never die. Nothing will come for him in his sleep

Or charging through his veins. And he’ll never grow old,

Just like the woman you lost, who will always be dark-haired

And flush-faced, running toward an electronic screen

That clocks the minutes, the miles left to go. Just like the life

In which I’m forever a child looking out my window at the night sky

Thinking one day I’ll touch the world with bare hands

Even if it burns.

          2.

He leaves no tracks. Slips past, quick as a cat. That’s Bowie

For you: the Pope of Pop, coy as Christ. Like a play

Within a play, he’s trademarked twice. The hours

Plink past like water from a window A/C. We sweat it out,

Teach ourselves to wait. Silently, lazily, collapse happens.

But not for Bowie. He cocks his head, grins that wicked grin.

Time never stops, but does it end? And how many lives

Before take-off, before we find ourselves

Beyond ourselves, all glam-glow, all twinkle and gold?

The future isn’t what it used to be. Even Bowie thirsts

For something good and cold. Jets blink across the sky

Like migratory souls.

          3.

Bowie is among us. Right here

In New York City. In a baseball cap

And expensive jeans. Ducking into

A deli. Flashing all those teeth

At the doorman on his way back up.

Or he’s hailing a taxi on Lafayette

As the sky clouds over at dusk.

He’s in no rush. Doesn’t feel

The way you’d think he feels.

Doesn’t strut or gloat. Tells jokes.

I’ve lived here all these years

And never seen him. Like not knowing

A comet from a shooting star.

But I’ll bet he burns bright,

Dragging a tail of white-hot matter

The way some of us track tissue

Back from the toilet stall. He’s got

The whole world under his foot,

And we are small alongside,

Though there are occasions

When a man his size can meet

Your eyes for just a blip of time

And send a thought like SHINE

SHINE SHINE SHINE SHINE

Straight to your mind. Bowie,

I want to believe you. Want to feel

Your will like the wind before rain.

The kind everything simply obeys,

Swept up in that hypnotic dance

As if something with the power to do so

Had looked its way and said:

                                                     Go ahead.

by Tracy K. Smith

from Life on Mars

Courtesy Poetry Foundation