Beowulf

...

May one so valiant

and venturesome

come unharmed

through

the clash of battle ... 


Lines 299 - 300

                                       
                
                                                                 up to you 

Heather Allen : "Grasses"

So still at heart, 

They respond like water 

To the slightest breeze,

Rippling as one body,



And, as one mind,

Bend continually

To listen:

The perfect confidants,



They keep to themselves

A web of trails and nests,

Burrows and hidden entrances --

Do not reveal



Those camouflaged in stillness 

From the circling hawks,

Or crouched and breathless

At the passing of the fox.





Poem of the Day, posted by The Poetry Foundation on May 27, 2016

Here's where I lower you

        into the drizzle

of the visible,

        my eager one,

where I hold you out like a gift

        to this water,

                         out at the end of my hand . . .







Jorie Graham, Mirror Prayer, poem excerpt
First Published on POETRY Magazine, November 1983 
The Poetry Foundation 

Coleman Barks : "Glad"

In the glory of the gloaming-green soccer
field her team, the Gladiators, is losing


ten to zip. She never loses interest in
the roughhouse one-on-one that comes


every half a minute. She sticks her leg
in danger and comes out the other side running.


Later a clump of opponents on the street is chant-
ing, WE WON, WE WON, WE . . .  She stands up


on the convertible seat holding to the wind-
shield. WE LOST, WE LOST BIGTIME, TEN TO 


NOTHING, WE LOST, WE LOST. Fist pumping
air. The other team quiet, abashed, chastened.


Good losers don't laugh last; they laugh
continuously, all the way home so glad.





From Winter Sky by Coleman Barks 
Published by University of Georgia Press, 2008
University of Georgia Press