Poetry for April 20

April 20, 2007 Poetry of the Day; Ukiah’s Choice

Some Days by Billy Collins

Some days I put the people in their places at the table,

bend their legs at the knees,

if they come with that feayture,

and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.

All afternoon they face one another

the man in the brown suit,

the woman in the blue dress,

perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.

But other days, I am the one

who is lifted up by the ribs,

then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse

to sit with the others at the long table.

Very funny,

but how would you like it

if you never knew from one day to the next

if you were going to spend it

striding around like a vivid god,

your shoulders in the clouds,

or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper,

staring straight ahead with you little plastic face?

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 20, 2007

Pablo Neruda

ODA PARA PLANCHAR ODE ON IRONING

La poesia es blanca: Poetry is white:

sale del agua envuelta en gotas, it comes out of the water covered with drops,

se arruga, y se amontona, it wrinkles and piles up in heaps.

hay que extender la piel de este planeta, We must spread out the whole skin of this planet,

hay que planchar el mar de su blancura iron the white of the ocean:

y van y van las manos, the hands go on moving,

se alisan las sagradas superficies smoothing the sanctified surfaces,

y asi se hacen las cosas: bringing all things to pass.

las manos hacen cada dia el mundo, Hands fashion each day of the world,

se une el fuego al acero, fire is wedded to steel,

llegan el lino, el lienzo y el tocuyo the linens, the canvas, coarse cottons, emerge

del combate de las lavanderias from the wars of the washerwomen;

y nace de la luz una paloma: a dove is born from the light

la castidad regresa de la espuma. and chastity re-arises from the foam.