Poetry for Wednesday, April 4th

Willits Choice

JOHN KEATS

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
Whyen a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific - and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise -
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Ukiah's Choice

The Team of Workhorses

The two workhorses come in from the field.
They stand at the tank, horse collars still on.
Their coltishness remains tangled in their rumpled manes.

They offer, generously, to do all the work.
They rarely look back over their shoulders. Their long
Eyelashes are girlish, and their foreheads, blunt

To the wind, say, "We might change our minds right now."
Their eyes flare like children's. They are easily startled
And are as changeable as cottonwoods in wind.

They might gallop this minute five miles up the canyon.
Their extravagant ears, stuffed with hair, turn so
Swiftly to absorb a splash, a thundercrack, a rock

Falling, guiding knowledge directly into the brain.
I think we are less safe now than our grandparents
Were when horses turned their faces to look at them.

Robert Bly