April is Nation Poetry Month

In Memory of
Dori Anderson
1938-2008

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 4, 2008

SEAMUS HEANEY, from The Cure At Troy

Human beings suffer,

They torture one another,

They get hurt and get hard.

No poem or play or song

Can fully right a wrong

Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols

Beat on their bars together.

A hunger-striker’s father

Stands in the graveyard dumb.

The police widow in veils

Faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don’t hope

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that a further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:

The utter, self-revealing

Double-take of feeling.

If there’s fire on the mountain

Or lightning and storm

And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing

The outcry and the birth-cry

Of new life at its term.

It means once in a lifetime

That justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme.

Ukiah Library Poem of the day for National Poetry Month, April 4th

by Emily Dickenson

Just lost, when I was saved!

Just felt the world go by!

Just girt me for the onset with Eternity

When breath blew back

And on the other side

I heard recede the disappointed tide

Therefore, as One returned, I feel

Odd secrets of the line to tell!

Some Sailor, skirting foreign shores-

Some pale Reporter, from the awful doors

Before the Seal!

Next time, to stay!

Nest time, the things to see

By Ear unheard,

Unscrutinized by Eye

Next time, to tarry,

While the Ages steal

Slow tramp the centuries

And the Cycles wheel!