cats and you and me

by Charles Bukowski

the Egyptians loved the cat
were often entombed with it
instead of with the child
and never with the dog.

and now
here
good people with
the souls of cats
are very few

yet here and now many
fine cats
with great style
lounge about
in the alleys of
the universe.

about
our argument tonight
whatever it was
about
and
no matter
how unhappy
it made us
feel

remember that
there is a
cat
somewhere
adjusting to the
space of itself
with a calm
and delightful
ease.

in other words
magic persists with
or without us
no matter how
we may try to
destroy it

and I would
destroy the last chance for
myself
that this might always
continue.

Mother’s List of Names

by Bill Knott

My mother’s list of names today I take it in my hand
And I read the places she underlined William and Ann
The others are my brothers and sisters I know
I’m going to see them when I’m fully grown

Yes they’re waiting for me to join em and I will
Just over the top of that great big hill
Lies a green valley where their shouts of joy are fellowing
Save all but one can be seen there next a kin

And a link is missing from their ringarosey dance
Think of the names she wrote down not just by chance
When she learned that a baby inside her was growing small
She placed that list inside the family Bible

Then I was born and she died soon after
And I grew up sinful of questions I could not ask her
I did not know that she had left me the answer
Pressed between the holy pages with the happy laughter
Of John, Rudolph, Frank, Arthur, Paul
Pauline, Martha, Ann, Doris, Susan, you all,

I did not even know you were alive
Till I read the Bible today for the first time in my life
And I found this list of names that might have been my own
You other me’s on the bright side of my moon

Mother and Daddy too have joined you in play
And I am coming to complete the circle of your day
I was a lonely child I never understood that you
Were waiting for me to find the truth and know

And I’ll make this one promise you want me to
I’m goin to continue my Bible study
Till I’m back inside the Body
With you

Prayer for a Field Mouse

by Pat Riviere-Seel

Bless the gray mouse
that found her way
into the recycle bin.
Bless her tiny body,
no bigger than my thumb,
huddled and numb
against the hard side.
Bless her bright eye,
a frightened gleaming
that opened to me
and the nest she made
from shredded paper,
all I could offer.
Bless her last hours
alone under the lamp
with food and water near.
Bless this brief life
I might have ended
had she stayed hidden
inside the insulation.
Bless her body returned
to earth, no more
or less than any creature.

Elegy for a Walnut Tree

by W. S. Merwin

Old friend now there is no one alive
who remembers when you were young
it was high summer when I first saw you
in the blaze of day most of my life ago
with the dry grass whispering in your shade
and already you had lived through wars
and echoes of wars around your silence
through days of parting and seasons of absence
with the house emptying as the years went their way
until it was home to bats and swallows
and still when spring climbed toward summer
you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers
of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened
you and the seasons spoke the same language
and all these years I have looked through your limbs
to the river below and the roofs and the night
and you were the way I saw the world

Train Ride

by Ruth Stone

All things come to an end;
small calves in Arkansas,
the bend of the muddy river.
Do all things come to an end?
No, they go on forever.
They go on forever, the swamp,
the vine-choked cypress, the oaks
rattling last year's leaves,
the thump of the rails, the kite,
the still white stilted heron.
All things come to an end.
The red clay bank, the spread hawk,
the bodies riding this train,
the stalled truck, pale sunlight, the talk;
the talk goes on forever,
the wide dry field of geese,
a man stopped near his porch
to watch. Release, release;
between cold death and a fever,
send what you will, I will listen.
All things come to an end.
No, they go on forever.

Bad Roads In Spring

by Greg Brown

Middle of March and it's snowing
Let me forget everything
You can't always get where you're going
Bad roads in spring

I wanted to be on top of it by evening
Catch the morning hours from behind
But a big blizzard hit up from Denver
You don't get too far drivin' blind

The trucks passed us by out of Springfield
Never a sign to our pleas
Oh it's fine to look out through the windshield
When it's rainin' and 32 degrees

Middle of April at sundown
Stuck in the country mud I have to sing
Wait for the morning to come around
Bad roads in spring.

Scheming in the Snow

by Jack Gilbert

There is a time after what comes after
being young, and a time after that, he thinks
happily as he walks through the winter woods,
hearing in the silence a woodpecker far off.
Remembering his Chinese friend
whose brother gave her a jade ring from
the Han Dynasty when she turned eighteen.
Two weeks later, when she was hurrying up
the steps of a Hong Kong bridge, she fell,
and the thousand-year-old ring shattered
on the concrete. - when she told him, stunned
and tears running down her face, he said,
"Don't cry. I'll get you something better."