Metrical Friday: ‘Words for Worry’
[I featured Li-Young Lee last year (The Gift), and Tony leads me back again. Thanks, Tony!] Words for Worry By Li-Young Lee
Metrical Friday: ‘Boy and Egg’
Boy and Egg By Naomi Shihab Nye Every few minutes, he wants to march the trail of flattened rye grass back to the house of muttering hens. He too could make a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it to his ear while the […]
Metrical Friday: ‘The Age of Dinosaurs’
The Age of Dinosaurs James Scruton There are, of course, theories about the wide-eyed, drop-jawed fascination children have for them, about how, before he’s learned his own phone number or address, a five-year-old can carry like a few small stones the Latin tonnage of those names, the prefixes and preferences for leaf or meat. My […]
Metrical Friday: ‘A Few Rules for Beginners’
A Few Rules for Beginners By Katherine Mansfield Babies must not eat the coal And they must not make grimaces, Nor in party dresses roll And must never black their faces. They must learn that pointing’s rude, They must sit quite still at table, And must always eat the food Put before them—if they’re able. […]
Metrical Friday: ‘Twelfth Birthday’
Twelfth Birthday By: Rachel Hadas As if because you lay (deeply embarrassing) inside my body, I could (inconceivable) follow your swift thoughts into their blue immersion even now, stilettoes flickering, or schools of fish maneuvering, first clear and then occluded, though now and then a piercing gleam cuts through; as if the snow reflections that […]
Metrical Friday: ‘First Grade Homework’
First Grade Homework By D. Nurkse The child’s assignment: ‘What is a city?’ All dusk she sucks her pencil while cars swish by like ghosts, neighbors’ radios forecast rain, high clouds, diminishing winds: at last she writes: ‘The city is everyone.’ Now it’s time for math, borrowing and exchanging, the long discipleship to zero, the […]
Metrical Friday: ‘Bed in Summer’
[This one’s for you, son.] Bed in Summer By Robert Louis Stevenson In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear […]
Metrical Friday: ‘Only Child’
Only Child By D. Nurkse 1 I cradled my newborn daughter and felt the heartbeat pull me out of shock. She didn’t know what her hands were: she folded them. I asked her was there a place where there was no world. She didn’t know what a voice was: her lips were the shape of […]
Metrical Friday: ‘Good Friday’
Good Friday By Christina Rossetti Am I a stone and not a sheep That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross, To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss, And yet not weep? Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the […]
Metrical Friday: ‘A Barefoot Boy’
A Barefoot Boy By James Whitcomb Riley A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play— For May is here once more, and so is he,— His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee, And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they: Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me […]