Bee

The Waterwheel Stay together, friends. Don’t scatter and sleep. Our friendship is made of being awake. The waterwheel accepts water and turns and gives it away, weeping. That way it stays in the garden, whereas another roundness rolls through a dry riverbed looking for what it thinks it wants. Stay here, quivering with each moment like a drop of mercury. by Jalaluddin Rumi, from The Essential Rumi: New Expanded Edition, translated from the Persian by Coleman Barks, 2004

A Prouder Man Than You If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine, If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign, If you're proud because of fortune or the clever things you do -- Then I'll play no second fiddle: I'm a prouder man than you! If you think that your profession has the more gentility, And that you are condescending to be seen along with me; If you notice that I'm shabby while your clothes are spruce and new -- You have only got to hint it: I'm a prouder man than you! If you have a swell companion when you see me on the street, And you think that I'm too common for your toney friend to meet, So that I, in passing closely, fail to come within your view -- Then be blind to me for ever: I'm a prouder man than you! If your character be blameless, if your outward past be clean, While 'tis known my antecedents are not what they should have been, Do not risk contamination, save your name whate'er you do -- `Birds...

Dream Deferred  by Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness ... ―John Keats Bread and Music by  by  Wallace Stevens She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old despondency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings. Song for the Last Act by  Louise Bogan Now that I have your face by heart, I look Less at its features than its darkening frame Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepher...

  Once out on the lake and Dubuque A girl took a sale with a duque     He remarked, "I am sure     You are honest and pure'- And then leaned far over to puque. There was a young lady of Florence Who for kissing professed great abhorrence;     But when she'd been kissed     And found what she'd missed, She cried till the tears came in torrents. Concerning the bees and the flowers In the fields and the gardens and bowers,     You will note at a glace     That their ways of romance Haven't any resemblance to ours. A reckless young man from Fort Blainy Made love to a spinster named Janie.     When his friends said, 'Oh, dear,     She's so old and so queer,' He replied, 'But the day was  so  rainy!' A publisher once when to France In search of a tale of romance;     A Parisian lady     Told a story so shady That the publisher made an advance. There was a you...