Free Poems for Life by The Nightingale-Bamford School Page B

perhaps my favorite kind of reading because they encapsulate in a few descriptive lines a world — a world that I may never get to visit but which, somehow, recalls for me the common ground we all stand on.
    All the best with your project.
    Sincerely,

    I N B LACK E ARTH , W ISCONSIN
    thistles take the hillside
    a purple glory of furred spears
    a fierce army of spiky weeds
    we climb through them
    your mother, two of her daughters, and me
    a late walk in the long June light
    in the barn the heart throb
    of the milking machine continues
    as your father and brother change
    the iodide-dipped tubes
    from one udder to the next
    and the milk courses through the pipeline
    to the cooling vat where it swirls
    like a lost sea in a silver box
    we are climbing to the grove of white birch trees
    whose papery bark will shed
    the heart-ringed initials of your sister
    as the grief wears down
    this farm bears milk and hay
    and this mother woman walking beside us
    has borne nine children
and one magic one is dead:
riding her bike
she was a glare of light
on the windshield of the car
that killed her
    a year and a half has passed
    and death is folded in among the dishtowels
    hangs in the hall closet by the family photos
    and like a ring of fine mist
    above the dinner table
    we stand on a hill looking at birch bark
    poking among hundred-year-old graves
    that have fallen into the grass
    rubbing the moss off and feeling for the names
    that the stone sheds
    we are absorbing death like nitrates
    fertilizing our growth
this can happen:
a glare of light
an empty place
wordlessly we finger her absence
    already there are four grandchildren
    the family grows thick as thistle
    â€”Andrea Musher

B ROOKE A STOR

    Thank you for your letter of April 24th. I think your class project sounds wonderful and I hope it is an enormous success.
    My favorite poem is “The Daffodil“ by William Wordsworth because it is lighthearted and gay and brings to mind such beautiful images. In the Spring, my garden is filled with golden daffodils which are a glorious sight to behold, and when the winter comes, I can close my eyes and see them “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” and my heart is uplifted and filled with joy. I have enclosed a copy of the poem for your book.

    I W ANDERED L ONELY A S A C LOUD
    I wandered lonely as a cloud
    That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
    When all at once I saw a crowd,
    A host, of golden daffodils,
    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
    Continuous as the stars that shine
    And twinkle on the milky way,
    They stretched in never-ending line
    Along the margin of a bay:
    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
    Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
    The waves beside them danced, but they
    Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
    A poet could not but be gay,
    In such a jocund company:
    I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
    What wealth the show to me had brought:
    For oft, when on my couch I lie
    In vacant or in pensive mood,
    They flash upon that inward eye
    Which is the bliss of solitude;
    And then my heart with pleasure fills,
    And dances with the daffodils.
    â€” William Wordsworth

K EN A ULETTA

    Dear Maggie,
    Among my favorite poems, one is certainly Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind,” with its rich optimism: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
    Read it, and cheer.

H AROLYN M. B LACKWELL

    Dearest Olivia,
    Thank you so much for your note. I’m sorry for the delay. Life has been rather hectic recently.
    However, I’ve enclosed a poem by Langston Hughes called “To Be Somebody.” I love this poem because of the inspiration it has given me as an artist struggling, striving and working to make it to the top of my profession. The beauty of the poem is that there is always room for each and every one of us at the top.
    Many Thanks, Best Wishes and Great Success.
    Sincerely,

    T o B E S OMEBODY
    Little girl
    Dreaming of a