One Poem Only

Fides, Spes Willa Cather 1873 – 1947 Joy is come to the little Everywhere; Pink to the peach and pink to the apple, White to the pear. Stars are come to the dogwood, Astral, pale; Mists are pink on the red-bud, Veil after veil. Flutes for the feathery locusts, Soft as spray; Tongues of the lovers for chestnuts, poplars, Babbling May. Yellow plumes for the willows’ Wind-blown hair; Oak trees and sy...

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead. May 12 - We never know how high we are (1176) by Emily Dickinson May 13 - The Dream by Edna St. Vincent Millay May 14 - Letter #14 of 36 from The Marilyn Rising: Letters to Marilyn by GiGi May 15 - Brood by Maggie Devers May 16 - Verse for a Certain Dog by Dorothy Parker May 17 - Dewdrops by Myra Viola Wilds...

Dewdrops Myra Viola Wilds Watch the dewdrops in the morning, Shake their little diamond heads, Sparkling, flashing, ever moving, From their silent little beds. See the grass! Each blade is brightened, Roots are strengthened by their stay; Like the dewdrops, let us scatter Gems of love along the way. Mentioned in this episode: One Poem Only submissions are open. I’m filling the next chapter of One...

Verse for a Certain Dog Dorothy Parker 1893 – 1967 Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes, Dear little friend of mine, I never knew. All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise. (For heaven’s sake, stop worrying that shoe!) You look about, and all you see is fair; This mighty globe was made for you alone. Of all the thunderous ages, you’re the heir. (Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!) A s...

Brood Maggie Devers The three hens at my daughter’s school Are oblivious to egg prices Concerned with lunch scraps And the stray termite And their stair perch when the sun dips low I wonder how they spend evenings and weekends If they miss the sound of childsong Or the Sunday scaries set in I imagine they commune with their comrades Offer jokes and such for trade My daughter assures me chickens di...

Letter #14 of 36 from The Marilyn Rising: Letters to Marilyn GiGi Dearest Marilyn, Why didn't you speak up? Why didn't you say something? All of the moments where you kept silence as your secret lover, why didn't you just scream?! I'm just now learning that my rage is sacred so, pardon me for wanting to power through these pages with a blow torch. You were so good, so pure, so angelic, and they ha...

The Dream Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 – 1950 Love, if I weep it will not matter, And if you laugh I shall not care; Foolish am I to think about it, But it is good to feel you there. Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking, — White and awful the moonlight reached Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere, There was a shutter loose, —it screeched! Swung in the wind, — and no wind blowing! — I was afra...

We never know how high we are Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886 We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies— The Heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the Cubits warp For fear to be a King— Mentioned in this episode: One Poem Only submissions are open. I’m filling the next chapter of One Poem Only and woul...

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead. May 5 - How often we greet each other with worries by Maggie Devers May 6 - Renewal of Strength by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper May 7 - For My Daughter by Maggie Devers May 8 - Held by Maggie Devers May 9 - Circe by H.D. May 10 - What the Thrush Said by John Keats May 11 - Mother Maggie Devers Mother is a ver...

What the Thrush Said John Keats 1795 –1821 O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind, Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist, And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars, To thee the spring will be a harvest-time. O thou, whose only book has been the light Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on Night after night when Phœbus was away, To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn. O...

Circe H.D. 1886 – 1961 It was easy enough to bend them to my wish, it was easy enough to alter them with a touch, but you adrift on the great sea, how shall I call you back? Cedar and white ash, rock-cedar and sand plants and tamarisk red cedar and white cedar and black cedar from the inmost forest, fragrance upon fragrance and all of my sea-magic is for nought. It was easy enough— a thought calle...

Held Maggie Devers The sweetest meat is closest to the bone The most tender, the most true The tissue there is hardest to reach, To manipulate from the outside. If you squeezed my arm How much bone would you feel? Would the flesh push back And guard my depths? The fruit around the mango pit is sinewy Unless it’s overripe, Then it melts into your mouth. More from Maggie Devers ↓ Read my debut poetr...

For My Daughter by Maggie Devers Chop off my head and put it on your shield. I will protect you until the day I die And all the days after that. You think I would let anything harm the perfection that sprang from my body? That force that is me and infinitely you at the same time? There is nothing in the world that could destroy us, Not when a mere glance can turn men to stone. More from Maggie Dev...

Renewal of Strength Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 1825 – 1911 The prison-house in which I live Is falling to decay, But God renews my spirit’s strength Within these walls of clay. For me a dimness slowly creeps Around earth’s fairest light, But heaven grows clearer to my view, And fairer to my sight. It may be earth’s sweet harmonies Are duller to my ear, But music from my Father’s house Begins to...

How often we greet each other with worries by Maggie Devers I went to the wilderness to escape And there are worries there too. Caterpillars falling from their tree Before their chrysalis is complete My weekend project was to save them, But not everybody makes it— There's a worry tied to us like an anchor, How quickly we would sink once we stropped struggling— We lost one to the river A few were s...

A Lady by Amy Lowell 1874 – 1925 You are beautiful and faded, Like an old opera tune Played upon a harpsichord; Or like the sun-flooded silks Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes, And the perfume of your soul Is vague and suffusing, With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. Your half-tones delight me, And I grow mad with gazing At your blent co...

Radical by Marianne Moore 1887 – 1972 Tapering to a point, conserving everything, this carrot is predestined to be thick. The world is but a circumstance, a mis- erable corn-patch for its feet. With ambition, imagination, outgrowth, nutriment, with everything crammed belligerent- ly inside itself, its fibres breed mon- opoly — a tail-like, wedge-shaped engine with the secret of expansion, fused wi...

Who Has Seen the Wind Christina Rossetti 1830 – 1894 Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you. But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I. But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.

Asking the age old question, where do we start? The Spark by Maggie Devers I try to think where her story starts. When I went to my parents' for the weekend And the Labrador could smell her And for the first time in her dog life, didn’t jump on me Or when I met her father And we kissed on our first date At the cowboy bar that's burned down twice now, Or when we named her And whispered her into my...

Starting May 1, 2025.