Bad Day
by Kay Ryan

Not every day
is a good day
for the elfin tailor.
Some days
the stolen cloth
reveals what it
was made for:
a handsome weskit
or the jerkin
of an elfin sailor.
Other days
the tailor
sees a jacket
in his mind
and sets about
to find the fabric.
But some days
neither the idea
nor the material
presents itself;
and these are
the hard days
for the tailor elf.

The Wedding
Sidney Lanier

O marriage-bells, your clamor tells
Two weddings in one breath.
SHE marries whom her love compels:
-- And I wed Goodman Death!
My brain is blank, my tears are red;
Listen, O God: -- "I will," he said: --
And I would that I were dead.
Come groomsman Grief and bridesmaid Pain
Come and stand with a ghastly twain.
My Bridegroom Death is come o'er the meres
To wed a bride with bloody tears.
Ring, ring, O bells, full merrily:
Life-bells to her, death-bells to me:
O Death, I am true wife to thee!

Shedding Season
by Linda Lee Konichek

I start to lose winter’s weight as soon as
heavy chore boots are taken off
replaced by new Airstep Nikes.

My feet fly to the upper pasture to check
for fresh grass… grass that shimmers
more green than the Emerald City.

Overnight, the wonderful wizard has
visited the farm. Like magic, tiny buds
gleam on last week’s bare branches.

I take one more look at the creek
plunging below. In a few days
new leaves will curtain this scene.

I want to buck and snort
with the horses, shed winter
like they shed their coats,

then gallop through the water
splashing… splashing… splashing

make rainbows in the Springtime sun.

Treatment
Ange Mlinko

We went to the vivarium—to see
the tropical butterflies in a
walk-through biodome. They were
cocooning, their insides filled
with meconium. The chrysalises looked
like jade and rosy quartz pendants
for ladies' ears—with gold worked in,
something Babylonian.
Enormous specimens
breathed against tree bark.

Belated naturalists we.
I kept repeating to myself:
the mind is not a little spa.
The Mind is not a little Spa.
You can't retreat to its imaginary
standard distance
when outside construction
can't be told from ruin.
The butterflies set themselves
down like easels
on bromeliads, but their brushes
can't reach to scratch their
palette

Mist
Henry David Thoreau

Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the dasied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of the lake and seas and rivers,
Bear only purfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!

Summer in the South
Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Oriole sings in the greening grove
As if he were half-way waiting,
The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green,
Timid, and hesitating.
The rain comes down in a torrent sweep
And the nights smell warm and pinety,
The garden thrives, but the tender shoots
Are yellow-green and tiny.
Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill,
Streams laugh that erst were quiet,
The sky smiles down with a dazzling blue
And the woods run mad with riot.

Broken Music
Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears
Her nursling's speech first grow articulate;
But breathless with averted eyes elate
She sits, with open lips and open ears,
That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears
Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till the song,
A central moan for days, at length found tongue,
And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears.

But now, whatever while the soul is fain
To list that wonted murmur, as it were
The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate strain, -
No breath of song, thy voice alone is there,
O bitterly beloved! and all her gain
Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer.