First Fig By Edna St. Vincent Mailay

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

Psalm

by Harvey Shapiro

I am still on a rooftop in Brooklyn
on your holy day. The harbor is before me,
Governor's Island, the Verrazano Bridge
and the Narrows. I keep in my head
what Rabbi Nachman said about the world
being a narrow bridge and that the important thing
is not to be afraid. So on this day
I bless my mother and father, that they be
not fearful where they wander. And I
ask you to bless them and before you
close your Book of Life, your Sefer Hachayim,
remember that I always praised your world
and your splendor and that my tongue
tried to say your name on Court Street in Brooklyn.
Take me safely through the Narrows to the sea.

Going Too Far

by Mildred Howells

Posted by Poornima in her blog, A Spoonful of Ideas, and tweaked in a comment by Karen Humphries

A Woman who lived in Holland of old,
Polished her brass till it shone like gold,
She washed her pig after all it’s meals,
In spite of his energetic squeals.

She scrubbed her doorstep, into the ground,
And the children’s faces pink and round,
She washed so hard that in several cases,
She polished the features off their faces.

Until, to the rage of all the people,
she cleaned the weather-vane right off the steeple.
As she looked at the sky one one summer’s night,
she thought that the stars shone out less bright.

She said with a sigh,If I were up there ,
I’d scrub them all up till the world would stare
That night a storm began to brew,
and a wind from the ocean blew and blew

till when she came to her door next day,
it whisked her up, and blew her away.
Up and up in the air so high,
that she vanished, at last, in the stormy sky.

Since then it’s said that each twinkling star
and the big white moon, shine brighter by far.
But the neighbors shake their heads in fear,
she may rub so hard they will disappear.

I Believe

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE

It’s my belief that every man

   Should do his share of work,

And in our economic plan

   No citizen should shirk.

That in return each one should get

   His meed of fold and food,

And feel that all his toil and sweat

   Is for the common good.

It’s my belief that every chap

   Should have an equal start,

And there should be no handicap

   To hinder his depart;

That there be fairness in the fight,

   And justice in the race,

And every lad should have the right

   To win his proper place.

It’s my belief that people should

   Be neither rich nor poor;

That none should suffer servitude,

   And all should be secure.

That wealth is loot, and rank is rot,

   And foul is class and clan;

That to succeed a man may not

   Exploit his brother man.

It’s my belief that heritage

   And usury are wrong;

That each should win a worthy wage

   And sing an honest song ....

Not one like this — for though I rue

   The wrong of life, I flout it.

Alas! I’m not prepared to do

   A goddam thing about it.

Mindful

by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Keeping Quiet

 by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about...

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.