My bells and my future foodstuffs! From left to right, baby cabbage and baby tomato seedlings on my windowsill. How exciting!

“I Ask My Mother to Sing” by Li-Young Lee (from Rose)

She begins, and my grandmother joins her. 
Mother and daughter sing like young girls. 
If my father were alive, he would play 
his accordion and sway like a boat. 

I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace, 
nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch 
the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickers 
running away in the grass. 

But I love to hear it sung; 
how the waterlilies fill with rain until 
they overturn, spilling water into water, 
then rock back, and fill with more, 

Both women have begun to cry. 
But neither stops her song. 

“Problems with Hurricanes” by Victor Hernández Cruz (from Red Beans)

A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it’s not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I’ll tell you he said:
it’s the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.

How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.

Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
Temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace.

The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don’t worry about the noise
Don’t worry about the water
Don’t worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.

“Peonies at Dusk” by Jane Kenyon (from Constance)

White peonies blooming along the porch
send out light
while the rest of the yard grows dim.

Outrageous flowers as big as human
heads! They’re staggered
by their own luxuriance: I had
to prop them up with stakes and twine.

The moist air intensifies their scent,
and the moon moves around the barn
to find out what it’s coming from.

In the darkening June evening
I draw a blossom near, and bending close
search it as a woman searches
a loved one’s face.

“going uptown to visit miriam” by Victor Hernández Cruz (from Snaps, Poems by Victor Hernández Cruz)

on the train
old ladies playing football
going for empty seats

very funny persons

the train riders
are silly people
i am a train rider

but no one knows where i am
going to take this train

to take this train
to take this train

the ladies   read popular
paperback   because they
are popular   they get off
at 42 to change for the
westside line   or off
59 for the department store

the train pulls in & out
the white walls dark-
ness      white walls   dark-
ness

ladies looking up    i
wonder where they going
the dentist pick up
husband pick up wife
pick up kids
pick up? grass?
to library    to museum
to laundromat    to school

but no one knows where i am
going to take this train

“climbing” by Lucille Clifton (from The Book of Light)

“Yes” by Catherine Doty (from Momentum)

It’s about the blood
banging in the body,
and the brain
lolling in its bed
like a happy baby.
At your touch, the nerve,
that volatile spook tree,
vibrates. The lungs
take up their work
with a giddy vigor.
Tremors in the joints
and tympani,
dust storms
in the canister of sugar.
The coil of ribs
heats up, begins
to glow. Come
here.

“The Floral Apron” by Marilyn Chin (from The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty)

The woman wore a floral apron around her neck,
that woman from my mother’s village
with a sharp cleaver in her hand.
She said, “What shall we cook tonight?
Perhaps these six tiny squid
lined up so perfectly on the block?”

She wiped her hand on the apron,
pierced the blade into the first.
There was no resistance,
no blood, only cartilage
soft as child’s nose. A last
iota of ink made us wince.

Suddenly, the aroma of ginger and scallion fogged our senses,
and we absolved her for that moment’s barbarism.
Then she, and elder of the tribe,
without formal headdress, without elegance,
deigned to teach the younger
about the asian plight.

And although we have traveled far
we would never forget that primal lesson
—on patience, courage, forbearance,
on how to love squid despite squid,
how to honor the village, the tribe,
the floral apron.

“Any Prince to Any Princess” by Adrian Henri (published in From the Loveless Motel)

August is coming
and the goose, I’m afraid,
is getting fat.
There have been
no golden eggs for some months now.
Straw has fallen well below market price
despite my frantic spinning.
And the sedge is,
as you rightly point out,
withered.

I can’t imagine how the pea
got under your mattress. I apologize
humbly. The chambermaid has, of course,
been sacked. As has the frog footman.
I understand that, during my recent fact-finding tour of the
Golden River,
Despite your nightly unavailing efforts,
he remained obstinately
froggish.

I hope that the Three Wishes granted by the General
Assembly
will go some way towards redressing
this unfortunate recent sequence of events.
The fall in output from the shoe-factory, for example:
no one could have forseen the work-to-rule
by the National Union of Elves. Not to mention the fact
that the court has been fast asleep
for the last six and a half years.

The matter of the poisoned apple has been taken up
by the Board of Trade: I think I can assure you
the incident will not be
repeated.

I can quite understand, in the circumstances,
your reluctance to let down
your golden tresses. However
I feel I must point out
that the weather isn’t getting any better
and I already have a nasty chill
from waiting at the base
of the White Tower. You must see the absurdity of the
situation.
Some of the courtiers are beginning to talk,
not to mention the humble villagers.
It’s been three weeks now, and not even
a word.

Princess,
a cold, black wind
howls through our empty palace.
Dead leaves litter the bedchamber;
the mirror on the wall hasn’t said a thing
since you left. I can only ask,
bearing all this in mind,
that you think again,

let down your hair,

reconsider.

“Things” by Lisel Mueller (from Alive Together: New and Selected Poems)

What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us
we recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.