At the San Francisco Airport By Ivor Winters

To my daughter, 1954 This is the terminal: the light Gives perfect vision, false and hard; The metal glitters, deep and bright. Great planes are waiting in the yard They are already in the night. And you are here beside me, small, Contained and fragile, and intent On things that I but half recall Yet going whither you are bent. I am the past, and that is all. But you and I in part are one: The frightened brain, the nervous will, The knowledge of what must be done, The passion to acquire the skill To face that which you dare not shun. The rain of matter upon sense Destroys me momently. The score: There comes what will come. The expense Is what one thought, and something more Ones being and intelligence. This is the terminal, the break. Beyond this point, on lines of air, You take the way that you must take; And I remain in light and stare In light, and nothing else, awake.

Still to be Neat By Ben Jonson Still to be neat, still to be dressed, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. 1609

Delight in Disorder By Robert Herrick A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness; A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction; An erring lace, which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher; A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribands to flow confusedly; A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat; A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility: Do more bewitch me, than when art Is too precise in every part. 1648 Slim Cunning Hands By Walter de la Mare Slim cunning hands at rest, and cozening eyesUnder this stone one loved too wildly lies; How false she was, no granite could declare; Nor all earth's flowers, how fair.

1941

Pied Beauty By Gerard Manley Hopkins Glory be to God for dappled things For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches wings; Landscape plotted and pieced fold, fallow, and plough; And ll trdes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him. 1877

After great pain, a formal feeling comes (372) By Emily Dickinson After great pain, a formal feeling comes The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or Centuries before? The Feet, mechanical, go round A Wooden way Of Ground, or Air, or Ought Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone This is the Hour of Lead Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow First Chill then Stupor then the letting go 1862

This Is Just To Say By William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold 1962

Workday By Linda Hogan I go to work though there are those who were missing today from their homes. I ride the bus and I do not think of children without food or how my sisters are chained to prison beds. I go to the university and out for lunch and listen to the higher-ups tell me all they have read about Indians and how to analyze this poem. They know us better than we know ourselves. I ride the bus home

and sit behind the driver. We talk about the weather and not enough exercise. I dont mention Victor Jaras mutilated hands or men next door in exile or my own familys grief over the lost child. When I get off the bus I look back at the light in the windows and the heads bent and how the women are all alone in each seat framed in the windows and the men are coming home, then I see them walking on the Avenue, the beautiful feet, the perfect legs even with their spider veins, the broken knees with pins in them, the thighs with their cravings, the pelvis and small back with its soft down, the shoulders which bend forward and forward and forward to protect the heart from pain. 1988