Day 160 | blessing the boats by Lucille Clifton

blessing the boats
Lucille Clifton

                                    (at St. Mary’s)

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back     may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

Day 154 | Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti

Up-Hill
Christina Rossetti

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

   Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

   From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?

   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

May not the darkness hide it from my face?

   You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

   Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?

   They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

   Of labour you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

   Yea, beds for all who come.

Day 153 | What I Know About Epistemology by John Surowiecki

What I Know About Epistemology
John Surowiecki

As the light goes, go.

Be the rustling in the grass, the fall from

convention’s good graces: learn, or someone

will have you filing files or writing writs,

demonstrating cutlery or selling knowledge

door to door; someone might even drop

your lovely life into a factory and have you

derusting rings on the coolant-spouting

turntable of a vertical lathe.

It’s best for everyone that what you know

is generally thought of as general knowledge.

You can find it in pool rooms and roadside bars,

in meadows as inviting as beds, in bedrooms

where it whispers like a ribbon untying;

you can even find it in schools. But be careful:

it’s dangerous, inescapable and exact

down to every atom of everything there is,

to every name each thing goes by and every

law each thing obeys. And the best part is,

you always know more than you know.

Day 35 | Having My Cards Read by W. S. Di Piero

Day 61 | Having My Cards Read by W. S. Di Piero

Day 103 | To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

   Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

   The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

   And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

   When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

   And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

   You may forever tarry.

Day 97 | Having My Cards Read by W. S. Di Piero

Day 61 | Having My Cards Read by W. S. Di Piero.

Day 84 | Having My Cards Read by W. S. Di Piero

Day 61 | Having My Cards Read by W. S. Di Piero.

Day 103 | He Had His Dream by Paul Laurence Dunbar

He Had His Dream
Paul Laurence Dunbar

He had his dream, and all through life,
Worked up to it through toil and strife.
Afloat fore’er before his eyes,
It colored for him all his skies:
The storm-cloud dark
Above his bark,
The calm and listless vault of blue
Took on its hopeful hue,
It tinctured every passing beam —
He had his dream.

He labored hard and failed at last,
His sails too weak to bear the blast,
The raging tempests tore away
And sent his beating bark astray.
But what cared he
For wind or sea!
He said, “The tempest will be short,
My bark will come to port.”
He saw through every cloud a gleam —
He had his dream.

Day 61 | Having My Cards Read by W. S. Di Piero

Having My Cards Read
W. S. Di Piero

Hobos wail a garbage can against

the cyclone links. The monkey puzzle tree

droops its scaly tails above our heads

as she sets up near the zoo’s bonobos,

humping happy in their cages close

to chimps ripping off each other’s ears.

And in the cloud reposing on the sky,

cut by an F22’s long hookah puffs,

the cyan atmospherics rupture into

solarized platelets: her Ray-Bans foil

my own face back at me:

                                  A time of renewals

            though somewhere

                         dark cold woe

                                   You won’t know what’s what

Comes a taste of sea to make her pause,

and marine gusts slice and spook her cards, my cards,

that flurry to the sidewalk, near the barred gate,

breaking fortune down faster as she speaks.