“So little you understood. So little you still understand.” — Michael T. Lawson . . . This poem appeared in Baltimore Review, Summer 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Please: a word so short / it could get lost in the air” — Ellery Akers . . . This poem appeared in Practicing the Truth by Ellery Akers, published by Autumn House Press, 2015. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Our kids now see how hard it is for us / to know ourselves, not feeling what we feel.” — Joseph Chaney . . . This poem appeared in American Literary Review, Fall 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Someday, you say, you’ll be glass in a window / that looks across a landscape of wilderness” — Michael Hettich

“Maybe it's what we don't say / that saves us.” — Dorianne Laux  . . . This poem appeared in What We Carry by Dorianne Laux, published by BOA Editions, 1994. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“And he must have found a little window, / opened it – and shouted through it – / that saving sound that saved me.” — Pádraig Ó Tuama . . . This poem appeared in From Feed the Beast by Pádraig Ó Tuama, published by Broken Sleep Books, 2022. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“You have come so far / to love your little life so much / that you would not trade a single scar.” — Helen Meneilly . . . This poem appeared in Baltimore Review, 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Even pain you can take, in waves: / call the interval happiness.” — William Stafford

“Life / is nothing short of a miracle / that nobody sees” — Abdellatif Laâbi . . . This poem appeared in Beyond the Barbed Wire by Abdellatif Laâbi, translated by Andre Naffis- Sahely, published by Carcanet Press, 2016. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“The day, having lost / its train of thought, / clung to twilight / like a lamprey.” — John Minczeski . . . This poem appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Issue 48, 2024. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“looked in at / a mirror / in / me that / had a / weed in it” — A. R. Ammons . . . This poem appeared in Collected Poems: 1951-1971 by A. R. Ammons, published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Time is being and being / time, it is all one thing, / the shining, the seeing, / the dark abounding.” — Ursula K. Le Guin . . . This poem appeared in Late in the Day: Poems 2010-2014 by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by PM Press, 2015. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“If we're not supposed to dance, / Why all this music?” — Gregory Orr . . . This poem appeared in Concerning the Book That Is the Body Of the Beloved by Gregory Orr, published by Copper Canyon Press, 2005. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“In this world made up of hunger and of seeking / a quiet luck to see a bird for what it is.” — Tara Bray . . . This poem appeared in The Hudson Review, Summer Issue, 2015. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“When I see humans / I am crushed at how much / plastic makes walking stars.” — Gretchen Filart (@gretchenfilart.bsky.social) . . . This poem appeared in Petrichor, Ecopoetics Issue, 2023. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“We’ll float, / you said. Afterward / we’ll float between two worlds—" — Ellen Bryant Voigt . . . This poem appeared in Messenger: New and Selected Poems by Ellen Bryant Voigt, published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“…and still / you’d take me with you down into the earth, / give me more than my fair share of caterpillar.” — Julie Danho . . . This poem appeared in Bennington Review, Issue 5, 2018. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“When have I ever not loved / the pain of love?” — Derek Walcott . . . This poem appeared in Collected Poems: 1948-1984 by Derek Walcott, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986. Shared here with deep gratitude.

"There are no leaders who dare to say / every life is precious, so it will have to be us." — Aurora Levins Morales . . . This poem appeared in Ayin Press, 2023. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“running the world is / a round puddle / of sunless water / where small islands / are only beginning / to cope” — Audre Lorde . . . This poem appeared in The Black Unicorn by Audre Lorde, published by W. W. Norton & Company, 1978. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“And prayed for myself, which / is embarrassing to admit / in this day and age. But I did it.” — Gabrielle Calvocoressi . . . This poem appeared in Southern Indiana Review, Volume 23, No.1, published by University of Southern Indiana, 2016. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“We just won’t go extinct quickly enough.” — Mandy Shunnarah . . . This poem appeared in We Had Mansions by Mandy Shunnarah, published by Diode Editions, 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Out late was all he said. And then smiled, / rubbing the small of my back through the robe / for a while,” — James Crews . . . This poem appeared in Healing the Divide by James Crews, published by Green Writers Press, 2019. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“To kiss the lips is to drink water.” — Marina Tsvetaeva . . . This poem appeared in Words Without Borders, 2005. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“your shoulder blades will ache for want of wings.” — Nina Cassian . . . This poem appeared in the Call Yourself Alive by Nina Cassian, translated by Andrea Deletant & Brenda Walker, published by Dufour Editions, 1996. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“The world asks of us / only the strength we have and we give it. / Then it asks more, and we give it.” — Jane Hirshfield . . . This poem appeared in The October Palace by Jane Hirshfield, published by HarperCollins, 1994. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“This being human is a guest house. / Every morning a new arrival.” — Rumi . . . This poem appeared in Rumi: Selected Poems by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moynce, A. J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson, published by Penguin Classics, 2004. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“the enormous / hocus of your trembling pocus” — Chen Chen (@chenchenwrites.bsky.social) . . . This poem appeared in Split This Rock, 2023. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Whoever has no house now will establish none,” — Rainer Maria Rilke . . . This poem appeared in The Essential Rilke by Rainer Maria Rilke, published by Ecco, 1999. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“taste buds only live for two weeks, but that was before / I tasted the eternal language of home.” — Tiffany Aurelia . . . This poem appeared in West Trestle Review, 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“there god knew me not as a slave or fool / but crowned me son held me to her chest” — Saida Agostini . . . This poem appeared in Diode Poetry, Volume 17 Number 3, 2024. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Have you ever seen heaven? I asked. / From where, with whom?” — Yong-Yu Huang . . . This poem appeared in Muzzle Magazine, Spring 2025, Issue 36. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Nothing outside can cure you but everything's outside” — Bernadette Mayer  . . . This poem appeared in A Bernadette Mayer Reader by Bernadette Mayer, published by New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1992. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“The heart is watching Lifetime movies / and wishing, and missing all the good / parts of her that she has forgotten.” — Ada Limón . . . This poem appeared in Guernica, 2011. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Even a goose knows how to find / shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.” — Barbara Crooker . . . This poem appeared in Radiance by Barabara Crooker, published by Word Press, 2005. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“I saw the half-eaten / sandwich, / bread, / lettuce and salami, / all carrying the shape / of her bite.” — A. K. Ramanujam

“I opened my eyes then and got right up / and went back to being happy again. / I'm grateful to you, you see. I wanted to tell you.” — Raymond Carver . . . This poem appeared in Poetry Magazine, 1985. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“My God. How lucky to have lived / a life I would die for.” — Leila Chatti . . . This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day by the Academy of American Poets, 2023. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“The thing about instability is we rarely see it / coming.” — Rachelle Sierra . . . This poem appeared in Frozen Sea (@frozenseapoetry.bsky.social), Issue 6, 2024. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“we worry. this world can hurt / our heaviest leaden days; eyes wet with awe,” — Katia Engell . . . This poem appeared in Epiphany, Spring/Summer Issue, 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“I am / not ready to hatch. Teach me / to harden in the air” — Dominique Ahkong (@domkeykong.bsky.social) . . . This poem appeared in Pirene’s Fountain Volume 18, Issue 26, 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“After it was done, I couldn’t go back to my life. You understand, right? It wasn’t the same.” — Ada Limón . . . This poem appeared in Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón, published by Milkweed Editions, 2015. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“That perhaps our / universe exists as one fabric weaved / into a shirt and our beyond just wool.” — Emily M. Goldsmith . . . This poem appeared in Vagabond City Literary Journal, 2020. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“If I am killed / for simply living, / let death be kinder / than man.” — Althea Davis

“How many of my brothers and my sisters / will they kill / before I teach myself / retaliation?” — June Jordan

“A blot / Of blood, about the size of the sun / Or my thumb. It was ages ago. / I can still hear it.” — Omar Sakr (@omarsakr.bsky.social) . . . This poem appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, 2024. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“In violence / there is no reciprocity / like rain on soil” — Simon Shieh (@simonshieh.bsky.social) . . . This poem appeared in The Missouri Review, 2020. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“you told me there’s no application form that can hold / the entirety of a life, because our days constantly spill like wine.” — Ae Hee Lee (@aeheelee.bsky.social) . . . This poem appeared in POETRY Magazine, 2023. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“But tonight he is alive and in the north / field with his mother.” — Laura Gilpin . . . This poem appeared in The Hocus Pocus of the Universe by Laura Gilpin, published by Doubleday (@doubledaybooks.bsky.social), 1977. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park. / This is peace and contentment. It’s new.” — Wendy Cope . . . This poem appeared in Serious Concerns by Wendy Cope, published by Faber and Faber, 1992. Shared here with deep gratitude.