Journal
Morning Poems
Every morning at eight, a poem lands in my texts, chosen against whatever I am carrying that week. Most are good. A few are mine the second I read them. This page keeps the whole run, and pulls the keepers out of the stream.
The keepers
Day 17 · July 26
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too. I’m going out to fetch the little calfThat’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,It totters when she licks it with her tongue.I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.
Robert Frost, The Pasture · 1914 · public domain
What I texted back
“i loveeeeeeeeee this poem ... its me. i feel seen i feel cute i feel loved.”
A poem earns this section by getting a real reaction out of me before 9am. The bar is not quality. The bar is recognition.
The run · 17 mornings
Titles and poets only; the poems themselves stay in my texts unless they are keepers in the public domain.
Day 17The Pasture · Robert Frost, 1914Keeper
Day 16Ithaka · C. P. Cavafy, 1911
Day 15Eternity · William Blake, c. 1793
Day 14On First Looking into Chapman's Homer · John Keats, 1816
Day 13Hope · Emily Bronte, 1846
Day 12Come, come, whoever you are (quatrain, attributed) · Rumi (Jalal al-Din Rumi), 13th c.
Day 11Sonnet 43 (How Do I Love Thee), Sonnets from the Portuguese · Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850
Day 10Este que ves, engaño colorido (Soneto 145) · Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, 1689
Day 9When You Are Old · W. B. Yeats, 1893
Day 8Liebes-Lied (Love Song) · Rainer Maria Rilke, 1907
Day 7Up-Hill · Christina Rossetti, 1861
Day 6Gitanjali (Song Offerings), poem 1 · Rabindranath Tagore, 1912
Day 5Song of Myself (section 51) · Walt Whitman, 1855
Day 4Proverbios y cantares XXIX (Caminante, no hay camino) · Antonio Machado, 1912
Day 3Pied Beauty · Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877
Day 2We never know how high we are · Emily Dickinson, 1896
Day 1Peace · Sara Teasdale, 1915