Murex-dyes and tinsel–
And yet I think I could bear your beauty unshaded.

In our weekly “Poetry Pairing” series we collaborate with the Poetry Foundation to feature a work from its American Life in Poetry project alongside content from The Times that somehow echoes, extends or challenges the poem’s themes.

Check out the New York Times “Poetry Pairings” series here.

I know that my grief
will not stop the green.
The grass blade my bend
but only in the wind.

It doesn’t pain me to see
that clumps of alders above the water
have something to rustle with again.

I take note of the fact
that the shore of a certain lake
is still—as if you were living—
as lovely as before.

I don’t resent
the view for its vista
of a sun-dazzled bay.

I am even able to imagine
some non-us
sitting at this minute
on a fallen birch trunk.

I respect their right
to whisper, laugh,
and lapse into happy silence.

I can even allow
that they are bound by love
and that he holds her
with a living arm.

Something freshly birdish
starts rustling in the reeds.
I sincerely want them
to hear it.

I don’t require changes
from the surf,
now diligent, now sluggish,
obeying not me.

I expect nothing
from the depths near the woods,
first emerald,
then sapphire,
then black.

There’s one thing I won’t agree to:
my own return.
The privilege of presence—
I give it up.

I survived you by enough,
and only by enough,
to contemplate from afar.

……………

Wislawa Szymborska

Strand’s poem, a prose poem, leverages mystery over logic and, appropriately, is written as a prose poem. Read the poem here.

browsing moose calves’
golden blond gambol
splay, unravel.

Frayed filaments
nipped then swallowed
travel now, transformed,

gangly moose muscle.
Bog weeds soon to be
fast under ice

ripple, sway.
Our flesh past its prime,
unsteady, quickens.

Blue blaze–
beyond any map.
More than one life–

time’s gash, white bark
barked, love’s deep
continent not yet

surveyed. One breath,
two. Fresh snow in the air,
not fallen.

…………………

Peggy Shumaker, Alaska State Writer Laureate. Visit Peggy’s website for more info and poems.

“To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
- Nike Mission Statement

My mission is to be a unique driving experience.
My mission is to be putty in your hands.
My mission is to be your favorite pair of jeans.
My mission is to whisper in your ear in
Several pre-selected Romance languages. To star
In a movie that takes Sundance by storm.
(I hope Penelope Cruz will be in it
Even though she will contractually throw pans
Of ink on my head and shoot me colorfully
With a sleepy pistol and make her lips do that
Pouty thing upon which we can hang
The Collected Works of Henry James.)
Which reminds me. My mission is
to rewrite the dull parts of the Kama Sutra.
Because, listen, people! What’s a man without a dream?
I say he’s calamari soup. I say he’s a man without
A mission statement. This is why my mission
Is to be a global partner and a preferred
Provider. to serve nutritious food to
A hungry world. To leave it all on the field,
To go hard when coach calls my number.
My mission is to write one thing you must
Slip under your pillow. My mission is:
Be the pillow. My mission is: Be the night.
My mission is to bring inspiration and innovation
To every recluse in town, to every jaw-dropping
Wearer of a white mini, to every captain of
A space station, to every radio listener too shy
To call in, to even the stranger who left a nice note
On my windshield that time. To you, in especial.
My mission is to be in business for eternity.

……………

Joseph Di Prisco. Zyzzyva. Vol. XXVII, No. 3, Winter 2011.

Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the muse,
       I say the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

……………

Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Leaves of Grass.

like airplane aisle lights. How pretty! Don’t you
want to pick bunches and bunches and bring them
home? A swell of roadside by my house
yellows with them now, excessive petals
turning to excessive seed. Curbside,

I’m glad they are not lawn. But they’ll invade
this meadow, push out with brash cheer
forget-me-not and wooly lousewort. I want
to reconcile them, but I can’t. I hiked up
to see anemones and saxifrage, to get away

from landscaping and what landscaping
weeds out. I think of how they arrived, seeds
embedded in boot-dirt, stuck to our socks and the fur
of our dogs. Praise their tenacity, says Amy.
But she’s just arguing a point. None of us

is glad they’ve hitched a ride up here.
None of us knows how to accept
the way love changes what it’s drawn to
–smudging self across what’s seen–
when what thrilled us first was difference.

……………

Elizabeth Bradfield. Interpretive Work: Poems. Arktoi Books. 2008.

one summer day
soldiers drove through the village in open trucks
throwing chewing gum to us

one summer day
the lighthousekeeper sat down drunk to dinner
swallowed a piece too big and choked to death

and meanwhile
a pallid yellow youthful dream
grew a head of seeds and blew away

…………………

Arni Ibsen (1948). A Different Silence: Selected Poems. Translated by Arni Ibsen and Petur Knutsson. Routledge; Har/Com edition. 2000.

       I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking
among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
       I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops?
What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
       I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you,
and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
       We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy
tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the
cashier.

       Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in a hour.
Which way does your beard point tonight?
       (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and
feel absurd.)
       Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade
to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely.
       Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automo-
biles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
       Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America
did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a
smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of
Lethe?

……………

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). Berkeley 1955. Hear this poem on the Academy of American Poets website.