The Pitt Poetry Series in one of the best in the country. Today I found two books from it. From each poet, I had read just a few poems prior. Each book is overflowing with goodness.
The Leaky Faucet
All through the night, the leaky faucet
searches the stillness of the house
wit its radar blip: who is awake?
Who lies out there as full of worry
as a pan in the sink? Cheer up,
cheer up, the little faucet calls,
someone will help you through your life.
--Ted Kooser
The Origin of Tears
You're about to speak
and they take you
by surprise, little natives
beating drums in your throat.
A music the body listens to.
They push the lump from its
familiar cave, and your chest
aches with loosened rock.
Now your face melts, a child face,
boneless again in a landscape that blurs
to the salt water the world
once was, and your body cracks
into islands and fish and
bottomless space that somehow
does not fly apart.
The bird inside you screams.
You don't make a sound. Grief,
dreaming among the fallen trees,
answers, suddenly light on his feet--
He seizes your dry
pod of a heart, summons
voice after voice you never use,
and now you are dancing, unable
to return to your country, hostage
until he has finished dance after dance
with you, over white-hot words
you couldn't say when you first
learned to talk.
--Leslie Ullman
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