December 15, 2023

little tree little silent Christmas tree you are so little you are more like a flower who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away?

—e.e. cummings


December 8, 2023

Light the first of eight tonight — The farthest candle to the right. Light the first and second, too, When tomorrow’s day is through.

—Aileen Fisher


December 1, 2023

Come, come thou bleak December wind, And blow the dry leaves from the tree! Flash, like a Love-thought, thro’me, Death And take a Life that wearies me.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge


November 24, 2023

And so the theme should swell and grow As weeks and months pass o’er us, And rise sublime at this good time, A grand Thanksgiving chorus.

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox


November 17, 2023

The ground is hard, As hard as stone. The year is old, The birds are flown. And yet the world, In its distress, Displays a certain Loveliness.

—John Updike


November 10, 2023

Dead leaves danced in spiral whirls under naked trees, till the wind, sighing profoundly, laid them to rest in the hollows of bare valleys.

—Joseph Conrad


November 3, 2023

With night coming early, And dawn coming late, And ice in the bucket And frost by the gate. The fires burn And the kettles sing, And earth sinks to rest Until next spring.

—Elizabeth Coatsworth


October 27, 2023

On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to the harvest moon.

—Carl Sandburg


October 20, 2023

We’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends.

—Shel Silverstein


October 13, 2023

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne


October 6, 2023

It’s a natural thing for women to lead . . . Same thing with most Native American tribes. You didn’t see the women or hear them, but they ruled the tribe.

—Gladys Widdiss


September 29, 2023

But there’s a full moon rising Let’s go dancing in the light We know where the music’s playing Let’s go out and feel the night.

—Neil Young


September 22, 2023

Although it is a cold evening, Down by one of the fishhouses An old man sits netting, His net, in the gloaming almost invisible.

—Elizabeth Bishop


September 15, 2023

The mist has left the greening plain, The dew-drops shine like fairy rain, The coquette rose awakes again Her lovely self adorning.

—Paul Laurence Dunbar


September 8, 2023

Don’t tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

—Mark Twain


September 1, 2023

Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn — An early warning of the end of summer. August is fading fast, and by September The little purple flowers will all be gone.

—Rachel Hadas


August 25, 2023

The day, immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills and the warm wide fields. To have lived through all its sunny hours seems longevity enough.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson


August 18, 2023

Forget there are any political rings Just think of the butter and eggs and things; So wash off the buggy and hitch up the mare, And we’ll all go out to the county fair.

—Edwin C. Ranck


August 11, 2023

The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on melons, as I pass, Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

—Andrew Marvell


August 4, 2023

The sea froths white In the beach grass, Piling the wet sand Into dunes, Covering the land My father used to mow.

 

—Dionis Coffin Riggs


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