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[ poems by William Stafford, David Radavich, Robert Morgan,
Lenard Moore, Robert Frost, Tori Reynolds ]
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Ask Me
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Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt—ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
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I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
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William Stafford
selected by David Radavich
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“Ask Me” by William Stafford is one of my all-time favorites. It is profound in thought and feeling, but I also admire the great artistry of how Stafford employs sound, line breaks, punctuation, and rhetorical balance to achieve what for me is a masterpiece. If I could ever write a poem this good, I should die happy!
— David
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❀
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February
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They call this apple tree “wild.”
And so it bends over the road
like an umbrella or saint
beginning to pray. Always
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among the first to bloom—
no fruit, it is wild, remember?—
reminding others of their coming
obligations, soon or later
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and then maybe more
glorious for the waiting.
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Every year it is a surprise
beside the road, every year
a bit taller, more redolent
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so even a cynic tired of cold
cocks an eye and writes
a poem about being ready.
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David Radavich
first published in The Raven’s Perch
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❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
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Ironweed
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There is a shade of purple in
this flower near summer’s end that makes
you proud to be alive in such
a world, and thrilled to know the gift
of sight. It seems a color sent
from memory or dream. In fields,
along old trails, at pasture edge,
the ironweed bares its vivid tint,
profoundest violet, a note
from farthest star and deepest time,
the glow of sacred royalty
and timbre of eternity
right here beside a dried-up stream.
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Robert Morgan
from Terroir, Penguin (2011)
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I’ve always been in awe of the dark purple flower often found along the edges of fields and woods. When we lived near Hendersonville in 1970-71 there was a meadow along a branch where many ironweeds thrived. In late summer I walked out there almost every day to enjoy the temporary presence of those special flowers. In many ways that was a tough time of unemployment, but those flowers made a day seem better.
— Robert
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❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
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Resurrection Sunday, Early Dinner
April 5, 2026
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We sit at the long table,
anticipating the spicy broth
where we place bok choy,
broccoli, mala, cauliflower, sliced potatoes,
barramundi fish, shaved chicken, fresh eggs,
king trumpet mushrooms, water crest,
La Mian noodles.
All the while I look into my date’s
pearly eyes and imagine our future.
I love that she’s God-fearing
and glimpse the crucifix glinting gold
and gathering silence like an Easter lily.
How I glance at her peach-tinted lips.
Did I tell you that I know their softness,
their sweetness that keeps me longing her
like a sparrow longs for a mate
on a powerline? Did I tell you
that she’s more beautiful than a mimosa,
dogwood, Bradford pear, or cherry blossoms?
We dab our lips with napkins as white
as the cloud-puffs lingering like light.
We leave like lovers that we are,
hungrily holding hands.
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Lenard D. Moore
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I love nature so much. As you know, I have written haiku, tanka, and other Japanese short-form poetry for decades. Haiku especially lead me on a ginko (haiku walk). In short, I love nature walks. In fact, I have also written free verse poems about the natural work, such as the one I am sending, due to the invitation. My Easter Sunday date also loves nature. Thus, I hope the poem speaks for itself. With gratitude!
Blessings — L
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❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
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Two Look at Two
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Love and forgetting might have carried them
A little farther up the mountain side
With night so near, but not much further up.
They must have halted soon in any case
With thoughts of the path back, how rough it was
With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness;
When they were halted by a tumbled wall
With barbed-wire binding. They stood facing this,
Spending what onward impulse they still had
In one last look the way they must not go,
On up the failing path, where, if a stone
Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;
No footstep moved it. “This is all,” they sighed,
“Good-night to woods.” But not so; there was more.
A doe from round a spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall, as near the wall as they.
She saw them in their field, they in hers.
The difficult of seeing what stood still,
Like some up-ended boulder split in two,
Was in her clouded eyes: they saw no fear there.
She seemed to think that, two thus, they were safe.
Then, as if they were something that, though strange,
She could not trouble her mind with too long,
She sighed and passed unscared along the wall.
“This, then, is all. What more is there to ask?”
But no, not yet. A snort to bid them wait.
A buck from round the spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall as near the wall as they.
This was an antlered buck of lusty nostril,
Not the same doe come back into her place.
He viewed them quizzically with jerks of head,
As if to ask, “Why don’t you make some motion?
Or give some sign of life? Because you can’t.
I doubt if you’re as living as you look.”
Thus till he had them almost feeling dared
To stretch a proffering hand –– and a spell-breaking.
Then too passed unscared along the wall.
Two had seen two, whichever side you spoke from.
“This must be all.’” It was all. Still, they stood,
A great wave of it going over them,
As if the earth, in one unlooked-for favor
Had made them certain earth returned their love.
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Robert Frost
selected by Tori Reynolds
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I first encountered Robert Frost’s “Two Look at Two” as a teenager. I lived in Frost’s New England and was an avid horseback rider who spent hours roaming the fields and orchards. I was truly, for the hours I was on my horse, not a single being but a “two” — connected to another being with all the intimacy and fraught tensions of any couple. So, I felt a visceral connection to the idea of “two” proceeding through the landscape that Frost was describing. Wherever I went, I, too, had seen the mark of humans (..,a tumbled wall/With barbed-wire binding) and the mysterious movements of nature (…if a stone/Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;). I always felt it a privilege to move among and within such mysteries.
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As a young person more comfortable communicating with horses then with words, I had not yet understood the power of language. Until I read this poem, I hadn’t known that someone else understood the experience of seeing and being seen by nature the way I felt I was when I was out riding my horse. Two had seen two, whichever side you spoke from, perfectly describes how it felt to have Frost stretch a proffering hand –– to me. His “spell breaking” became a sudden apprehension: poetry could be as powerful a connection to nature as nature itself.
— Tori
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✾
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Dear Tulip Tree Silk Moth
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Dear tulip tree silk moth,
dear skunk cabbage,
trout lily, beaver, and
pure green sweat bee,
dear white pine, dear white tail
and yellow-rumped warbler,
dear red clay, granite,
Neuse and Swift Creek,
dear silent breath of the Tuscarora,
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you live and die at the confluence
of human and bulldozer,
humans with our cars and pesticides,
our maps and fences, our wars,
and our crushing booted steps.
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At the confluence of the Deep and Rocky rivers,
you show us how to live
by floating, flying, sprouting, swimming–
you sprout, swim, rest, dash, nest,
pool, chirp, screech, stand tall,
rot, collapse and fall –
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while we tromp, we bike and scramble
over rocky scree, put binoculars to our eyes,
ooh and ah – do you see the green heron
at the edge of Brumley pond?
place a finger to our lips, shush –
can you hear the peepers’ chorus
in the Horton Grove lowlands?
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So, may we steward
by raising our picks, chop and clip
the kudzu vines and stilt-grass invasives,
then gather the welcome walnuts,
and drink its bittersweet beer together.
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May we learn to re-wild
our science, our understanding
and even our minds.
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May we name
all that’s lost, cleared, disappeared –
then walk to the center of the labyrinth
and look beyond its borders –
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as we unwind our worries
with committed steps,
dogged daily steps,
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towards the morning
when we raise our eyes
to search for the downy woodpecker
in the loblolly, listen to the tap tap tap
of its persistent question,
how? how? how?
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and answer with the YES
of the spring winds bending the little bluestem
in the meadows.
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Dear people,
dear scientists
dear creators and clerks
workhorses and mourners,
neighbors, friends, benefactors
– stewards all –
of this copious, generous, generative,
disappearing land –
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We find ourselves here
on the bridge between
storm and flood,
in the promise
of blue skies and drought,
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to safeguard the fragile hives we tend,
to celebrate the honeyed-habitats we defend.
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Tori Reynolds
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I was asked to write a poem for the Triangle Land Conservancy gala this past February. This poem was the result. Since it was originally written for a specific audience and to be read aloud, I’ve revised it somewhat make it readable on the page. My hope is that it still rings with my reverence for the Piedmont area of NC and calls us to look closely and love the places we live.
— Tori
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❀ ✿ ✾ ❁
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There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.
— Albert Einstein
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I had been fooling myself that I was the only teacher. The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness. Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
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Thank you for celebrating the month of April with International Earth Day (April 22) and National Poetry Month. And thank you, Readers, who have shared poems that connect us to our planet and each other. We will continue posting EARTH POETRY throughout the month of April – and beyond, of course, since EVERY DAY is EARTH DAY!
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Thanks again for joining the conversation.
. — Bill
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