Until further notice Poetry Daily will devote Wednesdays to What Keeps Us, an impromptu series featuring poems that sustain and uplift through trying times. We thank you for reading and hope that you will share poems with your friends and neighbors. Please be well.
Clara strolled in the garden with the children. The sky was green over the grass, the water was golden under the bridges, other elements were blue and rose and orange, a policeman smiled, bicycles passed, a girl stepped onto the lawn to catch a bird, the whole world—Germany, China—all was quiet around Clara.
The children looked at the sky: it was not forbidden. Mouth, nose, eyes were open. There was no danger. What Clara feared were the flu, the heat, the insects. Clara feared missing the eleven o'clock trolley: She waited for letters slow to arrive, She couldn't always wear a new dress. But she strolled in the garden, in the morning! They had gardens, they had mornings in those days!
Nate Marshall has just published a new collection of poems, Finna. He told interviewer Scott Simon, "It's this thing that is informed by history, but that is all about looking forward, all about possibility. That's sort of what I hope the poems do....they sort of wrestle with history, but also look forward."
Poetry Daily stands with the Black community. We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality. We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world. Black Lives Matter.
The island I called Hag Island in this poem isn’t, after the ten or so years since I wrote 'Local History,' an island anymore, not even at full high tide. What was island has become something more like a hump in the marsh. The salt brook that runs through has shallowed out and shifted. Everyday erosion and hurricane winds will do that."
