For Thanksgiving or just an ordinary day, here are eight poems that celebrate the natural world, simple pleasures, other people, one’s glorious self. All free for downloading.
“This Morning,” Raymond Carver
This morning was something. A little snow
lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear
blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green,
as far as the eye could see.
About this poem, Jericho Brown says: “I wrote “Crossing” in the midst of a depressive state about which I have a great deal of unnecessary and misplaced shame. That shame has to do with the fact that I’m a person who understands the power of gratitude.”
“The World Has Need of You,” Ellen Bass
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
“The Failure of Navigation in the Valley,” Kazim Ali
No body is fixed in position no one can be known
Still I am read by satellites my tendency extrapolated
A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
“Ode to Sleeping in My Clothes,” Ross Gay
it is, in fact,
a great source of happiness,
“Psalm for Riding a Plane,” Mary Karr
Tonight this silver plane is permitted
to bear me in its belly through a black wipe of sky.
“Do you find it hard to live?,” Harmony Holiday
I mean to really live? Kick a spook in the stomach and commit to
yourself and not be committed.
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