I, with an easy hunger, take entire my season’s dole; welcome the ripe, the sweet, the sour, the hollow and the whole.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.

Your voice, with clear location of June days, Called me outside the window. You were there, Light yet composed, as in the just soft stare Of uncontested summer.

May your lives be uneclipsed, your failures be passing. May you have your portions of beauty, of grief, in a garden whose plants and birds I cannot imagine.

The windows of a classroom always open to the future, but in our innocence we thought it was only landscape we were seeing from the window.

And with the flag flashing high in the sun, Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels Which their unfaltering valor has won. 

Let us have no goodbyes, Rather, bow down your head, Look in my eyes, Take what you see there with you, And no word said. 

What do you want me to do To do for you to see you through? A box of rain will ease the pain And love will see you through.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows.

Praise the mutilated world and the gray feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how except in the minds of those who will call it Now?

I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

April golden, April cloudy, Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy; April soft in flowered languor, April cold with sudden anger, Ever changing, ever true.

I like to think it matters to the lilac that my face is thrust into its gloss of heaven, and that, shone upon, I am persuaded once again, that bliss is not imaginary. 

The very weaknesses of human nature are what make it so important that we keep a constantly watchful eye on our government.

I feel my life start up again, like a cutting when it grows, the first pale and tentative root hair, in a glass of water.

I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling fingertips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. 

To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live.

At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.

Someone leans near And sees the salt your eyes have shed. You wait, longing to hear Words of reason, love or play To lash or lull you toward the hollow day.