August 25, 2017

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, And here on earth come emulating flies, That though they never equal stars in size, (And they were never really stars at heart.)

—Robert Frost


August 18, 2017

The stillness of the cup and the water in it, The silence of the moon And the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

—Billy Collins


August 11, 2017

In the dog days of summer as muslin curls on its own heat And crickets cry in the black walnut tree The wind lifts up my life And sets it some distance from where it was.

—Meena Alexander


August 4, 2017

If sky and ocean had the means To pool their very bluest genes, Their brightest babies, one assumes, Would look like bachelor-button blooms.

—D.A.W.


July 28, 2017

But happiness floats. It doesn’t need you to hold it down. It doesn’t need anything. Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing, and disappears when it wants to.

—Naomi Shihab Nye


July 21, 2017

And now the crickets plug in their appliances in unison, and then the fireflies flash dots and dashes in the grass, like punctuation.

—Tony Hoagland


July 14, 2017

Sea’s stony greenblue shatters to white In a running swell under noonsky of cloudlight Where on a foamed-over cropping of rock A band of oystercatchers faces all one way.

—Eamon Grennan


July 7, 2017

The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me.

—James Russell Lowell


June 30, 2017

All these sounds and sights of water Are a symphony to me — A voice that still reminds me I’m adrift without the sea.

—Conrad Neumann


June 23, 2017

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip — Builders of life’s companionship! Oh, I envy them, as I see them there Under the sky in the open air.

—Edgar Guest


June 16, 2017

And if you voz to see my roziz As is a boon to all men’s noziz, — You’d fall upon your back and scream — O Lawk! O criky! it’s a dream!

—Edward Lear


June 9, 2017

This walking on and on, This going and coming — This morning shines such lovely light on all of us We're home.

—Robert Creeley


June 2, 2017

Ten o’clock: the broken moon Hangs not yet a half hour high, Yellow as a shield of brass, In the dewy air of June, Poised between the vaulted sky And the ocean’s liquid glass.

—Emma Lazarus


May 26, 2017

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep! The thoughts of men shall be As sentinels to keep Your rest from danger free.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


May 19, 2017

Among your heart-shaped leaves Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing Their little weak soft songs; In the crooks of your branches.

—Amy Lowell


May 12, 2017

The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of “Mother”.

—Edgar Allen Poe


May 5, 2017

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now, It’s just a spring clean for the May queen.

—Led Zeppelin


April 28, 2017

Hark, I hear a robin calling! List, the wind is from the south! And the orchard-bloom is falling Sweet as kisses on the mouth.

—L.M. Montgomery


April 21, 2017

Keep close to Nature's heart . . . and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

—John Muir


April 14, 2017

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt


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