DAY THIRTY-ONE:
(destination: Final Woods Walk of 2006)

DAY THIRTY

DAY TWENTY-NINE

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT:
(poetry)





Miracle Fair
by Wislawa Szymborska

The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.

The usual miracle:
invisible dogs barking
in the dead of night.

One of many miracles:
a small and airy cloud
is able to upstage the massive moon.

Several miracles in one:
an alder is reflected in the water
and is reversed from left to right
and grows from crown to root
and never hits bottom
though the water isn't deep.

A run-of-the-mill miracle:
winds mild to moderate
turning gusty in storms.

A miracle in the first place:
cows will be cows.

Next but not least:
just this cherry orchard
from just this cherry pit.

A miracle minus top hat and tails:
fluttering white doves.

A miracle (what else can you call it):
the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m.
and will set tonight at one past eight.

A miracle that's lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it's got more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.

An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.

--from The People on the Bridge, 1986--

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

DAY TWENTY-SIX

DAY TWENTY-FIVE

DAY TWENTY-FOUR

DAY TWENTY-THREE

DAY TWENTY-TWO

DAY TWENTY-ONE
(poetry)



Night Letter to the Reader
by Billy Collins

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,
a bird leaving its nest,
a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,
an ordinary insomniac
amid the growth systems of garden and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking
about something I heard at a party,
about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,
but as it is, I am simply conscious,
an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidity
of the night and the slight zephyrs
that stir the tops of the trees.

The dog has followed me out
and stands a little ahead,
her nose lifted as if she were inhaling,

the tall white flowers,
visible tonight in the darkened garden,
and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light
in the windowpanes of the house,
but now I am wondering if you are even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things
that will never make a difference,
flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

But this is all I want to do--
tell you that up in the woods
a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,
and that at one point, the moon,
looking like the top of Shakespeare's

famous forehead,
appeared, quite unexpectedly,
illuminating a band of moving clouds.

--2002--

DAY TWENTY

DAY NINETEEN:
(red 3)

DAY EIGHTEEN

DAY SEVENTEEN:
(anticipation)

DAY SIXTEEN

DAY FIFTEEN

DAY FOURTEEN:
(found poetry)



(Closed Couplet)



(the Beats)



(Line)




(Foot)



(Broken Rhyme)



(Coda)