Midsummer Night Itch

Mosquito is out,
it's the end of the day;
she's humming and hunting
her evening away.

Who knows why such hunger
arrives on such wings
at sundown? I guess
it's the nature of things.

N. M. Boedecker

Good Night

Many ways to say good night.

Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July
spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes.
They fizz in the air, touch the water and quit.
Rockets make a trajectory of gold-and-blue
and then go out.

Railroad trains at night spell with a smokestack mushrooming a white pillar.

Steamboats turn a curve in the Mississippi crying a baritone that crosses lowland cottonfields to razorback hill.

It is easy to spell good night.
Many ways to spell good night.

Carl Sandburg

April Rain Song

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

Langston Hughes

March

MARCH

Dear March, come in!
How glad I am!
I looked for you before.
Put down your hat-
You must have walked-
How out of breath you are!

Dear March, how are you?
And the rest?
Did you leave Nature well?
Oh, March, come right upstairs with me,
I have so much to tell.

by Emily Dickinson

Sonnets from the Portuguese IV

Sonnets from the Portuguese IV

If thou must love me
Let it be for naught except for love's sake only.
Do not say, "I love her for her smile--her look--her way of speaking gently--
For a trick of thought that falls in well with mine,
And certes brought a sense of pleasant ease on a such a day"--
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may be changed, or change for thee--and love,
So wrought may be unwrought so.
Neither love me for thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But Love me for love's sake, that evermore thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Best Thing in the World

The Best Thing in the World

What's the best thing in the world?

June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;

Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in hate to end;

Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till it's pride is over-plain;

Love, when, so, you're loved again.

What's the best thing in the world?
--Something out of it, I think.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning