Gifts of our Time

*

Our Time

Robert Frost wrote "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
in the middle of a searing hot July.

Maybe he needed a chill, the silence
of frozen trees, to keep the air moving

in his mind. So many readers have considered
his two roads of another poem,

but maybe sweating Mr. Frost invoking frost,
his secret quirky inversion, matters more.

We grew up proud of our country.
Forests of wonderful words to wander through --

freedom indivisible,
Now my horse is lost in a sheen of lies.

The world is lovely, dark, and deep.
We honor others as they sleep.

As they wake and as they sleep.


Fresh

To move
cleanly.
Needing to be
nowhere else.
wanting nothing
from any store.
To lift something
you already had
and set it down in
a new place.
Awakened eye
seeing freshly.
What does that do to
the old blood moving through
its channels.

©Naomi Shihab Nye 2005

Naomi Shihab Nye is San Antonio's most celebrated poetess. She was selected by Texas Monthly Magazine as one of the "20 most impressive, intriguing and influential Texans" for 1998. Recently, her poetry has attracted the attention of Bill Moyers, whose PBS segment on living American poets featured Nye reading some of her poems. In 2002 Moyers interviewed her on his PBS program NOW and had her read his favorite poem of hers, "The Art of Disappearing."

I start the waxing sun

with hope and love,

and the deep knowing,

that peace is our nature,

and that the gift of time

is the true sacred mystery.



SB will be back after the holidays.

Art courtesy of Helmut Barnett

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