It's a great dilemma, right?
I plan to wear as many pockets as I can on Poem in Your Pocket Day, Thursday, April 26th, that way I can carry as many of my favorite poems as possible. :) :) :)
Let's see, what to wear....
- blue jeans - four pockets
- oxford shirt - two pockets
- blazer - two pockets
- socks* - two pockets
*If a sock can be a pocket for your toes, I am sure it can be a good pocket for a poem!
Here are some I am considering...
1. Rice Pudding
A.A. Milne
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She’s crying with all her might and main,
And she won’t eat her dinner—rice pudding again—
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
I’ve promised her dolls and a daisy-chain,
And a book about animals—all in vain—
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She’s perfectly well, and she hasn’t a pain;
But, look at her, now she’s beginning again!
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
I’ve promised her sweets and a ride in the train,
And I’ve begged her to stop for a bit and explain—
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She’s perfectly well, and she hasn’t a pain,
And it’s lovely rice pudding for dinner again!—
What is the matter with Mary Jane?
2. Courage
Naomi Shihab Nye
A word must
travel through
a tongue and teeth
and wide air
to get there.
A word has
tough skin.
To be let in,
a word must slide
and sneak
and spin
into the tunnel
of the
ear.
What's to fear?
Everything.
But a word
is
brave.
3. Buckingham Palace
A.A. Milne
They're changing guard at Buckingham
Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with
Alice.
Alice is marrying one of the guard.
"A soldier's life is terribly
hard,"
Says Alice.
They're changing guard at Buckingham
Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with
Alice.
We saw a guard in a sentry-box.
"One of the sergeants looks
after their socks,"
Says Alice.
They're changing
guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with
Alice.
We looked for the King but he never
came.
"Well, God take care of him,
all the same,"
Says Alice.
They're changing
guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with
Alice.
They've great big parties inside
the grounds.
"I wouldn't be King for a hundred
pounds,"
Says Alice.
They're changing
guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with
Alice.
A face looked out, but it wasn't
the King's.
"He's much too busy a-signing
things,"
Says Alice.
They're changing
guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with
Alice.
"Do you think the King knows
all about me?"
"Sure to, dear, but it's time
for tea,"
Says Alice
4. Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Hear it read.
5. "Hope" is the thing with feathers
Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
See it signed and hear it read.
6. He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
William Butler Yeats
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
7. From Blossoms
Li-Young Lee
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted peaches.
From laden boughs, form hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry it within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade, not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom
to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible dream.
The books have been read. 
