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Writer's pictureMaria Crean

My Favourite Poems

Updated: Apr 2, 2020


'FINE'


and she says, 'hey, how u doing?'

and I smile 'fine' into the phone

if she'd skype, I'd not have answered

cos then she would have known

that I am lying on my bedroom floor

a starfish on a rug

glass of wine, stinging eyes

desperate for a hug

that I worry I'm not coping

that I feel like throwing up

that I cannot keep up with my work

that I'm frightened when it's night


I ask her how she's doing

'oh,' she says, 'I'm fine'



Wendell Berry

'Stay Home'


I will wait here in the fields

to see how well the rain

brings on the grass

In the labor of the fields

longer than a man's life

I am at home. Don't come with me.

You stay home too.


I will be standing in the woods

where the old trees

move only with the wind

and then with gravity.

In the stillness of the trees

I am at home. Don't come with me.

You stay home too.


Carol Ann Duffy

"The Woman in The Moon"


Darlings, I write to you from the moon

Where I hide behind famous light

How could you think it ever a man up here?

A cow jumped over. The dish ran away with


The spoon. What reached me were your joys, griefs

Here’s-the-craic, losses, longings, your lives

Brief, mine long, a talented lonlieness. I must have

A thousand names for the earth, my blue vocation.


Round I go, the moon a diet of light, sliver of pear

Wedge of lemon, slice of melon, half an orange,

Silver onion; your human sound falling through space,

Childbirth’s song, the lovers song, the song of death.


Devoted as words to things, I gaze, gawp, glare; deserts

Where forests were, sick seas. When night comes,

I see you gaping back as though you hear my Darlings,

What have you done, what have you done to the world?


David Hockney

"We two boys together clinging"


We two boys together clinging

One the other never leaving

Up and down the roads going

North and South Excursions making

Power enjoying – elbows stretching,

Fingers clutching, Armed and fearless,

Eating, drinking, sleeping, loving

No love less than ourselves owning,

Sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,

Misers, menials, priests alarming,

Air breathing, water drinking,

Ón the turf or the sea-beach dancing,

Cities wrenching, ease scorning,

Statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,

Fulfilling our foray.



Rose Miligan

'Dust if you must'


Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better To paint a picture, or write a letter, Bake a cake, or plant a seed; Ponder the difference between want and need? Dust if you must, but there's not much time, With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb; Music to hear, and books to read; Friends to cherish, and life to lead. Dust if you must, but the world's out there With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair; A flutter of snow, a shower of rain, This day will not come around again. Dust if you must, but bear in mind, Old age will come and it's not kind. And when you go (and go you must) You, yourself, will make more dust.



Mary Oliver

"Teach the Children"


Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do.

Show them daisies an the pale hepticia.

Teach them the taste of sassafras an wintergreen.

The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers.

And the frisky ones – inkberry, lamb’s- quarters, blueberries.

And the aromatic ones – Rosemary, oregano.

Give them peppermint to put in their pocket as they go to school.

Give them the fields and the woods an the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit.

Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leave and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.

Attention is the beginning of devotion



John Greenleaf Whittier

"Don't Quit"


When things go wrong, as they sometimes will;

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill;

When the funds are low an the debts are high;

And you want to smile but you have to sigh.

When all is pressing you down a bit –

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit

Success is failure turned inside out;

The silver tint on the clouds of doubt;

And you can never tell how close you are;

It may be near when it seems far.

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –

It’s when things go wrong that you must not quit.


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