Song of Myself, 51 by Walt Whitman The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future. Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.) Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab. Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his [...]

My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth My heart leaps up when I behold     A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began;  So is it now I am a man;  So be it when I shall grow old,     Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

Undoing Khadijah Queen In winter traffic, fog of midday shoves toward our machines—snow eclipses the mountainscapes I drive toward, keeping time against the urge to quit moving. I refuse to not know how not to, wrestling out loud to music, as hovering me—automatic engine, watching miles of sky on the fall—loves such undoing, secretly, adding fuel to what undoes the ozone, the endless nothing manifested as sinkholes under permafrost. Refusal, indecision—an arctic undoing of us, interrupting cascades— icy existences. I cannot drive through.

On the Pulse of Morning Maya Angelou  A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Marked the mastodon, The dinosaur, who left dried tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched [...]

provender (PRŎV-ən-dər) Definition (Noun) Food, provisions; (in early use especially) dry food, as hay, oats, etc., for horses or cattle; fodder, forage. In Context "The troops supplemented their provender by hunting, fishing, and gardening." James S. Robbins, The Real Custer: From Boy General to Tragic Hero, 2014.

convivial (kən-VĬV-ē-əl) Definition (Adjective) Of or belonging to a feast or banquet; characterized by feasting or jovial companionship; such as befits a feast, festive. In Context "Voltaire was particularly attracted by the fact that the Fontaine-Martel house was a convivial establishment, in which she would often invite her lodgers to eat and drink together, at suppers which were apparently long and gay." Ian Davidson, Voltaire: A Life, 2010.

lickspittle (LĬK-spĭt-l) Definition (Noun) An abject parasite or sycophant; a toady. In Context "Journalists and members of the Left liked to accuse Hawke of being a lickspittle of the United States but, as Costello – who was no Hawke fan at the time and who observed the relationship closely – remarked, 'I never saw him as such.'" Blanche d'Alpuget, Hawke: The Prime Minister, 2010.