After the Winter Claude McKay  Some day, when trees have shed their leaves          And against the morning's white The shivering birds beneath the eaves          Have sheltered for the night, We'll turn our faces southward, love,          Toward the summer isle Where bamboos spire to shafted grove          And wide-mouthed orchids smile. And we will seek the quiet hill          Where towers the cotton tree, And leaps the laughing crystal rill,          And works the droning bee. And we will build a [...]

won’t you celebrate with me Lucille Clifton  won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

The Life of a Writer Jalynn Harris the life of a writer is desire              i hammer into the page                          i make up my mind: the streetlight  is not the moon, but anything can be             made beautiful under the ease                          of my hammer  i wish you could see that i write in blue ink             the color of oceans & early mornings                          & everything is clear like  tears rushing towards the chin              of my desire. i pen what i’m meant                         to pen. how deep in love i am  & how silly of me to spend all morning dreaming              about love & not expect [...]

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond E. E. Cummings  somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or if your wish be to close me,i and my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we [...]

A Love Note Adeeba Shahid Talukder for Willem My love, you are water upon water upon water until it turns azure, mountainous. The horizon fills like sand between glass marbles. So much has passed between us— last night you told me to press your hand harder and harder as I pained. The sunset was at its last embers. The dark was stealing the blue light from our room. I was falling into you. ~ ~ Compress water and it turns to ice— compress beauty and it loses breath. Gaze at it too long, and even the wide mirror of the ocean [...]