“So Much Happiness” by Naomi Shi… It is difficult to know what to do… With sadness there is something to… a wound to tend with lotion and cl… When the world falls in around you…

“The Conditional” by Ada Limón Say tomorrow doesn’t come. Say the moon becomes an icy pit. Say the sweet-gum tree is petrifie… Say the sun’s a foul black tire fi…

“Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyo… Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn,… up the bales as the sun moves down… Let the cricket take up chafing

“Where I’m From” by George Ella… I am from clothespins, from Clorox and carbon-tetrachlori… I am from the dirt under the back… (Black, glistening,

“Anthropocene Pastoral” by Cather… In the beginning, the ending was b… Early spring everywhere, the trees… pink and white, lawns the sharp gr… that meant new. The sky so blue it…

“A Blessing” by James Wright Just off the highway to Rochester… Twilight bounds softly forth on th… And the eyes of those two Indian… Darken with kindness.

“Flying at Night” by Ted Kooser Above us, stars. Beneath us, cons… Five billion miles away, a galaxy… like a snowflake falling on water.… some farmer, feeling the chill of…

“Otherwise” by Jane Kenyon I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate

“Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins The name of the author is the firs… followed obediently by the title,… the heartbreaking conclusion, the… which suddenly becomes one you hav…

“Shoulders” by Naomi Shihab Nye A man crosses the street in rain, stepping gently, looking two times… because his son is asleep on his s… No car must splash him.

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black b… Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean—

“Instructions on Not Giving Up”… More than the fuchsia funnels brea… of the crabapple tree, more than t… almost obscene display of cherry l… their cotton candy-colored blossom…

“Today” by Billy Collins If ever there were a spring day so… so uplifted by a warm intermittent… that it made you want to throw open all the windows in the house

“The Peace of Wild Things” by We… When despair for the world grows i… and I wake in the night at the lea… in fear of what my life and my chi… I go and lie down where the wood d…

“Dishwater” by Ted Kooser Slap of the screen door, flat knoc… of my grandmother’s boxy black sho… on the wooden stoop, the hush and… of her knob-kneed, cotton-aproned…