“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…

“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…

“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—

“They Sit Together on the Porch”… They sit together on the porch, th… Almost fallen, the house behind th… Their supper done with, they have… The dishes–only two plates now, tw…

“Coming Home at Twilight in Late… We turned into the drive, and gravel flew up from the tires like sparks from a fire. So much to be done—the unpacking, the mail

“The Farm” by Joyce Sutphen My father’s farm is an apple bloss… He keeps his hills in dandelion ca… and weaves a lane of lilacs betwee… and the jack-in-the-pulpits.

“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.

“After Apple-Picking” by Robert… My long two-pointed ladder’s stick… Toward heaven still, And there’s a barrel that I didn’… Beside it, and there may be two or…

“For What Binds Us” by Jane Hir… There are names for what binds us: strong forces, weak forces. Look around, you can see them: the skin that forms in a half-empt…

“A Song on the End of the World”… On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net… Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

“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…

“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…

“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fir… Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.

“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

“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