Poem In Your Post: Out Loud.

This year, I'm choosing one from among the poems below to learn and perform for Poetry Out Loud.  You can weigh in for your favorite by voting for it in the comments below.  Then I'll videotape my performance and post it in January.

Famous                                                       

                                       

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,  

which knew it would inherit the earth  

before anybody said so.  

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds  

watching him from the birdhouse.  

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.  

The idea you carry close to your bosom  

is famous to your bosom.  

The boot is famous to the earth,  

more famous than the dress shoe,  

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it  

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.  

I want to be famous to shuffling men  

who smile while crossing streets,  

sticky children in grocery lines,  

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,  

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,  

but because it never forgot what it could do.

                                                    by Naomi Shihab Nye 

Lost                                                                                   

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

                                                     by David Wagoner

MFB,

L