Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Jane Kenyon

I carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)
i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

By Elizabeth Bishop

The only reason you go out,
The only objective in mind,
A glimpse of a familiar pair
Of legs on a busy street or
A squeeze from a female who
You can only call your friend.

A scoreless night fosters hostility
A scoreless weekend breeds animosity
Through red eyes all the world is seen,
Angry at friends and family for no
Reasons that they can perceive.
Only you know why you are so mad.

There is the 'just friends' one who you've
Known for so long, who respects you
So much that you can't do what you want
And she no longer bothers to put on her
False personality and flirt because she thinks
You like her for who she is when what you
Liked about her was her flirtatiousness.

When your own hand becomes your best lover,
When your life-giving fertilizer is wasted
In a Kleenex and flushed down the toilet
You wonder when you are going to stop
Thinking about what could have happened
That night when you almost got somewhere.

There is the coy one who smile
And looks like she wants to meet you,
But you can't work up the nerve to talk
So instead she will become one of your nighttime
Fantasies, where you could have but didn't
Your hand will be substututed for hers.

When you neglect work and meaningful activities
When you neglect the ones who really love you
For a shot at a target that you rarely hit
Does everyone get lucky with women but you
Or do females just not want it as bad as you do?

By Neil Strauss (From the book 'The Game: Undercover the Secret Society of Pickup Artists')