A Brief For The Defense by Jack Gilbert
- 1.Poetry Thursday!
- 2.Poetry Thursday!
- 3.Poetry almost Thursday, Thanksgiving Edition
- 4.The first day of December, Poetry Thursday
- 5.Boy At the Window — Poetry Thursday
- 6.A Poem About Evolution — Poetry Thursday
- 7.Like Snow – Poetry Thursday
- 8.The Peace of Wild Things – Poetry Thursday
- 9.Rain – Poetry Thursday
- 10.The Real Work – Poetry Thursday
- 11.To The River – Poetry Thursday
- 12.A Beautiful Poem About Internal Darkness
- 13.Poetry Thursday – School Prayer
- 14.Poetry Thursday – Genius
- 15.Poetry Thursday – Soon This Space Will Be Too Small
- 16.A Poem from Stephen Harrod Buhner
- 17.To Bless the Space Between Us – Poetry Thursday!
- 18.Poetry Thursday – A Quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- 19.Poetry Thursday – Sarah Cleghorn
- 20.On a Tree Fallen Across the Road by Robert Frost
- 21.A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
- 22.My Will by Lorna Goodison
- 23.Going Away – A Poem from the Quechua
- 24.Blessing by John O’Donohue
- 25.The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins
- 26.Wild Geese by Wendell Berry
- 27.Silence of the Fall by Louisa Paulin
- 28.Poetry Thursday – Karl Ove Knausgaard
- 29.Snow Day by Billy Collins – Poetry Thursday
- 30.Winter Solstice by Jodi Aliesan – Poetry Thursday
- 31.A Brief For The Defense by Jack Gilbert
- 32.Lost by David Wagoner
- 33.Fiddling with the Idiot by Hafiz
- 34.The Sixth of January by David Budbill
- 35.Two Tramps in Mud Time by Robert Frost
- 36.What We Need is Here by Wendell Berry
- 37.Keep Moving Forward by Mitchell Greenwood
- 38.When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver
- 39.Praying by Mary Oliver
- 40.Thirst by Mary Oliver
- 41.Blueberries by Mary Oliver
- 42.The Sycamore by Wendell Berry
- 43.Jealous Hearing Someone Laugh by Hafiz
- 44.Advice to Myself by Louise Erdrich
- 45.Egg by C.G. Hanzlicek
- 46.The Broken Gourd by Wendell Berry
- 47.Another Spring by Kenneth Rexroth
- 48.Poetry Thursday – the Visionary Paintings of Paul Laffoley
- 49.Two Poems by Mary Oliver
- 50.What If? A poem by Ganga White
- 51.See No Evil by Billy Collins
- 52.We Who Prayed and Wept by Wendell Berry
- 53.Holy Thursday by William Blake
- 54.Woman by Nikki Giovanni
- 55.Choices by Nikki Giovanni
- 56.A Quote from Hafiz
- 57.The First by Wendell Berry
- 58.Excerpt for an Improvised Speech by Robert F. Kennedy
- 59.Riding Lesson by Henry Taylor
- 60.Messenger by Mary Oliver
- 61.In Rain by Wendell Berry
- 62.A Poetry Thursday with Rumi
- 63.Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
- 64.Sometimes by David Whyte
- 65.Having it Out with Melancholy by Jane Kenyon
- 66.After an Illness, Walking the Dog by Jane Kenyon
- 67.Admit Something by Hafiz
- 68.Turtle Mountain Reservation by Louise Erdrich
- 69.The Layers by Stanley Kunitz
- 70.Martian Rose by Stuart Atkinson
- 71.To The Unseeable Animal by Wendell Berry
- 72.Open the Door or Die by Hafiz
- 73.Paradox of Noise by Gunilla Norris
- 74.Out of the Mouth of a Thousand Birds by Hafiz
This week I am sharing a beautiful poem sent in by a patient. He is reminding us that the polarity is always with us; with the dark comes the light; with the fear comes the love.
A Brief For The Defense
Poem by Jack Gilbert
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.