Poems That Carry Heart

I like to try to write poetry.  I enjoy reading poetry.  But poems that "carry heart," that act as a guide through life are REALLY something.  A friend sent me several poems by email today.  They're poems I feel like I should carry around with me (they seem that meaningful to me!).



Years of Experience With Bows and Arrows
by Olav H. Hauge

What you are supposed to hit

is the bull’s-eye, that black spot,

that precise spot, and the arrow

is supposed to stand there quivering!

But that’s not where the arrow goes.

You get close to it, closer and closer;

no, not close enough.

Then you have to go out and pick up all the arrows,

walk back, try it again.

That black spot is highly annoying

until you finally grasp

that where your arrow stands quivering

is also the center of something.

From The Dream We Carry. Translated by Robert Bly.

STAR BLOCK

by Kay Ryan


There is no such thing
as star block.
We do not think of
locking out the light
of other galaxies.
It is light
so rinsed of impurities
(heat, for instance)
that it excites
no antibodies in us.
Yet people are
curiously soluble
in starlight.
Bathed in its
absence of insistence
their substance
loosens willingly,
their bright
designs dissolve.
Not proximity
but distance

burns us with love.

http://www.quora.com/What-are-Kay-Ryans-best-poems