help, a dire request!

[nattyleedread.livejournal.com]

I am about to embark on creating a newsletter for the new Poetry Center at my university, something that I am very excited about and also very invested in.
For the first issue, I'd like to include a poem about any of these things: new beginnings, the importance/beauty/wonder of poetry, celebration, finding a personal voice, the creative/human spirit, and/or anything else in this general vein. Basically, I want to invite the readers of the newsletter to engage with the Center and with Poetry, and to see this as a joyful, bountiful process.

Any and all suggestions for poems would be highly appreciated! Thank you so very much to anyone that takes time to help me.

As always, here's the poem. Someone else posted some James Wright earlier, so here's one that gets me everytime :).

A BLESSING
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
-James Wright

Comments

[writemeout.livejournal.com]

i love this