What made my day extra special? These poems did. Don’t miss a single line!
1. Dreams by Langston Hughes. Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, Life is broken-winged bird, that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field, frozen with snow.
2. Hope is a Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson. “Hope is a thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings a tune without words, And never stops at all. And sweetest, in the gale, is heard, And sore must be the storm, That could abash the little bird, That keeps so many warm.”
3. Ako ang Daigdig ni Alejandro Abadilla. Ako ang daigdig. Ako ang tula. Ako ang daigdig ng tula, ang tula ng daigdig, ako ang walang maliw na ako, ang walang kamatayang ako, ang tula ng daigdig. Ako ang daigdig ng tula, ako ang tula ng daigdig, ako ang malayang ako, matapat sa sarili, sa aking daigdig ng tula.
4. Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost. “Nature’s first green is gold,her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf’s a flower;But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf, So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day, Nothing gold can stay.”
5. Poesía (Poetry) by Pablo Neruda. Y algo golpeaba en mi alma, fiebre o alas perdidas, y me fui haciendo solo, descifrando, aquella quemadura y escribí la primera línea vaga, vaga, sin cuerpo, pura, tontería, pura sabiduría, del que no sabe nada, y vi de pronto el cielo, desgranado, y abierto. (And something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings ,and I made my own way,deciphering that fire, and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense,pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing,and I suddenly saw the heavens unfastened and open.)
6. Alone in Her Beauty by Du Fu. “All he can see is the smile of the new love, while the old love weeps unheard. The brook was pure in its mountain source, but away from the mountain its waters darken.”
7. Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. “Out of the huts of history’s shame, I rise. Up from a past that’s rooted in pain, I rise. I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, I rise. Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.”
8. Alone by Edgar Allan Poe. “From childhood’s hour I have not been, as others were; I have not seen, as others saw; I could not bring, my passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken, my sorrow; I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone.”
9. To Us, Separation… by Anna Akhmatova. “To us, separation is just entertainment,the woes are dull without us.Whether a drunk fame would loom in our chamber,Or thirteen hour would thrust? Or just forgot, browbeat … What’s a row? Who makes at doors such a fight?I’m to go back to my gate, anyhow,to bid a new woe inside.” (translated from Russian by Yevgeny Bonver)
10. What Fish Feel by Matsuo Basho. “What fish feel, birds feel, I don’t know–the year ending.“
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