I missed a day!

  Sometimes the days just get away, and before you know it you're sitting on the couch munching your way through a party pack of tacos from Taco Bell while watching The Masked Singer, only to wake up the next morning after indigestion-induced nightmares to a text message that says you had a call-out and are now short-staffed and the realization that you forgot to post a poem the day before. It's only 10:00 AM, and already I can tell it's going to be a weird day. Anyway, to make up for yesterday, today you get two poems. The first is by author Ross Gay, and was part of Laura Olin's weekly newsletter. The second is by Daniel Halpern and is from the Poetry Foundation's Poem a Day newsletter.

No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color's green. I'm spring.

—Sorrow Is Not My Name, Ross Gay

Pandemania

by Daniel Halpern

There are fewer introductions In plague years, Hands held back, jocularity No longer bellicose, Even among men. Breathing’s generally wary, Labored, as they say, when The end is at hand. But this is the everyday intake Of   the imperceptible life force, Willed now, slow — Well, just cautious In inhabited air. As for ongoing dialogue, No longer an exuberant plosive To make a point, But a new squirreling of air space, A new sense of  boundary. Genghis Khan said the hand Is the first thing one man gives To another. Not in this war. A gesture of  limited distance Now suffices, a nod, A minor smile or a hand Slightly raised, Not in search of   its counterpart, Just a warning within The acknowledgment to stand back. Each beautiful stranger a barbarian Breathing on the other side of the gate.

Source: Poetry (March 2013)