hello, and thanks for making the first request! here are some poems for you. happy reading!

Mary Oliver, “The Moths” | You aren’t much, I said / one day to my reflection / in a green pond, / and grinned

Aracelis Girmay, “I Am Not Ready to Die Yet” | I am not ready to die yet: magnolia tree / going wild outside my kitchen window / & the dog needs a house

Ada Limón, “Instructions on Not Giving Up” | a return / to the strange idea of continuous living despite / the mess of us, the hurt, the empty

Louise Glück, “Snowdrops” | I didn't expect / to waken again, to feel / in damp earth my body / able to respond again

I love them all.

I love that a handful, a mouthful, gets you by, a satchelful can land you a job, a well-chosen clutch of them could get you laid, and that a solitary word can initiate a stampede, and therefore can be formally outlawed—even by a liberal court bent on defending a constitution guaranteeing unimpeded utterance. I love that the Argentine gaucho has over two hundred words for the coloration of horses and the Sami language of Scandinavia has over a thousand words for reindeer based on age, sex, appearance—e.g., a busat has big balls or only one big ball. More than the pristine, I love the filthy ones for their descriptive talent as well as transgressive nature. I love the dirty ones more than the minced, in that I respect extravagant expression more than reserved. I admire reserve, especially when taken to an ascetic nth. I love the particular lexicons of particular occupations. The substrate of those activities. The nomenclatures within nomenclatures. I am of the unaccredited school that believes animals did not exist until Adam assigned them names. My relationship to the word is anything but scientific; it is a matter of faith on my part, that the word endows material substance, by setting the thing named apart from all else. Horse, then, unhorses what is not horse.