I don’t remember where I came across this perfect, short poem by Lucille Clifton, only that it had the effect that Emily Dickinson said made her know something is poetry:
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
It is called ‘birth-day’.
today we are possible.
the morning, green and laundry-sweet,
opens itself and we enter
blind and mewling.
everything waits for us:
the snow kingdom
sparkling and silent
in its glacial cap,
the cane fields
shining and sweet
in the sun-drenched south.
as the day arrives
with all its clumsy blessings
what we will become
waits in us like an ache.
Perfect words for the start of a day, and any time of the day:
‘today we are possible’
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