Tuesday's Poem: NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Every day as a wide field, every page.   Naomi Shihab Nye

1.
 
Standing outside
staring at a tree
gentles our eyes
 
We cheer
to see fireflies
winking again
 
Where have our friends been
all the long hours?
Minds stretching
 
beyond the field
become
their own skies
 
Windows   doors
grow more
important
 
Look through a word
swing that sentence
wide open
 
Kneeling outside
to find
sturdy green
 
glistening blossoms
under the breeze
that carries us silently

​2.
 
And there were so many more poems to read!
Countless friends to listen to.
We didn’t have to be in the same room--
the great modern magic.
Everywhere together now.
Even scared together now
from all points of the globe
which lessened it somehow.
Hopeful together too, exchanging
winks in the dark, the little lights blinking.
When your hope shrinks
you might feel the hope of
someone far away lifting you up.
Hope is the thing ...
Hope was always the thing!
What else did we give each other
from such distances?
Breath of syllables,
sing to me from your balcony
please! Befriend me
in the deep space.
When you paused for a poem
it could reshape the day
you had just been living.
 

Naomi Shihab Nye (1952- ) is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she began composing her first poem at the age of six and has published or contributed to over 30 volumes. Nye received the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in honor of her entire body of work as a writer, and in 2019 the Poetry Foundation designated her the Young People's Poet Laureate for the 2019–21 term.