Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
Category: Poetry
A breath of awe by Chris Mann
In Grahamstown’s Public Library
I read that we are towers of cells,
trillions and trillions of sedulous cells,
each one more complex than a town.
I turned the page, once more amazed
at life’s deep daring and finesse.
The library clock ticked on, unfazed.
I learned that vast encyclopaedias
were racked inside a chromosome
and microbes moleculed the past.
In some a filament whirred round,
I read with disbelief, then shock,
more than a hundred thousand times
with each slow ticking of that clock.
Beside a book, a phone-screen lit.
Home time, it said. I stood intent
to live each day with greater awe,
yet walking out that reading room
I saw grey rain gust in the door
and anxious faces hurrying past
and huddled beggars, as before
Think Like a Tree by Karen I. Shragg
Soak up the sun
Affirm life’s magic
Be graceful in the wind
Stand tall after a storm
Feel refreshed after it rains
Grow strong without notice
Be prepared for each season
Provide shelter to strangers
Hang tough through a cold spell
Emerge renewed at the first signs of spring
Stay deeply rooted while reaching for the sky
Be still long enough to
hear your own leaves rustling.
It is not that I don’t love you, it’s just that By Danielle Adamowitz
all the best moments of my life
have happened underwater,
and you are afraid to swim.
Did you know that the last fatal
shark attack in New Jersey was in 1926,
when your mother’s mother
was a glint in her mother’s eye?
You do not need to be so afraid.
The ocean is my strongest mother.
When I was ten, I lost one gold earring
to a foamy open-mouthed wave.
Half of my grandpa’s last gift.
My favorite aunt told me that she thought
a big, beautiful rainbow fish was probably
wearing it like a lip ring. Sometimes,
I still wear my half.
Sometimes, I park outside his house,
look at the stranger’s car in his driveway,
and I can smell the oatmeal cookies
and salty hair.
“Have you ever loved something so much
that you would give it the prettiest piece of you?”
I asked.
You did not understand the question.
At the Gym by Vanessa Jimenez Gabb
My hair needs washing
I am oily at the root
Petulant
With bad waves
Relax
Bring your ass
To your ankles
Ian says
I can’t
I scream
I can’t
I stop being happy
Just like that
On account of my hair
Looking crazy
That and my belly
Showing out
When I’m alone here
It’s just me
The weights are alone
I don’t challenge their aloneness
I watch the Netflix
I can’t stop Netflix
It fucks the poetry out
All the harlequin dramas
The he waiting for seasons
For the her
The me
Watching the them back when
It’s not you
It’s me they say
I say like shit I haven’t been
Operating as someone else
I’ve been exactly me
Coming and going
Like I got it like that
I don’t
Every part of me wants to
Bring my ass
To the machinery that confounds
That is change
The not knowing how to change
Half in love
With the body
Not knowing how
Witness by Ariana Brown
you said you held a gun first / then a girl / & both begged for mercy / & you are afraid / of your own
body / of the hands that are their own haunting / the coal / bursting through / your glowing skin / black
/ as the morning sun / born dying / the girl / writhing on the bed / the boys behind you / chanting / your
rebirth as a bullet / your reflection / something like your father’s / all the good air / sucked out of your
head / legacy of black pain / avenged / by teaching black boys /
to kill / & you want to know / if you are a monster / for being alive / when you cannot remember / the boy you were
some men / teach their sons to fish / some beat their wives / & say nothing / while their sons / inherit
their fists /
if i tell you / i love you / in the light & dark / what i mean is / there is such a thing as forgiveness / i mean
/ some battles / we are born into / wearing / uniforms of blood / & concrete / that
the children we were / almost never survive / that we must forgive the nightmares / their bloody fingers
/ if i tell you / i love your hands / what i mean is / blessed boy / I am not afraid of you
Leaving My Childhood Home by Zeina Azzam
On our last day in Beirut
with my ten years packed in a suitcase,
my best friend asked for a keepsake.
I found a little tin box
to give her, emptied of lemon drops,
that would hold memories of our childhood:
us swinging in the dusty school yard,
rooftop hide and seek,
wispy-sweet jasmine, kilos
of summertime figs, King
of Falafel’s tahini-bathed sandwiches,
our pastel autograph books.
All those remembrances
crammed in that box,
tiny storytellers waiting to speak.
Later her family would uproot too,
transplant like surly Palestinian weeds
pulled every few years.
We all knew about this,
even the kids.
I never saw her again
but know that she also
learned to travel lightly,
hauling empty boxes
pulsing with kilos
of memories.
The Night Migrations by Louise Glück
This is the moment when you see again
the red berries of the mountain ash
and in the dark sky
the birds’ night migrations.
It grieves me to think
the dead won’t see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.
What will the soul do for solace then?
I tell myself maybe it won’t need
these pleasures anymore;
maybe just not being is simply enough,
hard as that is to imagine.
Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams
If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
When Great Trees Fall by Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
Compassion Camp 