bottom so always the load can be slung between two
walkers on the same path.
Delight in Disorder
ROBERT HERRICK
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly:
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
The Rhodora
On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.
Roses Only
MARIANNE MOORE
You do not seem to realize that beauty is a liability rather than
an assetâthat in view of the fact that spirit creates form we are
    justified in supposing
    that you must have brains. For you, a symbol of the unit, stiff
        and sharp,
conscious of surpassing by dint of native superiority and liking
    for everything
self-dependent, anything an
ambitious civilization might produce: for you, unaided, to attempt
    through sheer
reserve to confute presumptions resulting from observation is
    idle. You cannot make us
    think you a delightful happen-so. But rose, if you are brilliant,
    it
is not because your petals are the without-which-nothing of pre-
    eminence. You would look, minus
thornsâlike a what-is-this, a mere
peculiarity. They are not proof against a storm, the elements, or
    mildew
but what about the predatory hand? What is brilliance without
    coordination? Guarding the
    infinitesimal pieces of your mind, compelling audience to
the remark that it is better to be forgotten than to be
    remembered too violently,
your thorns are the best part of you.
Eagle Poem
JOY HARJO
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you canât see, canât hear;
Canât know except in moments
Steadly growing, and in languages
That arenât always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
MOTHERHOOD
M Y CHILDREN ARE too wonderful and too old for me to write about them without getting into trouble. But I can certainly say, like everyone does, that becoming a mother is the best thing that ever happened to me. Having a child defines us for the rest of our lives. No matter what else we do, we will always be that personâs mother. We give our children the gift of ourselves, and they give us so much more in returnâespecially when they are teenagers! Each mother-child relationship
Leslie Glass
Ian M. Dudley
Julie Gerstenblatt
Ruth Hamilton
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Ella Dominguez
Linda Westphal
Keri Arthur
Neneh J. Gordon
April Henry